June 14, 2022 • 50 mins
This week I’m talking with my internet and IRL friend, author and speaker, Kaitlin Curtice! Listen in as Kaitlin and I talk about how a twitter DM led to tea and a friendship and how Kaitlin uses her social media to build community! For more info about Kaitlin Curtice, visit http://kaitlincurtice.com.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Hey, everybody, Welcome back to her with Amina Brown and
I'm I mean a Brown. We're back in her living room,
and I'm so excited because we are talking to another
one of my internet friends. And this is actually very serendipitous, y'all,
because we just did a replay of an episode from
(00:56):
the earlier version of this podcast before the podcast was
on My Heart and Seneca Women. So you got to
hear a couple of months ago me talking to our guests. Today,
we're talking to Potawatam the author and speaker Caitlin Curtis today.
So you if you're if you're following the podcast already,
you heard Caitlin and I talking when Caitlin's book Native
(01:17):
was released, which we were still in lockdown time. This
was like May when we were having this conversation. And
Caitlin and I are friends in real life aside from
just that, I love to talk to her, and so
we were texting and I was like, um, we're texting
about other things that ain' child's business. And then I
(01:37):
was like, girl, anyways, while we're talking about this, do
you mind coming on my podcast? Because um, you're my
internet friend and I love the story of how we met. So, Caitlin,
thank you for coming to the living room with us today. Yes,
I love it because you know, we've been in each
other's real spaces, had tea in Atlanta, and now we can't,
(01:58):
but we have Zoom. So I'm so glad that we
have spaces. That's really like, it's it's really that really
touches my heart that you said that that way, because
I'm like, we did sort of meet on the Internet
and then had a period of time that we lived
in the same place and we're people who hung out
in person, and then the pandemic and then you moved,
(02:21):
and so now we have the Internet to sort of
keep us the Internet and our phones. Honestly, we do
have each other's like real phone numbers too, so we
have that as well. But that's sort of how we
get to connect. So I wanted to start off, Caitlin
with how you and I met. We are Twitter friends,
is how winter started out. Yes, yeah, Twitter, you messaged
(02:44):
me and I didn't, and I didn't. I hated Twitter
for years and you messaged me right as I was realizing,
you know, I was gonna be releasing my first book,
Glory Happening, and Rachel held Evans had retweeted me one
day and I had gotten like four thousand followers, and
that clicked that I was like, oh, no, I have
to learn how to use this device, this app, Like
(03:06):
what do I do? And I think that you're just
one of the first writers women people to just like
reach out and be like, hey, we could be friends
and we live in the same city. And it was
just wonderful because I was like reeling like how am I,
you know, because like I'm starting a career and I
have to learn how to use social media. I have
to not just Facebook, but like I have to learn this,
(03:27):
you know. And it was a lot, totally a lot.
It's really it's really overwhelming in general to be on
social media, but especially if you have to do it
in any sort of professional way, and those of us
that have been in sort of publishing and writing world
that way, there's so much pressure on you sometimes about
what you're supposed to be doing or not with your
(03:48):
social media. Um, a lot of us when we were
sort of giving the the proposal for our books, we
had to actually put the number of followers that we
had on various social media things. And then if you
didn't have enough followers. I distinctly remember this with one
of my book proposals. If I didn't have enough followers,
then the publisher wanted to know who else was I
(04:09):
connected to that had more followers than me, that could
I count on those people to share this or that?
Or was I writing for a platform that had a
lot of followers and could I could those followers sort
of be included. I mean, it's a very very wild time.
But yes, y'all, I am nosy as it relates to
(04:31):
social media. And I just saw like a few of
our mutual friends like talking to Caitlin on Twitter, So
I was like, who is Caitlin's I'll go on there
and follow and scrolling, And then I saw that she
also lived in the Atlanta area, and I was like, whoopoo,
clicked on that d M, Like, girl, you live in
Atlanta and I in Atlanta. Do you want to just
(04:53):
get together I have some tea or something, because I don't.
I mean, it didn't even occur to me that you
might think that was strange just to connect with another writer,
because social media is it's just everybody. But then when
you start to find the people that are in your
vein in the world that you live in, it becomes
(05:14):
so special, you know. And then we met for tea
and it was wonderful. We sat there for like four hours.
Big shout out to Tipple and Rows here in Atlanta.
We went to this fabulous tea place and just it
was just so cute. You know. If we had really
been thinking, Caitlin, we could have taken some beautiful pictures
for Instagram of us meeting, but we didn't care about that.
(05:37):
I have one, do you do, I'll send it to you. Okay,
thank you, because I was like, did we take a picture?
I just enjoyed talking to you, and that's it. It
was just hung out. So yes, Caitlin agreed to meet
with me, even though maybe it was strange that I
hopped up in her d M s and she didn't
know me like that, but we we agreed to meet,
and over time, I feel I feel like for a
(05:58):
lot of women of lern, especially those of us who
at that time we're sort of working in Christian space
in some way, there was sort of this like underground
network of us that was always in communication because we
wanted to make sure that other women of color were
resourced and knew what prices to charge, knew which events
(06:21):
not to do, which events were going to be a problem,
how to negotiate these things, you know. So I think
initially just Caitlin and I really connecting on that it
makes you feel at least for me, it made me
feel less alone sort of navigating all that. And then
a lot of us our careers have really moved on
even beyond that space where we met, and we've been
(06:42):
able to share life together and kind of have these
different touchpoints. Like Caitlin and I hopped on the phone,
you know, we hopped on like a a face time
or something a few months ago, and we only had
like twenty minutes or something, and it was like girl,
and then and we had a whole very real talk
about life. And then it was like I gotta go.
(07:06):
That's all you need. So it becomes so I cannot
tell you how important it has been to have other
Indigenous women, to have black women, to have women of
color just be in my life so that when something
happens on social media or off in the real world,
just to say to someone else, this thing happened, and
then they can be like, oh, yeah, that was awful,
(07:27):
and I'm holding that with you and then keep going
that like even just that moment. And a lot of
those relationships for me have started online, most of them
probably in the world that I live in now. My
closest sort of friends and allies within the writing world,
in the speaking world where I those people that I
reach out to and I need someone to see it
are people I've met online. Okay, give us a bit
(07:50):
of your social media history, Caitlin. What was the first
platform that you remember engaging on in the in the
beginning of your social media time. Okay, I used my Space. Okay.
My Space was actually the first platform where I messaged
my husband. Oh okay, my husband and I also have
(08:12):
a little bit of that my Space moment we met
in real life. But then I was like, keep in
touch with me on my Space. Yeah, so I had
my Space. I wrote on zga. It was like a
blogging platform. I wrote my I don't know where I wrote.
I don't even know. I'm I would be scared to know. Now.
Um so I had that. But my Space, I think
(08:32):
was my intro in and then eventually I got Facebook
in high school, you know, but I like stayed away
from Twitter. I don't even know when Instagram was started,
but eventually I got on that. Um, but I think
my Space was my intro into the social media world. Okay,
so you get on my Space, then you go from
(08:55):
my Space into Facebook. Was it your writing career of
that sort of led you from Facebook over to Twitter? Like,
how did you make that kind of transition? I don't
even know why I started a Twitter. I think I
just wanted to try it and I was like, nope,
I don't understand. Everything is scary here. I'm gonna go
to Facebook. Go back to Facebook. And Facebook was my
(09:17):
personal It was just family, friends, whatever, like basically, like
I feel like Facebook was just and often is now
just like daily journal entries for everyone, um, and there
are issues that come up to and but it's not
as much well maybe it is as an activist space
and only Twitter is. It is in some ways, but
a lot of people just use it, especially back then,
(09:37):
would just use it for like daily journaling, Here's what's
happening in my life, and that's how I used it.
Eventually I started a Facebook writer page that was my
official one, so I still have that. But Twitter is
interesting because I was learning so much from people and
realizing I had a voice all at the same time,
and it was just this very empowering space. And then
(09:59):
to have Naudibles Webber and Rachel hald Evans and Sarah Bessy,
so these women within Christianity see me and say I
think your voice is important too, and to uplift my
voice just it empowered me and I didn't know I
could have one, really, and so it just kind of
sparked something in me. I think that had been waiting,
and you know, at that time, I wanted to be
(10:20):
like a worship leader. That was my my goal was
to be a worship leader in the church. And thankfully
I got to pivot. Only from that, you're a worship leader.
Please do that with you? Do you? That I had
to transition and so finding other authors was incredible. I think, well,
(10:43):
and that was like the blogging days, which is kind
of transitioned to There are so many women especially writing blogs,
wright mom blogs or faith blogs or whatever, you know,
and I think I caught the tail end of that
in my writing career. I didn't know it was going
to be a career just writing because I needed to write.
I started a blog called Stories and it was just
(11:04):
me writing about life and motherhood and being a Christian
and whatever it was, you know, my spirituality, and it
just continued to morph. So is you know, for all
the toxicity, it is a place for us to morph
and evolve, you know, and and to become and learn.
It is such a great learning tool, you know. I've
(11:26):
learned so much about able is um and you know,
fat shaming and you know, like queer activists and non binary. Like,
I've learned so many things from people that I don't
always have access to in real life, and and that
has meant so much to me to just like be
quiet and learn from them. Yeah. I was going to
say that too when you said that. Especially Twitter for
(11:49):
me sort of has this way where I get to
be quiet and just read and listen. I'm there are
a lot of conversations there that are not for me
to make comments, that are for me to listen and
learn and check myself, you know, in some regards. And
that is something, like you said, for for better for worse.
(12:09):
That's something I really love about Twitter as a platform.
Even though it has its days where I'm like things
are on fire here, so no, I gotta leave. But
the days where I'm like I can just sort of
look through my feed think about the different like you
were saying, activists, writers, leaders, artists, and just read some
(12:32):
of those conversations ago, Like how does that sit with me?
You know? Like, how am I listening to this disabled leader?
How am I listening to them and checking my own
able bodied privilege there? You know? How am I listening
to the conversations the queer folks are having, the trans
folks are having, and checking myself for how I participate
(12:54):
in some of these systems that they are critiquing here?
You know? So I really do love that about Twitter.
It's part of what keeps me going on there. Okay,
I want to ask you, what's your criteria for how
you know if someone can be your Internet friend? Or
how would you Maybe I should start with that, how
would you define someone being an internet friend? Because sometimes
(13:16):
to me, I say that phrase, and it means two things.
It could mean that it's someone that I don't talk
to in real life. I only talk to them on
the Internet, but I like them, I might even love them,
and we just connect and do that. But then sometimes
it also means there's someone that I initially connected with
them on the Internet and now I've sort of pulled
(13:37):
them into my real life. We're friends outside of that.
So how would you how would you define internet friend
for yourself? And that is so interesting because first of all,
I've learned to be far less trusting of other humans,
which has been a good thing, right, Like people pleasing
trust everybody, they're so great, you know, and you can't
(14:00):
do that, and on social media you cannot do that. Um.
And so I've learned to pay attention more and to
be more careful of people, you know. But I do
look at you know, if I find myself interacting more
or like around the same spaces online with someone, I
look at, who do I know that's following them? Who
are my friends that are friends with them? Oh? That's interesting.
(14:23):
Maybe I reach out to that friend and say, oh,
you know this person like that's awesome, and then maybe
that connects us or something, you know, it could be
something like that or something totally organic, where a lot
of times it's been like I'm hovering in these spaces
with these other people, and then eventually we just connect
with each other on often on a because of a
(14:44):
belief or a an issue that we both are really
passionate about, Like whatever it is, like anti racism work
or some sort of justice related work, or if we're
both bipoc or you know, like I don't know, there's um.
There's usually like a string you can pull where you
realize like, oh, this is this draws us to each other. Yeah,
(15:07):
and some of those friends are just like we message
each other every now and then, and then some of
it has moved to it's like do you d M
and then you move to your email inboxes and then
do you move from the inbox to the phone number
you can actually text each other, you know, like um,
and maybe there's a zoom call in between somewhere. I
think that that's been an interesting way to see it evolve,
(15:30):
you know. And truly, I think so many of these
relationships are just born out of solidarity. But we just
want to hold each other up. We just want to
say to each other, I see what you do in
the world, and I just want to I just want
to be your friend or or just be your ally,
or be a sounding board for your work, even even
if it's not like super personal. Maybe it's just like
let's just talk about why writing is hard and my
(15:53):
human who writes is hard and that's it. You know.
Maybe it's just that that relationship that comes from our
books or from the things that we speak on, and
that could be it, and that's enough. It's actually to
have that. Yeah, I love that because I kind of
feel like my relationship to social media. I don't know, Caitlin.
(16:14):
Sometimes I want to say it got weird, and other
times I'm like, well, maybe it's not weird. I'm trying,
you know. You know, a girl's in therapy, so a
girl is trying to you know, I'm used to being
like that's weird that I do that, and I feel
like my therapist is trying to get me to be like,
maybe that's not weird. Maybe that's a way that you
need that to be. Maybe that's strength and the way,
(16:35):
you know, I'm trying. You know, a girl is trying
to do the work over here. So I'm not going
to necessarily say that it's weird. But I feel like
for those of us who were writer, speaker, artist people
pre pandemic, right, and most of our work was event based.
We were going to be going out speaking at this
and that, and for some of us there were certain
events that we might always see each other. There you know,
(16:57):
and that was sort of this place to connect as well,
but that wast of my time to be on That
was when my Instagram and my Twitter were the most active,
because I could take pictures of me and you if
you and I happened to be at some event together.
I can post quotes from another speaker that I heard
at that event. I can take pictures of my sound checking.
There was just all this like content and then as
(17:19):
soon as I would get home, I would shut it down.
And for me, my hometime was for the people that
I knew in my real life, because for me, I
really needed them after being out there with strangers and
people who may feel familiar with me because they're familiar
with my word, but they don't really know me. They're
(17:41):
not people that I can cry and snot with, or
know what some of my real struggles are in my life,
for what my insecurities might be, or what my inappropriate
sense of humor might be. You know, those people out there,
they don't know that part. But my real friends that
I go to tea you with, that come to my als,
I go to their house like those were relationships that
(18:03):
I felt like I really needed, but I wasn't great
at the multitasking Caitlin. So then it was sort of
like I would come home and nothing's on Instagram and
nothing's on Twitter because I'm going to lunch with my girlfriends,
I'm going to my mom's house, I'm spending time with
my family, right. And then I think once the pandemic
came in, then I was sort of having this strange
(18:23):
crisis about social media because then there wasn't really a
way to sort of there wasn't as much of a
distinct line of like, oh, when I'm on the road,
I'm on. Oh when i'm home, I'm not well. Now
like we're all home, and the road just really died
down for me. So I kind of spent most of
(18:43):
this time like, oh, no one knows what to do.
But I loved watching the ways that you have used
your social media to really build community with people. And
I would love to hear what that journey was like
for you and sort of going from the person who
was just getting on there as yours like let me
(19:05):
see how this works and all my books coming out
let me you know, going from that to where your
social media became this communal place, Like what was that
journey like for you. Yeah, it has evolved so much,
and I've had to learn so much about boundaries and
not just boundaries, but what kind of energy am I
willing to put into the world and what kind of
(19:27):
energy am I willing to take into my body on
a daily basis, because I am someone who struggles with anxiety,
and um, social media is totally a trigger for anxiety,
and so there are things you have to be careful
about that I have to be careful about. I remember
on Twitter, especially when I first started getting followers, sometimes
tweet about like this space just feels like my just
(19:50):
like a big living room, we're all having coffee together.
And now when I think of that image, I'm like,
there's no way I would put my forty three thousand
followers into a living room with myself and never let
people that we all share this space. But how funny
that it was just my way of processing community, Like Okay,
(20:11):
I have this this group of people online who's to
like me a little at least, so we're gonna we're
gonna hang out and you know, and share life. I
was also like answering every everything. You know, It's like, oh,
I need to answer that tweet. I'm gonn answer this tweet.
I'm gonna keep answering because I don't want to. And
again it's like the people pleasing or like that. I
don't know if anyone I have to, I have to
(20:33):
answer to keep my space going. And that's not true.
I know that now, um, but you have to learn that.
So I think as my career has grown, as I've
(20:54):
stepped into those spaces, there are things that I don't do.
I don't answer trolls because I don't retweet people and
point things out unless it's important or it's like pointing
to something happening. I don't do it because I know
that all that energy is just gonna hit me harder
than the person I'm tweeting about. You know. It's like
(21:14):
protecting that for myself and my followers and anyone who
might be triggered by that. It's just not worth it
for me. And I've had to learn that. I've had
to learn I can't answer everything, you know, and I
actually have to say no to things as scary as
that it's you know, And so that has evolved a lot.
And I've also come to the point of knowing and
reminding myself that social media is a resource. It is
(21:37):
a tool, and that's how I picture and use it
now instead of this is my personal space where I
process my personal life, because that's how it used to be,
when it was more personal. It cannot be that because
we have to have boundaries. So now it is a
how can I use this space as a really good resource,
as a really good tool, as a space for solidarity,
(21:59):
as a space for holding others up or opening doors
for others? What can I do in my body and
my identity with whatever privileges I have? What what should
I do? What can I do that's important to me?
And I asked myself that all the time, And how
can I just be listening and learning quietly and loudly?
(22:19):
You know? How do we do that? But you're right,
COVID changed everything. Now it's like, if we want to
do an event, let's just host an Instagram live with
three of our favorite friends and pay them and there
we go, we had an event. You know, it's like
so different, But that's overwhelming, Like it makes it harder
to set boundaries. So I've had to set boundaries, break
(22:40):
them every day, reset them, delete apps off my phone,
and put the apps back on my phone. To leave
them again the next week. Uh So it's like been
a journey for many of us, I think, and to
not feel bad. There's always stuff going on in the world.
We have to get off. We have to get off,
step into real life for a bit, or reach out
(23:03):
to those friends that have become real friends from that space,
take breaks and then re enter and figure like it's
such a like an ebb and flow. It has to
be like it hasn't. It has to have a rhythm
to it. I don't know how someone can be all
on or all off. There have to be like this rhythm,
which is so hard. It's so hard. But how do
(23:25):
we not do it? Some people of stuffy and I
love that they have. They did what they needed for themselves.
I can't do that. I don't want to do that
because of these relationships, you know. So how do we
just manage it on a daily basis? Yeah, that makes
such perfect sense. I want to talk a little bit
more about the boundaries around social media that you have
(23:47):
had to learn or develop. I also feel like it's
always kind of weird to explain what I do for
a living to other people. That's another reason why it's
nice to have other like writers are author artist friends.
Because it's weird to sort of say I have something
(24:08):
of a public platform. There are some places I go
that people would know who I am, but on a
general basis, it's not like I'm Beyonce in Target or something,
you know, and and the whole store is like I mean,
you know, like it's like I go to Target all
the time and no one's worried, no one's worried, no
(24:30):
one is concerned about anything I'm doing there. No one
has gasped at my presence in Target. So I feel
like that's sort of like, now you're a famous person.
If you go to Target and people have gasped as
you like walked by with your card, Okay, that's a
famous person. So I'm like, that's not me. Yeah, you know,
likes people are like like, if you're hearing that in Target, okay,
(24:54):
you're a famous person. I'm not at that point. But
I have randomly been out with friends at a restaurant
even in like not even in Atlanta, like out in
some other city pre pandemic, and had people walk up
and go, are you Amina Brown? I saw you at
the blah blah blah, you know, and this typically happens. Unfortunately,
(25:16):
right after I'm sitting with my friends or my family
and going no one is worried about it. You know,
I'm an artist. A few people know about it, but
people don't just walk up. It's like normally right after
I say that that, somebody walks up like, oh my gosh,
I was at conference blah blah blah and saw you
at the think thing. So I feel like my boundaries
had to start at the event level and then trickle
(25:40):
down into what that means for social media. I was
making a lot of mistakes. I was just giving my
contact information to everyone who asked for that and then
getting sometimes getting strange communications from people. Sometimes they were
really genuinely you know, honest questions or help that people wanted,
(26:03):
but it wasn't something that I had the spacetime capacity
to reply to all those things, right, So I had
to stop giving my contact information to everyone like that
was like a big stop doing that, because then you're
inviting all these emails to come to you where people
(26:24):
really want and need help about things, you know, questions
they have about writing about becoming an author, about speaking
about poetry, about how they start their business. I mean,
you know and like you, I'm I'm totally like trying
to unlearn my people pleasing ways there. So that was
hard for me to be like this person is genuinely
(26:49):
writing me wanting help. I just I want to do
like everything, and just having to be like, oh, girl,
like you can't do that, and then once social media
came into it, like you having to then go having
to I think if I were to say a couple
of like maybe they're more internal boundaries for me. But
first of all, to say, every terrible racist thing that
(27:11):
happens doesn't require me as a black woman to comment
on it. I think that sometimes it's still hard because
sometimes whatever happened, I'm just at my house trying to
process that, and I'm overwhelmed to the point that i
just don't have anything to say. Sometimes I'm just trying
to be in my black girl joy and I'm trying
(27:33):
to honor myself by doing that. So I think that
is one like internal boundary that every conversation that's happening online,
I don't have to participate in it, even if I
have thoughts about it, I don't have to. It's not
on me, like I'm not constantly on top of some
milk crate with my you know, big microphone, needing to
(27:58):
speak on all the things right, So would have been
some of those boundaries that over time you've had to
learn how to develop, or maybe are still learning how
to develop. Yeah, that's the great, And it was the
things you're saying are reminding me of things I've done
that I have kind of forgotten about because thankfully they've
(28:20):
become more every day for me. But I remember at
first I felt so bad. I felt so torn, or
like I'm letting these people down, or I'm not being
a good social media activist, or you know, like whatever
whatever we want to say to ourselves. There's so much
pressure to constantly give an opinion, to constantly answer everything,
and we cannot survive like that. One thing I will
(28:43):
say about kind of opening the doors for others and
having to choose when and how to do that my
first book. Maybe I would have become an author through
a different avenue. But I sent in my first book
to a publisher because another author gave me the name
of a publisher and said, just try, you should do it,
and I it was like a cold call. I just
(29:06):
walked up to her to conference after her session, I
was like, I think maybe I could write a book.
I think I have something maybe do you know what
I should do with it? And she could have easily
been like, no, sorry, I don't know, because you're a
random person walking up to me at this conference, but
she didn't. She opened herself up and like, I will
always thank her for that because I didn't know I
(29:27):
could do it until someone told me I could, or
to at least a guy, and that was an incredible
gift that that. I don't think that woman will ever
realize how much it meant to me. And I want
to do that too for others, but we can't do
it for everyone, and so we have to not not
not that like we have to like pick and choose,
but just there are seasons of life where I can't
(29:49):
do five book endorsements as I'm trying to write my book,
you know, there's seasons of life where I have had
to say I I know I can handle this work
that is mine to do and the extra things I
have to say no to right now, and that's been hard.
So to two things that they have stood out for me.
One is, um, I don't like doing podcasts except with
(30:12):
people I trust, so I don't enjoy podcasts interviews, and
I realized that when Native came out because I was
interviewed by a big Christian podcast, spent like two hours
talking to them, and then they never released it. That
was kind of my last draw of like, and then
they asked me to rerecord it because it didn't sound
(30:33):
right or whatever. The reason. It was like your time
and labor on your book release day wasn't enough, so
we need to rerecord the whole thing, you know, after
waiting six months to tell me they weren't going to
release in this was kind of like as far as podcasts,
who I was hanging on this big one to get,
you know, to help me, and that was kind of
(30:55):
my last draw, Like it's triggering. People's questions are triggering.
People aren't actually reading the book and being sensitive to
what they're asking me as an Indigenous woman, you know,
you know, there's just a lot of anxiety for me
personally that goes into showing up and being asked all
these questions about who I am and what I write,
and I have just say no, I'm I'm done. So
(31:18):
if it's Oprah Burnet Brown or one of my friends,
I'll say yes. If it's someone I trust, I will
do it. But if it's just someone I don't know
and I'm and I don't know what's gonna come at me,
I can't handle it. My body can't handle it. It's
too much for me. And that was a hard thing
because you need to do podcasts, you need to do
(31:40):
them for your career, you need you know, you're told,
this is just what we do, this is how we
produce books. That's been hard for me. But once I
decided it, it just flipped a switch like this is
this is what my body needs, this is what my
heart needs. I cannot be doing two podcasts a week.
It's I just there's something in me that can't handle
(32:00):
the anxiety very well. So that was something I learned
about myself, you know, fairly recently, like in the last
few years, and and with again with COVID, we're relying
more on those things. So are you going to do
an Instagram live? Are you going to do a podcast?
Are you going to do you know, a zoom event?
Are you going to do a lengthened Q and A
at this event? Like I had to be honest about
(32:21):
things that trigger me as an Indigenous woman that have
made made it more difficult for me to do this work. Well,
it's kind of like for speaking events, I often get
really bad headaches after I speak, so trusting my body
to say all right, it's time for me to go
back to my room, so no, I can't go out
to dinner right now, or you know, like setting those
boundaries is so hard because we are made to feel
(32:45):
bad for trusting our bodies, or that we have to
expend ourselves endlessly for other people online or in real life,
and like you have to keep going because that's expected
of you. And when do we get to say no,
my body actually needs something else or my mind, my
mental capacity can't handle social media right now. I have
to take a break. When do we trust ourselves enough?
(33:07):
And then one more thing, I had a real season
of burnout after Native came out, so I was able
to kind of just go inward and take stock of
these different things. And another thing I realized is that
during November, which is Native American Heritage Months, I don't
really do events anymore for that because like earlier, I'm
processing Thanksgiving and all of this on my own and
(33:29):
my own heart and my own family and these people
can all look up the various thousands of resources on
what to do every year. They could literally do the
same thing every year. I can't, even if I'm paid
or whatever it is, I can't keep showing up and
doing these events or giving information or helping them figure
out what books to read because the resources are there
(33:52):
on the internet and we already give resources all year long.
So that was that was like a step for me
where I was like, Okay, I can't. So I might
do one or two events, or I do them myself.
I don't do I'm asked to do because it's too much.
It is too much, and I have crashed and burned
so hard since my career started. Every year and I
(34:14):
even write about it in Native every year as a
November creeps up, you know, it never fails to get
d m s to get all these different requests, you know,
And I'm sure it's the same for any of those
months you know that are like we're and and I
get it. We're trying to celebrate you or we're trying
to just point out all this trauma. But for us,
we're just trying to survive and hold it and be
(34:36):
and so um that's another space for me, online, offline,
everywhere where. I just kind of now just go inward
and just ask what that means and share as I'm
able to share, but not put on myself to do
all of these extra things because I'm supposed to. You know,
we're told what we're supposed to do all the time,
(34:58):
and that if we say no, are being too much
or were we must be angry or we whatever it is,
and and we lose money because of that, and we
lose whatever. At some point, we have to start trusting
ourselves and having friends that hold us up with this
stuff and helping each other. And that's why you have
like Real House Publishing, which is a new publishing house
(35:18):
that's like featuring women and men of color and black women,
indigenous women who are not held up and taking care
of in traditional publishing house. You know, so that these
groups rising up to hold us and I'm I'm so
glad because we need that. Yeah, you just made so
many good points and so many things that I just
(35:39):
felt so viscerally, Like, first of all, because you're my friend,
I'm getting like retroactively angry. I don't know if you
do that when like your friends tell you like some
terrible whatever that happened, and like retroactively, I'm like, who
said it? What? Like retroactively like I'm just personally getting angry,
you know, and then thinking about in my own experiences,
(36:00):
you know how Black History Month events and then with
the now sort of more national celebration of Juneteenth also, um,
I have had some very wild event requests come in
around that and just being like, no, this is the
time that I, first of all personally want to be
(36:21):
in my black woman joy. That's the center of what
I want to be in, what I want to be celebrating.
You're asking me to sort of come into this space
that you have not taken the time to have an
overall ethic of true diversity. You're you're not having an
(36:43):
overall ethic of that because if you were, then you
would be having Indigenous speakers throughout the year, you would
be having Black speakers throughout the year. But now you're
just it's such and such a month. We better get
whichever it's pride, We better find some LGBT. You cost people, Oh,
it's Asian specific heritage month. We better find Like what
(37:05):
are you doing? Have an ethic? Don't wait for the
month of whatever it is to come have an ethic
where you're just valuing these voices, centering these voices overall.
Then you don't have to go scrambling and doing these
wild things and asking these like stupid things of people
(37:28):
who are already experiencing marginalization and whatever industry in which
they work. Yeah, like get out of here, don't do that.
Don't do it. If you listen in and you work
in the industry where this yill job, you gotta pick
people to come speak places and have an overall ethic.
Look at your if you're listening to this right now
and you work on this type of business, look at
(37:51):
and look at the number of disabled speakers you had.
Look at the number of BIPOC folks, look at the
number of lgbt Q plus folks throughout the year, and
if the number ain't right, fix it all year. Fix it,
yeah next year. Here, I don't get out of here.
(38:13):
It's pope. Please. I love that. I love I love
I love what you were saying about the boundaries you've
had to develop, because I have found that no is
so hard. The first one's hard. Sometimes the nose are
still hard now where because there's still a little part
of me that's like, somebody's asking me to come share
(38:36):
this on their podcast, somebody's asking me to do this event.
There's still a little part of me that's like for
five dollars, sure, I'm just so happy that somebody's asking,
you know. And it's still like I have to take
myself through this like grid of questions to say to myself,
like who is leading this event? What are the vibes
(38:58):
you feel in your body when you think about going there,
What are the vibes you feel in your body when
you think about sitting for the interview. If you are
feeling this resistance or this hesitation, let's explore why. And
it's okay to say no to those things, even if
it's just no so you can go lay in a bed.
I know, I know. And that's such a difficult reality,
(39:20):
is that so many of us we get it. We
get a request for something and we have to sit
there and choose do I get paid and get traumatized
or do I say no and not get paid. But
I'm still traumatized that they asked me in the first place,
But now I'm not going to get paid. But am
I saving myself? Some of the trauma and heartache from this.
No one should ever have to weigh that in your career,
(39:42):
but a lot of us do, and and far into
our careers. It's not like we do it for the
first three years and then it's over, like there's a
It's painful, and people who can hold that with us
is just invaluable. I mean, I will say that is
one of the great things that I feel social media
brought to my life because for so long on the
event side of it, I sort of felt like I
(40:04):
was I knew I wasn't alone. I knew that there
were other writers, speakers, authors, but very specifically getting a
chance to meet other black women who were also doing this,
meeting indigenous women also doing this, and some of the
conversations that we got to have behind the scenes, like
that just emotionally even just made me feel less alone,
(40:25):
made me feel like somebody else out here experiences these things.
And I just I love that part about Twitter, you know,
like if there wasn't Twitter, I'm sure you and I
had a lot of mutual friends. If there wasn't Twitter,
there might would have been a time we would have
been at somebody's party or somebody's house for a cook out,
and maybe we would have met that way, but the
(40:47):
fact that the internet sort of gave us that, oh,
we're kind of living a similar life here, trying to
figure out what to do with our words and do
we want this to be a business or not, you know, like,
so to get to have that connection was such a
wonderful thing. Are there other moments you can think of
where you were like, oh man, the internet brought me
(41:07):
like a fun friend, or the internet brought me this
like wonderful moment. Do you have moments like that that
you can think of? Also? Well, one moment that was funny.
It was one of the first people I had met
in person who who followed me on on Twitter, and
we we talked for a little bit. We're at some
event together, and at the end of it, he was like,
(41:28):
you know, I don't always know if people are going
to be the same as they are online, Like if
you're going to meet someone and they're gonna be totally different,
because sometimes we're maybe we're more harsh online than we
are in person, or I don't know. And I was
just like holding my breath, like what do you got
to say to me? And he was like you're exactly
the same. Great, Like that works for me. I don't
(41:52):
know if everyone feels that way when they meet me,
but I was like, that's cool, Like I'm glad that
it feels congruent a bit, you know, so right now
something that's so important to me, and and I write
about this in my upcoming book. Actually on resistance is
just the the beauty of inner faith, inner spiritual work
(42:12):
with other people who have different from different cultures, different backgrounds.
And I have met so many new friends, Indigenous friends,
you know, um, who who practice things differently than I do,
Jewish friends, friends from Palestine, um, sick friends, you know,
like Buddhists and Hindu friends, like all of these these
(42:34):
people who share such different backgrounds than I do, and
we just come together for that underlying care and solidarity.
And I mean I have at least ten of those
people now that I've kind of put in this this
fool in my mind, Like I wish I could just
get them all in person one day and we could
(42:55):
just be in a room together, like I would probably
cry my little eyes out because it's it is truly
a beautiful thing to remember that there are humans behind
and there are wounded humans behind all these accounts, and
like that is all true. We are all deeply personally
and collectively wounded and traumatized in so many ways. But
(43:15):
also there's so much beauty of like getting to me
in person. And um, my friend Asha, who's an indigenous healer.
We met on Instagram and now she's one of my
dearest friends and we zoom and we talk and you know,
and she just released a new book and so I'm
like celebrating her book with her and just checking in
and you know, like again, like you said, just to
(43:35):
know I'm not alone in this. I have a handful
of women I know I can text and say this
happened to me. That's all I need to say. And
I know that you're one of them. Ash is one
of them, And I have like two or three others
that I know I can say something and that I'm
not being overly sensitive about it or overthinking it. It
just is what it is. I can say it, let
(43:56):
it sit with someone else besides myself. And like, I
didn't have that for the first few years of my career.
I don't think because I didn't I didn't realize I
could have it. And so there was a lot of loneliness.
So to know now that is an option that's there
and I can have that and hold it. The Internet
gave me that I will never forget. I will never
take that for granted, because it is such a gift.
(44:19):
I love that. I love that. It's good to think
about the good things that the internet and social media
have brought us. Obviously, you know, we could name ad
nauseum things that it brought us that we wish it
had not, But there are some things about it that
I'm like, oh, man, Like, I love that even though
you and I don't live in the same city anymore,
I can still like, see how you're doing, see how
(44:40):
your family is, see like what you're eating or something,
and like, I mean, also, I know I can text
and stuff like that too, but it's nice to see,
like what you might be talking about online, or you know,
the conversations you're beginning with your community. I love that
so much, Caitlin, I could just talk to you forever.
Oh my gosh, y'all, could you just talk to ka
live forever? Calin. I want to ask you one more question,
(45:03):
and then I want to make sure we have a
chance to share with the people where they can further
connect with you and connect with your work. But since
we are talking about the living room, I want to
know when you go and visit good friends of yours,
if you are called upon to bring a snack or
a beverage into the living room space, what is your
(45:26):
go to? Do you have a go to something that
you make or something that you buy, or does it
depend discuss with us what you bring in this moment.
It does depend for sure on what kinds of things
were going to be eating. I have been told that
I make for you good kale chips, but I don't
eat them. My children do. So if the people I'm
(45:51):
visiting like a good kale chip, I will make them
a giant bat and they will very much enjoy them.
But I will not be enjoying a alongside so um
as far as you know, Like, I've been trying to
eat more healthy in recent weeks. So now, if you
asked me now, I would make a really great like
(46:11):
chickpea salad with some vegans in it, or maybe a
wild rice dish from my culture like that would be
a lot of fun. In the past, I don't know.
I just probably bring like chips and salsa, which is
also a gift for all. It's always the right thing
I used to make. I would make like a like
tea with a simple syrup, you know, like that kind
(46:32):
of stuff that I would bring, something simple that most
people can have. Is how I go about things, hoping
most people can have, you know, depending on what they're
able to drink or eat. M that a long time
because I haven't been to anyone's house right, so like
it takes me a second. I'm like, what do I eat? Right?
What will I bring? How will I do this now? Mmmm?
(46:55):
I hope we get back to that because I missed that.
I missed. I missed the gathering where you got to
just bring a little something and taste other people's whatever,
a little something they brought. I mean I have definitely been,
you know, had my life changed by someone salad that
they brought to like a little get together thing and
I was like, what's this, Frese, what is this? Tell
me what this is? Why it tastes so herbal? Explain
(47:18):
it's delicious, you know, Like I love that kind of moment.
I missed that. We're gonna get back to it. I
recently had Cole Arthur Riley on the podcast who had
a time where she lived in Philly and I know
that you were there in the area too, and um,
you know, Philly is one of my food cities, Caitlin.
So what we're what we're wanting to happen, Caitlin, is
(47:39):
we're wanting I don't even want a gig to be there.
I just want to come there for a friend and
food trip. This is what we need, Caitlin. This is
what we need. So we're just gonna put it out
there in the atmosphere. I'm sprinkling my atmosphere fingers. Okay,
and the Hogy girl, those Philly hoagies. Really I was
(48:00):
watching I was watching a television show recently where this
man was like he was sitting in a pool with
his shirt off, and he just had like a pan
of like lasagna on his belly and he was just
eating it. And I looked at my husband and I
was like, this is the way, minus the pool. This
is how I like to have a hoagie in Philly.
(48:20):
I just want to bring it back to my room.
I want to sit in on my belly and just
mayo everywhere. That's the life I want to live. Caitlin, yes,
aft We're gonna do this, Caitlin. Tell the people they
want to connect more with your work. I have heard
wind that you were doing some writing over on the
(48:41):
sub stack, So tell the people how can they connect
with you over there? So you know, I'm on social
media just there are many days in a row where
I don't feel like I have anything to say, so
I want to see me reach tweet other people's great
things they have to say. You're welcome to show up
on Twitter with me. But I say things on my
sub stack, which is called the Liminality Journal, and it's
(49:03):
just the space to explore liminality, those in between areas
of our life. So I do a lot of original
poetry and essays there. It's just kind of feels lighter
than a lot of what I do right on normally,
and so it's been an amazing space. And so you
can subscribe to that. And I'm working on my third book,
which will be out next springs. But please, you know,
(49:25):
keep an eye out. I'm very excited about that. Oh
my gosh, Caitlin. Yes, can the people go to your
website and then they can click around there and it
can tell them all the times Caitlyn Curtis dot com
will have yeah updates and whatever you might need. That's exciting.
Hire me, Hire Caitlin and pay her white man rates.
That's what you need to do. Hire Caitlin, pay her
(49:48):
white man rates until they're not white man rates, until
they're just the rates we pay people who deserve to
be paid well, So do that people, Okay, Caitlin, gosh,
thank you so much for joining us, y'all. All of
Caitlin's links will be available in the show notes at
Amina Brown dot com slash are with Amina. You can
see all that info there. Caitlin, I just love you girl.
(50:10):
Thank you for taking this time to chat with me.
Thanks for being my internet and my in real life friend.
Thank you. Her with Amina Brown is produced by Matt
(50:30):
Owen for slover Fee Productions as a part of the
Seneca Women Podcast Network in partnership with I Heart Radio.
Thanks for listening and don't forget to subscribe, rate and
review the podcast.
Hey, everybody, Welcome back to her with Amina Brown and
I'm I mean a Brown. We're back in her living room,
and I'm so excited because we are talking to another
one of my internet friends. And this is actually very serendipitous, y'all,
because we just did a replay of an episode from
(00:56):
the earlier version of this podcast before the podcast was
on My Heart and Seneca Women. So you got to
hear a couple of months ago me talking to our guests. Today,
we're talking to Potawatam the author and speaker Caitlin Curtis today.
So you if you're if you're following the podcast already,
you heard Caitlin and I talking when Caitlin's book Native
(01:17):
was released, which we were still in lockdown time. This
was like May when we were having this conversation. And
Caitlin and I are friends in real life aside from
just that, I love to talk to her, and so
we were texting and I was like, um, we're texting
about other things that ain' child's business. And then I
(01:37):
was like, girl, anyways, while we're talking about this, do
you mind coming on my podcast? Because um, you're my
internet friend and I love the story of how we met. So, Caitlin,
thank you for coming to the living room with us today. Yes,
I love it because you know, we've been in each
other's real spaces, had tea in Atlanta, and now we can't,
(01:58):
but we have Zoom. So I'm so glad that we
have spaces. That's really like, it's it's really that really
touches my heart that you said that that way, because
I'm like, we did sort of meet on the Internet
and then had a period of time that we lived
in the same place and we're people who hung out
in person, and then the pandemic and then you moved,
(02:21):
and so now we have the Internet to sort of
keep us the Internet and our phones. Honestly, we do
have each other's like real phone numbers too, so we
have that as well. But that's sort of how we
get to connect. So I wanted to start off, Caitlin
with how you and I met. We are Twitter friends,
is how winter started out. Yes, yeah, Twitter, you messaged
(02:44):
me and I didn't, and I didn't. I hated Twitter
for years and you messaged me right as I was realizing,
you know, I was gonna be releasing my first book,
Glory Happening, and Rachel held Evans had retweeted me one
day and I had gotten like four thousand followers, and
that clicked that I was like, oh, no, I have
to learn how to use this device, this app, Like
(03:06):
what do I do? And I think that you're just
one of the first writers women people to just like
reach out and be like, hey, we could be friends
and we live in the same city. And it was
just wonderful because I was like reeling like how am I,
you know, because like I'm starting a career and I
have to learn how to use social media. I have
to not just Facebook, but like I have to learn this,
(03:27):
you know. And it was a lot, totally a lot.
It's really it's really overwhelming in general to be on
social media, but especially if you have to do it
in any sort of professional way, and those of us
that have been in sort of publishing and writing world
that way, there's so much pressure on you sometimes about
what you're supposed to be doing or not with your
(03:48):
social media. Um, a lot of us when we were
sort of giving the the proposal for our books, we
had to actually put the number of followers that we
had on various social media things. And then if you
didn't have enough followers. I distinctly remember this with one
of my book proposals. If I didn't have enough followers,
then the publisher wanted to know who else was I
(04:09):
connected to that had more followers than me, that could
I count on those people to share this or that?
Or was I writing for a platform that had a
lot of followers and could I could those followers sort
of be included. I mean, it's a very very wild time.
But yes, y'all, I am nosy as it relates to
(04:31):
social media. And I just saw like a few of
our mutual friends like talking to Caitlin on Twitter, So
I was like, who is Caitlin's I'll go on there
and follow and scrolling, And then I saw that she
also lived in the Atlanta area, and I was like, whoopoo,
clicked on that d M, Like, girl, you live in
Atlanta and I in Atlanta. Do you want to just
(04:53):
get together I have some tea or something, because I don't.
I mean, it didn't even occur to me that you
might think that was strange just to connect with another writer,
because social media is it's just everybody. But then when
you start to find the people that are in your
vein in the world that you live in, it becomes
(05:14):
so special, you know. And then we met for tea
and it was wonderful. We sat there for like four hours.
Big shout out to Tipple and Rows here in Atlanta.
We went to this fabulous tea place and just it
was just so cute. You know. If we had really
been thinking, Caitlin, we could have taken some beautiful pictures
for Instagram of us meeting, but we didn't care about that.
(05:37):
I have one, do you do, I'll send it to you. Okay,
thank you, because I was like, did we take a picture?
I just enjoyed talking to you, and that's it. It
was just hung out. So yes, Caitlin agreed to meet
with me, even though maybe it was strange that I
hopped up in her d M s and she didn't
know me like that, but we we agreed to meet,
and over time, I feel I feel like for a
(05:58):
lot of women of lern, especially those of us who
at that time we're sort of working in Christian space
in some way, there was sort of this like underground
network of us that was always in communication because we
wanted to make sure that other women of color were
resourced and knew what prices to charge, knew which events
(06:21):
not to do, which events were going to be a problem,
how to negotiate these things, you know. So I think
initially just Caitlin and I really connecting on that it
makes you feel at least for me, it made me
feel less alone sort of navigating all that. And then
a lot of us our careers have really moved on
even beyond that space where we met, and we've been
(06:42):
able to share life together and kind of have these
different touchpoints. Like Caitlin and I hopped on the phone,
you know, we hopped on like a a face time
or something a few months ago, and we only had
like twenty minutes or something, and it was like girl,
and then and we had a whole very real talk
about life. And then it was like I gotta go.
(07:06):
That's all you need. So it becomes so I cannot
tell you how important it has been to have other
Indigenous women, to have black women, to have women of
color just be in my life so that when something
happens on social media or off in the real world,
just to say to someone else, this thing happened, and
then they can be like, oh, yeah, that was awful,
(07:27):
and I'm holding that with you and then keep going
that like even just that moment. And a lot of
those relationships for me have started online, most of them
probably in the world that I live in now. My
closest sort of friends and allies within the writing world,
in the speaking world where I those people that I
reach out to and I need someone to see it
are people I've met online. Okay, give us a bit
(07:50):
of your social media history, Caitlin. What was the first
platform that you remember engaging on in the in the
beginning of your social media time. Okay, I used my Space. Okay.
My Space was actually the first platform where I messaged
my husband. Oh okay, my husband and I also have
(08:12):
a little bit of that my Space moment we met
in real life. But then I was like, keep in
touch with me on my Space. Yeah, so I had
my Space. I wrote on zga. It was like a
blogging platform. I wrote my I don't know where I wrote.
I don't even know. I'm I would be scared to know. Now.
Um so I had that. But my Space, I think
(08:32):
was my intro in and then eventually I got Facebook
in high school, you know, but I like stayed away
from Twitter. I don't even know when Instagram was started,
but eventually I got on that. Um, but I think
my Space was my intro into the social media world. Okay,
so you get on my Space, then you go from
(08:55):
my Space into Facebook. Was it your writing career of
that sort of led you from Facebook over to Twitter? Like,
how did you make that kind of transition? I don't
even know why I started a Twitter. I think I
just wanted to try it and I was like, nope,
I don't understand. Everything is scary here. I'm gonna go
to Facebook. Go back to Facebook. And Facebook was my
(09:17):
personal It was just family, friends, whatever, like basically, like
I feel like Facebook was just and often is now
just like daily journal entries for everyone, um, and there
are issues that come up to and but it's not
as much well maybe it is as an activist space
and only Twitter is. It is in some ways, but
a lot of people just use it, especially back then,
(09:37):
would just use it for like daily journaling, Here's what's
happening in my life, and that's how I used it.
Eventually I started a Facebook writer page that was my
official one, so I still have that. But Twitter is
interesting because I was learning so much from people and
realizing I had a voice all at the same time,
and it was just this very empowering space. And then
(09:59):
to have Naudibles Webber and Rachel hald Evans and Sarah Bessy,
so these women within Christianity see me and say I
think your voice is important too, and to uplift my
voice just it empowered me and I didn't know I
could have one, really, and so it just kind of
sparked something in me. I think that had been waiting,
and you know, at that time, I wanted to be
(10:20):
like a worship leader. That was my my goal was
to be a worship leader in the church. And thankfully
I got to pivot. Only from that, you're a worship leader.
Please do that with you? Do you? That I had
to transition and so finding other authors was incredible. I think, well,
(10:43):
and that was like the blogging days, which is kind
of transitioned to There are so many women especially writing blogs,
wright mom blogs or faith blogs or whatever, you know,
and I think I caught the tail end of that
in my writing career. I didn't know it was going
to be a career just writing because I needed to write.
I started a blog called Stories and it was just
(11:04):
me writing about life and motherhood and being a Christian
and whatever it was, you know, my spirituality, and it
just continued to morph. So is you know, for all
the toxicity, it is a place for us to morph
and evolve, you know, and and to become and learn.
It is such a great learning tool, you know. I've
(11:26):
learned so much about able is um and you know,
fat shaming and you know, like queer activists and non binary. Like,
I've learned so many things from people that I don't
always have access to in real life, and and that
has meant so much to me to just like be
quiet and learn from them. Yeah. I was going to
say that too when you said that. Especially Twitter for
(11:49):
me sort of has this way where I get to
be quiet and just read and listen. I'm there are
a lot of conversations there that are not for me
to make comments, that are for me to listen and
learn and check myself, you know, in some regards. And
that is something, like you said, for for better for worse.
(12:09):
That's something I really love about Twitter as a platform.
Even though it has its days where I'm like things
are on fire here, so no, I gotta leave. But
the days where I'm like I can just sort of
look through my feed think about the different like you
were saying, activists, writers, leaders, artists, and just read some
(12:32):
of those conversations ago, Like how does that sit with me?
You know? Like, how am I listening to this disabled leader?
How am I listening to them and checking my own
able bodied privilege there? You know? How am I listening
to the conversations the queer folks are having, the trans
folks are having, and checking myself for how I participate
(12:54):
in some of these systems that they are critiquing here?
You know? So I really do love that about Twitter.
It's part of what keeps me going on there. Okay,
I want to ask you, what's your criteria for how
you know if someone can be your Internet friend? Or
how would you Maybe I should start with that, how
would you define someone being an internet friend? Because sometimes
(13:16):
to me, I say that phrase, and it means two things.
It could mean that it's someone that I don't talk
to in real life. I only talk to them on
the Internet, but I like them, I might even love them,
and we just connect and do that. But then sometimes
it also means there's someone that I initially connected with
them on the Internet and now I've sort of pulled
(13:37):
them into my real life. We're friends outside of that.
So how would you how would you define internet friend
for yourself? And that is so interesting because first of all,
I've learned to be far less trusting of other humans,
which has been a good thing, right, Like people pleasing
trust everybody, they're so great, you know, and you can't
(14:00):
do that, and on social media you cannot do that. Um.
And so I've learned to pay attention more and to
be more careful of people, you know. But I do
look at you know, if I find myself interacting more
or like around the same spaces online with someone, I
look at, who do I know that's following them? Who
are my friends that are friends with them? Oh? That's interesting.
(14:23):
Maybe I reach out to that friend and say, oh,
you know this person like that's awesome, and then maybe
that connects us or something, you know, it could be
something like that or something totally organic, where a lot
of times it's been like I'm hovering in these spaces
with these other people, and then eventually we just connect
with each other on often on a because of a
(14:44):
belief or a an issue that we both are really
passionate about, Like whatever it is, like anti racism work
or some sort of justice related work, or if we're
both bipoc or you know, like I don't know, there's um.
There's usually like a string you can pull where you
realize like, oh, this is this draws us to each other. Yeah,
(15:07):
and some of those friends are just like we message
each other every now and then, and then some of
it has moved to it's like do you d M
and then you move to your email inboxes and then
do you move from the inbox to the phone number
you can actually text each other, you know, like um,
and maybe there's a zoom call in between somewhere. I
think that that's been an interesting way to see it evolve,
(15:30):
you know. And truly, I think so many of these
relationships are just born out of solidarity. But we just
want to hold each other up. We just want to
say to each other, I see what you do in
the world, and I just want to I just want
to be your friend or or just be your ally,
or be a sounding board for your work, even even
if it's not like super personal. Maybe it's just like
let's just talk about why writing is hard and my
(15:53):
human who writes is hard and that's it. You know.
Maybe it's just that that relationship that comes from our
books or from the things that we speak on, and
that could be it, and that's enough. It's actually to
have that. Yeah, I love that because I kind of
feel like my relationship to social media. I don't know, Caitlin.
(16:14):
Sometimes I want to say it got weird, and other
times I'm like, well, maybe it's not weird. I'm trying,
you know. You know, a girl's in therapy, so a
girl is trying to you know, I'm used to being
like that's weird that I do that, and I feel
like my therapist is trying to get me to be like,
maybe that's not weird. Maybe that's a way that you
need that to be. Maybe that's strength and the way,
(16:35):
you know, I'm trying. You know, a girl is trying
to do the work over here. So I'm not going
to necessarily say that it's weird. But I feel like
for those of us who were writer, speaker, artist people
pre pandemic, right, and most of our work was event based.
We were going to be going out speaking at this
and that, and for some of us there were certain
events that we might always see each other. There you know,
(16:57):
and that was sort of this place to connect as well,
but that wast of my time to be on That
was when my Instagram and my Twitter were the most active,
because I could take pictures of me and you if
you and I happened to be at some event together.
I can post quotes from another speaker that I heard
at that event. I can take pictures of my sound checking.
There was just all this like content and then as
(17:19):
soon as I would get home, I would shut it down.
And for me, my hometime was for the people that
I knew in my real life, because for me, I
really needed them after being out there with strangers and
people who may feel familiar with me because they're familiar
with my word, but they don't really know me. They're
(17:41):
not people that I can cry and snot with, or
know what some of my real struggles are in my life,
for what my insecurities might be, or what my inappropriate
sense of humor might be. You know, those people out there,
they don't know that part. But my real friends that
I go to tea you with, that come to my als,
I go to their house like those were relationships that
(18:03):
I felt like I really needed, but I wasn't great
at the multitasking Caitlin. So then it was sort of
like I would come home and nothing's on Instagram and
nothing's on Twitter because I'm going to lunch with my girlfriends,
I'm going to my mom's house, I'm spending time with
my family, right. And then I think once the pandemic
came in, then I was sort of having this strange
(18:23):
crisis about social media because then there wasn't really a
way to sort of there wasn't as much of a
distinct line of like, oh, when I'm on the road,
I'm on. Oh when i'm home, I'm not well. Now
like we're all home, and the road just really died
down for me. So I kind of spent most of
(18:43):
this time like, oh, no one knows what to do.
But I loved watching the ways that you have used
your social media to really build community with people. And
I would love to hear what that journey was like
for you and sort of going from the person who
was just getting on there as yours like let me
(19:05):
see how this works and all my books coming out
let me you know, going from that to where your
social media became this communal place, Like what was that
journey like for you. Yeah, it has evolved so much,
and I've had to learn so much about boundaries and
not just boundaries, but what kind of energy am I
willing to put into the world and what kind of
(19:27):
energy am I willing to take into my body on
a daily basis, because I am someone who struggles with anxiety,
and um, social media is totally a trigger for anxiety,
and so there are things you have to be careful
about that I have to be careful about. I remember
on Twitter, especially when I first started getting followers, sometimes
tweet about like this space just feels like my just
(19:50):
like a big living room, we're all having coffee together.
And now when I think of that image, I'm like,
there's no way I would put my forty three thousand
followers into a living room with myself and never let
people that we all share this space. But how funny
that it was just my way of processing community, Like Okay,
(20:11):
I have this this group of people online who's to
like me a little at least, so we're gonna we're
gonna hang out and you know, and share life. I
was also like answering every everything. You know, It's like, oh,
I need to answer that tweet. I'm gonn answer this tweet.
I'm gonna keep answering because I don't want to. And
again it's like the people pleasing or like that. I
don't know if anyone I have to, I have to
(20:33):
answer to keep my space going. And that's not true.
I know that now, um, but you have to learn that.
So I think as my career has grown, as I've
(20:54):
stepped into those spaces, there are things that I don't do.
I don't answer trolls because I don't retweet people and
point things out unless it's important or it's like pointing
to something happening. I don't do it because I know
that all that energy is just gonna hit me harder
than the person I'm tweeting about. You know. It's like
(21:14):
protecting that for myself and my followers and anyone who
might be triggered by that. It's just not worth it
for me. And I've had to learn that. I've had
to learn I can't answer everything, you know, and I
actually have to say no to things as scary as
that it's you know, And so that has evolved a lot.
And I've also come to the point of knowing and
reminding myself that social media is a resource. It is
(21:37):
a tool, and that's how I picture and use it
now instead of this is my personal space where I
process my personal life, because that's how it used to be,
when it was more personal. It cannot be that because
we have to have boundaries. So now it is a
how can I use this space as a really good resource,
as a really good tool, as a space for solidarity,
(21:59):
as a space for holding others up or opening doors
for others? What can I do in my body and
my identity with whatever privileges I have? What what should
I do? What can I do that's important to me?
And I asked myself that all the time, And how
can I just be listening and learning quietly and loudly?
(22:19):
You know? How do we do that? But you're right,
COVID changed everything. Now it's like, if we want to
do an event, let's just host an Instagram live with
three of our favorite friends and pay them and there
we go, we had an event. You know, it's like
so different, But that's overwhelming, Like it makes it harder
to set boundaries. So I've had to set boundaries, break
(22:40):
them every day, reset them, delete apps off my phone,
and put the apps back on my phone. To leave
them again the next week. Uh So it's like been
a journey for many of us, I think, and to
not feel bad. There's always stuff going on in the world.
We have to get off. We have to get off,
step into real life for a bit, or reach out
(23:03):
to those friends that have become real friends from that space,
take breaks and then re enter and figure like it's
such a like an ebb and flow. It has to
be like it hasn't. It has to have a rhythm
to it. I don't know how someone can be all
on or all off. There have to be like this rhythm,
which is so hard. It's so hard. But how do
(23:25):
we not do it? Some people of stuffy and I
love that they have. They did what they needed for themselves.
I can't do that. I don't want to do that
because of these relationships, you know. So how do we
just manage it on a daily basis? Yeah, that makes
such perfect sense. I want to talk a little bit
more about the boundaries around social media that you have
(23:47):
had to learn or develop. I also feel like it's
always kind of weird to explain what I do for
a living to other people. That's another reason why it's
nice to have other like writers are author artist friends.
Because it's weird to sort of say I have something
(24:08):
of a public platform. There are some places I go
that people would know who I am, but on a
general basis, it's not like I'm Beyonce in Target or something,
you know, and and the whole store is like I mean,
you know, like it's like I go to Target all
the time and no one's worried, no one's worried, no
(24:30):
one is concerned about anything I'm doing there. No one
has gasped at my presence in Target. So I feel
like that's sort of like, now you're a famous person.
If you go to Target and people have gasped as
you like walked by with your card, Okay, that's a
famous person. So I'm like, that's not me. Yeah, you know,
likes people are like like, if you're hearing that in Target, okay,
(24:54):
you're a famous person. I'm not at that point. But
I have randomly been out with friends at a restaurant
even in like not even in Atlanta, like out in
some other city pre pandemic, and had people walk up
and go, are you Amina Brown? I saw you at
the blah blah blah, you know, and this typically happens. Unfortunately,
(25:16):
right after I'm sitting with my friends or my family
and going no one is worried about it. You know,
I'm an artist. A few people know about it, but
people don't just walk up. It's like normally right after
I say that that, somebody walks up like, oh my gosh,
I was at conference blah blah blah and saw you
at the think thing. So I feel like my boundaries
had to start at the event level and then trickle
(25:40):
down into what that means for social media. I was
making a lot of mistakes. I was just giving my
contact information to everyone who asked for that and then
getting sometimes getting strange communications from people. Sometimes they were
really genuinely you know, honest questions or help that people wanted,
(26:03):
but it wasn't something that I had the spacetime capacity
to reply to all those things, right, So I had
to stop giving my contact information to everyone like that
was like a big stop doing that, because then you're
inviting all these emails to come to you where people
(26:24):
really want and need help about things, you know, questions
they have about writing about becoming an author, about speaking
about poetry, about how they start their business. I mean,
you know and like you, I'm I'm totally like trying
to unlearn my people pleasing ways there. So that was
hard for me to be like this person is genuinely
(26:49):
writing me wanting help. I just I want to do
like everything, and just having to be like, oh, girl,
like you can't do that, and then once social media
came into it, like you having to then go having
to I think if I were to say a couple
of like maybe they're more internal boundaries for me. But
first of all, to say, every terrible racist thing that
(27:11):
happens doesn't require me as a black woman to comment
on it. I think that sometimes it's still hard because
sometimes whatever happened, I'm just at my house trying to
process that, and I'm overwhelmed to the point that i
just don't have anything to say. Sometimes I'm just trying
to be in my black girl joy and I'm trying
(27:33):
to honor myself by doing that. So I think that
is one like internal boundary that every conversation that's happening online,
I don't have to participate in it, even if I
have thoughts about it, I don't have to. It's not
on me, like I'm not constantly on top of some
milk crate with my you know, big microphone, needing to
(27:58):
speak on all the things right, So would have been
some of those boundaries that over time you've had to
learn how to develop, or maybe are still learning how
to develop. Yeah, that's the great, And it was the
things you're saying are reminding me of things I've done
that I have kind of forgotten about because thankfully they've
(28:20):
become more every day for me. But I remember at
first I felt so bad. I felt so torn, or
like I'm letting these people down, or I'm not being
a good social media activist, or you know, like whatever
whatever we want to say to ourselves. There's so much
pressure to constantly give an opinion, to constantly answer everything,
and we cannot survive like that. One thing I will
(28:43):
say about kind of opening the doors for others and
having to choose when and how to do that my
first book. Maybe I would have become an author through
a different avenue. But I sent in my first book
to a publisher because another author gave me the name
of a publisher and said, just try, you should do it,
and I it was like a cold call. I just
(29:06):
walked up to her to conference after her session, I
was like, I think maybe I could write a book.
I think I have something maybe do you know what
I should do with it? And she could have easily
been like, no, sorry, I don't know, because you're a
random person walking up to me at this conference, but
she didn't. She opened herself up and like, I will
always thank her for that because I didn't know I
(29:27):
could do it until someone told me I could, or
to at least a guy, and that was an incredible
gift that that. I don't think that woman will ever
realize how much it meant to me. And I want
to do that too for others, but we can't do
it for everyone, and so we have to not not
not that like we have to like pick and choose,
but just there are seasons of life where I can't
(29:49):
do five book endorsements as I'm trying to write my book,
you know, there's seasons of life where I have had
to say I I know I can handle this work
that is mine to do and the extra things I
have to say no to right now, and that's been hard.
So to two things that they have stood out for me.
One is, um, I don't like doing podcasts except with
(30:12):
people I trust, so I don't enjoy podcasts interviews, and
I realized that when Native came out because I was
interviewed by a big Christian podcast, spent like two hours
talking to them, and then they never released it. That
was kind of my last draw of like, and then
they asked me to rerecord it because it didn't sound
(30:33):
right or whatever. The reason. It was like your time
and labor on your book release day wasn't enough, so
we need to rerecord the whole thing, you know, after
waiting six months to tell me they weren't going to
release in this was kind of like as far as podcasts,
who I was hanging on this big one to get,
you know, to help me, and that was kind of
(30:55):
my last draw, Like it's triggering. People's questions are triggering.
People aren't actually reading the book and being sensitive to
what they're asking me as an Indigenous woman, you know,
you know, there's just a lot of anxiety for me
personally that goes into showing up and being asked all
these questions about who I am and what I write,
and I have just say no, I'm I'm done. So
(31:18):
if it's Oprah Burnet Brown or one of my friends,
I'll say yes. If it's someone I trust, I will
do it. But if it's just someone I don't know
and I'm and I don't know what's gonna come at me,
I can't handle it. My body can't handle it. It's
too much for me. And that was a hard thing
because you need to do podcasts, you need to do
(31:40):
them for your career, you need you know, you're told,
this is just what we do, this is how we
produce books. That's been hard for me. But once I
decided it, it just flipped a switch like this is
this is what my body needs, this is what my
heart needs. I cannot be doing two podcasts a week.
It's I just there's something in me that can't handle
(32:00):
the anxiety very well. So that was something I learned
about myself, you know, fairly recently, like in the last
few years, and and with again with COVID, we're relying
more on those things. So are you going to do
an Instagram live? Are you going to do a podcast?
Are you going to do you know, a zoom event?
Are you going to do a lengthened Q and A
at this event? Like I had to be honest about
(32:21):
things that trigger me as an Indigenous woman that have
made made it more difficult for me to do this work. Well,
it's kind of like for speaking events, I often get
really bad headaches after I speak, so trusting my body
to say all right, it's time for me to go
back to my room, so no, I can't go out
to dinner right now, or you know, like setting those
boundaries is so hard because we are made to feel
(32:45):
bad for trusting our bodies, or that we have to
expend ourselves endlessly for other people online or in real life,
and like you have to keep going because that's expected
of you. And when do we get to say no,
my body actually needs something else or my mind, my
mental capacity can't handle social media right now. I have
to take a break. When do we trust ourselves enough?
(33:07):
And then one more thing, I had a real season
of burnout after Native came out, so I was able
to kind of just go inward and take stock of
these different things. And another thing I realized is that
during November, which is Native American Heritage Months, I don't
really do events anymore for that because like earlier, I'm
processing Thanksgiving and all of this on my own and
(33:29):
my own heart and my own family and these people
can all look up the various thousands of resources on
what to do every year. They could literally do the
same thing every year. I can't, even if I'm paid
or whatever it is, I can't keep showing up and
doing these events or giving information or helping them figure
out what books to read because the resources are there
(33:52):
on the internet and we already give resources all year long.
So that was that was like a step for me
where I was like, Okay, I can't. So I might
do one or two events, or I do them myself.
I don't do I'm asked to do because it's too much.
It is too much, and I have crashed and burned
so hard since my career started. Every year and I
(34:14):
even write about it in Native every year as a
November creeps up, you know, it never fails to get
d m s to get all these different requests, you know,
And I'm sure it's the same for any of those
months you know that are like we're and and I
get it. We're trying to celebrate you or we're trying
to just point out all this trauma. But for us,
we're just trying to survive and hold it and be
(34:36):
and so um that's another space for me, online, offline,
everywhere where. I just kind of now just go inward
and just ask what that means and share as I'm
able to share, but not put on myself to do
all of these extra things because I'm supposed to. You know,
we're told what we're supposed to do all the time,
(34:58):
and that if we say no, are being too much
or were we must be angry or we whatever it is,
and and we lose money because of that, and we
lose whatever. At some point, we have to start trusting
ourselves and having friends that hold us up with this
stuff and helping each other. And that's why you have
like Real House Publishing, which is a new publishing house
(35:18):
that's like featuring women and men of color and black women,
indigenous women who are not held up and taking care
of in traditional publishing house. You know, so that these
groups rising up to hold us and I'm I'm so
glad because we need that. Yeah, you just made so
many good points and so many things that I just
(35:39):
felt so viscerally, Like, first of all, because you're my friend,
I'm getting like retroactively angry. I don't know if you
do that when like your friends tell you like some
terrible whatever that happened, and like retroactively, I'm like, who
said it? What? Like retroactively like I'm just personally getting angry,
you know, and then thinking about in my own experiences,
(36:00):
you know how Black History Month events and then with
the now sort of more national celebration of Juneteenth also, um,
I have had some very wild event requests come in
around that and just being like, no, this is the
time that I, first of all personally want to be
(36:21):
in my black woman joy. That's the center of what
I want to be in, what I want to be celebrating.
You're asking me to sort of come into this space
that you have not taken the time to have an
overall ethic of true diversity. You're you're not having an
(36:43):
overall ethic of that because if you were, then you
would be having Indigenous speakers throughout the year, you would
be having Black speakers throughout the year. But now you're
just it's such and such a month. We better get
whichever it's pride, We better find some LGBT. You cost people, Oh,
it's Asian specific heritage month. We better find Like what
(37:05):
are you doing? Have an ethic? Don't wait for the
month of whatever it is to come have an ethic
where you're just valuing these voices, centering these voices overall.
Then you don't have to go scrambling and doing these
wild things and asking these like stupid things of people
(37:28):
who are already experiencing marginalization and whatever industry in which
they work. Yeah, like get out of here, don't do that.
Don't do it. If you listen in and you work
in the industry where this yill job, you gotta pick
people to come speak places and have an overall ethic.
Look at your if you're listening to this right now
and you work on this type of business, look at
(37:51):
and look at the number of disabled speakers you had.
Look at the number of BIPOC folks, look at the
number of lgbt Q plus folks throughout the year, and
if the number ain't right, fix it all year. Fix it,
yeah next year. Here, I don't get out of here.
(38:13):
It's pope. Please. I love that. I love I love
I love what you were saying about the boundaries you've
had to develop, because I have found that no is
so hard. The first one's hard. Sometimes the nose are
still hard now where because there's still a little part
of me that's like, somebody's asking me to come share
(38:36):
this on their podcast, somebody's asking me to do this event.
There's still a little part of me that's like for
five dollars, sure, I'm just so happy that somebody's asking,
you know. And it's still like I have to take
myself through this like grid of questions to say to myself,
like who is leading this event? What are the vibes
(38:58):
you feel in your body when you think about going there,
What are the vibes you feel in your body when
you think about sitting for the interview. If you are
feeling this resistance or this hesitation, let's explore why. And
it's okay to say no to those things, even if
it's just no so you can go lay in a bed.
I know, I know. And that's such a difficult reality,
(39:20):
is that so many of us we get it. We
get a request for something and we have to sit
there and choose do I get paid and get traumatized
or do I say no and not get paid. But
I'm still traumatized that they asked me in the first place,
But now I'm not going to get paid. But am
I saving myself? Some of the trauma and heartache from this.
No one should ever have to weigh that in your career,
(39:42):
but a lot of us do, and and far into
our careers. It's not like we do it for the
first three years and then it's over, like there's a
It's painful, and people who can hold that with us
is just invaluable. I mean, I will say that is
one of the great things that I feel social media
brought to my life because for so long on the
event side of it, I sort of felt like I
(40:04):
was I knew I wasn't alone. I knew that there
were other writers, speakers, authors, but very specifically getting a
chance to meet other black women who were also doing this,
meeting indigenous women also doing this, and some of the
conversations that we got to have behind the scenes, like
that just emotionally even just made me feel less alone,
(40:25):
made me feel like somebody else out here experiences these things.
And I just I love that part about Twitter, you know,
like if there wasn't Twitter, I'm sure you and I
had a lot of mutual friends. If there wasn't Twitter,
there might would have been a time we would have
been at somebody's party or somebody's house for a cook out,
and maybe we would have met that way, but the
(40:47):
fact that the internet sort of gave us that, oh,
we're kind of living a similar life here, trying to
figure out what to do with our words and do
we want this to be a business or not, you know, like,
so to get to have that connection was such a
wonderful thing. Are there other moments you can think of
where you were like, oh man, the internet brought me
(41:07):
like a fun friend, or the internet brought me this
like wonderful moment. Do you have moments like that that
you can think of? Also? Well, one moment that was funny.
It was one of the first people I had met
in person who who followed me on on Twitter, and
we we talked for a little bit. We're at some
event together, and at the end of it, he was like,
(41:28):
you know, I don't always know if people are going
to be the same as they are online, Like if
you're going to meet someone and they're gonna be totally different,
because sometimes we're maybe we're more harsh online than we
are in person, or I don't know. And I was
just like holding my breath, like what do you got
to say to me? And he was like you're exactly
the same. Great, Like that works for me. I don't
(41:52):
know if everyone feels that way when they meet me,
but I was like, that's cool, Like I'm glad that
it feels congruent a bit, you know, so right now
something that's so important to me, and and I write
about this in my upcoming book. Actually on resistance is
just the the beauty of inner faith, inner spiritual work
(42:12):
with other people who have different from different cultures, different backgrounds.
And I have met so many new friends, Indigenous friends,
you know, um, who who practice things differently than I do,
Jewish friends, friends from Palestine, um, sick friends, you know,
like Buddhists and Hindu friends, like all of these these
(42:34):
people who share such different backgrounds than I do, and
we just come together for that underlying care and solidarity.
And I mean I have at least ten of those
people now that I've kind of put in this this
fool in my mind, Like I wish I could just
get them all in person one day and we could
(42:55):
just be in a room together, like I would probably
cry my little eyes out because it's it is truly
a beautiful thing to remember that there are humans behind
and there are wounded humans behind all these accounts, and
like that is all true. We are all deeply personally
and collectively wounded and traumatized in so many ways. But
(43:15):
also there's so much beauty of like getting to me
in person. And um, my friend Asha, who's an indigenous healer.
We met on Instagram and now she's one of my
dearest friends and we zoom and we talk and you know,
and she just released a new book and so I'm
like celebrating her book with her and just checking in
and you know, like again, like you said, just to
(43:35):
know I'm not alone in this. I have a handful
of women I know I can text and say this
happened to me. That's all I need to say. And
I know that you're one of them. Ash is one
of them, And I have like two or three others
that I know I can say something and that I'm
not being overly sensitive about it or overthinking it. It
just is what it is. I can say it, let
(43:56):
it sit with someone else besides myself. And like, I
didn't have that for the first few years of my career.
I don't think because I didn't I didn't realize I
could have it. And so there was a lot of loneliness.
So to know now that is an option that's there
and I can have that and hold it. The Internet
gave me that I will never forget. I will never
take that for granted, because it is such a gift.
(44:19):
I love that. I love that. It's good to think
about the good things that the internet and social media
have brought us. Obviously, you know, we could name ad
nauseum things that it brought us that we wish it
had not, But there are some things about it that
I'm like, oh, man, Like, I love that even though
you and I don't live in the same city anymore,
I can still like, see how you're doing, see how
(44:40):
your family is, see like what you're eating or something,
and like, I mean, also, I know I can text
and stuff like that too, but it's nice to see,
like what you might be talking about online, or you know,
the conversations you're beginning with your community. I love that
so much, Caitlin, I could just talk to you forever.
Oh my gosh, y'all, could you just talk to ka
live forever? Calin. I want to ask you one more question,
(45:03):
and then I want to make sure we have a
chance to share with the people where they can further
connect with you and connect with your work. But since
we are talking about the living room, I want to
know when you go and visit good friends of yours,
if you are called upon to bring a snack or
a beverage into the living room space, what is your
(45:26):
go to? Do you have a go to something that
you make or something that you buy, or does it
depend discuss with us what you bring in this moment.
It does depend for sure on what kinds of things
were going to be eating. I have been told that
I make for you good kale chips, but I don't
eat them. My children do. So if the people I'm
(45:51):
visiting like a good kale chip, I will make them
a giant bat and they will very much enjoy them.
But I will not be enjoying a alongside so um
as far as you know, Like, I've been trying to
eat more healthy in recent weeks. So now, if you
asked me now, I would make a really great like
(46:11):
chickpea salad with some vegans in it, or maybe a
wild rice dish from my culture like that would be
a lot of fun. In the past, I don't know.
I just probably bring like chips and salsa, which is
also a gift for all. It's always the right thing
I used to make. I would make like a like
tea with a simple syrup, you know, like that kind
(46:32):
of stuff that I would bring, something simple that most
people can have. Is how I go about things, hoping
most people can have, you know, depending on what they're
able to drink or eat. M that a long time
because I haven't been to anyone's house right, so like
it takes me a second. I'm like, what do I eat? Right?
What will I bring? How will I do this now? Mmmm?
(46:55):
I hope we get back to that because I missed that.
I missed. I missed the gathering where you got to
just bring a little something and taste other people's whatever,
a little something they brought. I mean I have definitely been,
you know, had my life changed by someone salad that
they brought to like a little get together thing and
I was like, what's this, Frese, what is this? Tell
me what this is? Why it tastes so herbal? Explain
(47:18):
it's delicious, you know, Like I love that kind of moment.
I missed that. We're gonna get back to it. I
recently had Cole Arthur Riley on the podcast who had
a time where she lived in Philly and I know
that you were there in the area too, and um,
you know, Philly is one of my food cities, Caitlin.
So what we're what we're wanting to happen, Caitlin, is
(47:39):
we're wanting I don't even want a gig to be there.
I just want to come there for a friend and
food trip. This is what we need, Caitlin. This is
what we need. So we're just gonna put it out
there in the atmosphere. I'm sprinkling my atmosphere fingers. Okay,
and the Hogy girl, those Philly hoagies. Really I was
(48:00):
watching I was watching a television show recently where this
man was like he was sitting in a pool with
his shirt off, and he just had like a pan
of like lasagna on his belly and he was just
eating it. And I looked at my husband and I
was like, this is the way, minus the pool. This
is how I like to have a hoagie in Philly.
(48:20):
I just want to bring it back to my room.
I want to sit in on my belly and just
mayo everywhere. That's the life I want to live. Caitlin, yes,
aft We're gonna do this, Caitlin. Tell the people they
want to connect more with your work. I have heard
wind that you were doing some writing over on the
(48:41):
sub stack, So tell the people how can they connect
with you over there? So you know, I'm on social
media just there are many days in a row where
I don't feel like I have anything to say, so
I want to see me reach tweet other people's great
things they have to say. You're welcome to show up
on Twitter with me. But I say things on my
sub stack, which is called the Liminality Journal, and it's
(49:03):
just the space to explore liminality, those in between areas
of our life. So I do a lot of original
poetry and essays there. It's just kind of feels lighter
than a lot of what I do right on normally,
and so it's been an amazing space. And so you
can subscribe to that. And I'm working on my third book,
which will be out next springs. But please, you know,
(49:25):
keep an eye out. I'm very excited about that. Oh
my gosh, Caitlin. Yes, can the people go to your
website and then they can click around there and it
can tell them all the times Caitlyn Curtis dot com
will have yeah updates and whatever you might need. That's exciting.
Hire me, Hire Caitlin and pay her white man rates.
That's what you need to do. Hire Caitlin, pay her
(49:48):
white man rates until they're not white man rates, until
they're just the rates we pay people who deserve to
be paid well, So do that people, Okay, Caitlin, gosh,
thank you so much for joining us, y'all. All of
Caitlin's links will be available in the show notes at
Amina Brown dot com slash are with Amina. You can
see all that info there. Caitlin, I just love you girl.
(50:10):
Thank you for taking this time to chat with me.
Thanks for being my internet and my in real life friend.
Thank you. Her with Amina Brown is produced by Matt
(50:30):
Owen for slover Fee Productions as a part of the
Seneca Women Podcast Network in partnership with I Heart Radio.
Thanks for listening and don't forget to subscribe, rate and
review the podcast.
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