April 9, 2025 • 30 mins
Today we're re-releasing Minnie's episode with Michelle Zauner, author, songwriter, and lead vocalist and guitarist of the band Japanese Breakfast. Japanese Breakfast just released their fourth studio album, For Melancholy Brunettes (and Sad Women), and begins their supporting tour this weekend. Minnie Questions will return with new episodes soon!
Minnie questions Michelle Zauner, author and musician who performs under the name Japanese Breakfast. Michelle reflects with Minnie on the loss of their mothers, shares how cooking takes her out of her head, and recalls childhood memories of sneaking through a fence to the Willamette River.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
I mean I feel like we've let go of timelines
so hugely in this past year and a half, Like
the idea of deadlines and timelines and time has just
been so elastic. I've had to create discipline that I
didn't have previously. And I also like react badly when
people are like, Okay, this has to be done by this.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
Time, and it's like, well, why if time is elastic?
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Is that what you say? How does that go?
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Over's? Literally as like I wish i'd said that. I'm not.
I didn't say that to anybody except you.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Start I'm going to start saying that to my manager.
Time is elastic?
Speaker 3 (00:34):
What do you mean? Eleven thirty? Time is elastic?
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Hello, I'm Mini driver and welcome to Mini Questions. I've
always loved Pruce's questionnaire. It was originally an eighteenth century
parlor game meant to reveal an individual's true nature, but
with so many questions, there wasn't really an opportunity to
expand on anything. So I took the format of Prus's
questionnaire and adapted what I think are serve one of
(01:00):
the most important questions you could ever ask someone they
are when and where were you happiest what is the
quality you like least about yourself? What relationship, real or fictionalized,
defines love for you? What question would you most like answered,
What person, place, or experience has shaped you the most?
(01:24):
What would be your last meal? And can you tell
me something in your life that has grown out of
a personal disaster. The more people we ask, the more
we begin to see what makes us similar and what
makes us individual. I've gathered a group of really remarkable
people who I am honored and humbled to have had
a chance to engage with. My guest today is musician, author,
(01:50):
and poet in my estimation, Michelle's Honor. Michelle records as
the band Japanese Breakfast, and her new record Jubilee is
now one of my favorite albums. We have both lost
our mothers and listening to the last three of her
album's tracks an extraordinary journey through patience, rage, and grief.
(02:15):
My favorite song on her new album is called Posing
in Bondage, and there's a line that I think about
a lot in it. It goes those who run from
pain those who have yet to. I felt intensely comforted
by her purview of loss, and the music is like
this awesome low fi, nimble, pop funk. It's just excellent.
(02:40):
And she's also written an extraordinary book that was on
the New York Times bestseller list called Crying in h Mart,
which is deft and hilarious and heartbreaking all at the
same time. I'm such a fan of hers, and I
feel like I owe her for showing me that there
is at least some of light at the end of
(03:01):
the tunnel of grief. What person, place, or experience has
most altered your life.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
I feel like my entire life right now feels very
folded in half around this moment of losing my mom.
I'm a very different person after that. My whole life changed.
I mean, my whole family just dissolves when my mom
passed away. My dad moved to Thailand and we don't
speak anymore. And you know, this person that represented my
entire family is gone, but lives on in me in
(03:37):
this new way.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
So I lost my MoMA a month and a half ago.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Oh my god, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
But I've I've got to tell you.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
I didn't know the stories behind your albums. And when
I went back and I listened with this new purview,
when I got listened to posing in bondage.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
I was like, this is where I'm gonna get.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
M so lovely to hear thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
The fact that your record do you believe? Like what
that means in.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Terms of like the word itself, and the idea that
there is celebration. There is celebration beyond death. There is
celebration in the relationship that develops with your parent after
they die that nobody really talks about, and that energetically
right now, even though I'm not there, the idea that
(04:26):
I'm going to get to this place, because when I
read parts of Crying in h Mart, it was realizing
it was so familiar. Obviously the whole it's so familiar,
but the idea that there is a journey that even
though it feels like life stopped, it goes on and
you carry on and do you believe in me? Felt
like the emergence of life again, life after loss, real
(04:49):
life after death was so beautiful and so amazing, and
I'm so I'm so grateful because it's been so comforting
to listen to your music.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Oh, thank you so much. That means so much to me.
I feel like you've just put into words that I
am still wrapping my head around trying to explain, and
so it hits me so hard that I feel like
you've just gotten completely what I meant to say, and
it's the first time I'm hearing it back to me.
So I really appreciate that.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
How great that it is meaningful? How great that what
you're doing as an artist, because surely work quite self
regarding as artists, you know we're in our process. But
to create something that not only touches people but genuinely
helps them, I think is very It's rare. Sorry, I've like,
you know, we've been on for two minutes.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
I've cried.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
I've told you no, that's so moving, Like it's nuts.
I mean, it's a rare, precious thing to get to
be vulnerable and impacted deeply by art. I mean, there's
no greater gift to get to share with you. So
I appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
You're welcome. I think you're right.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Artists don't often know how they've impacted the people who
are who are metabolizing their aret.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
I mean, that's why you do it too. I feel
like so much of the past couple of months has
just been the rush of like running to make force
people to like interact with your art, you know, so
you forget when it actually hits someone, and like why
you actually do it in the first place, because you're
so convinced sometimes that your art is hitting because of
(06:28):
like a marketing scheme or something. So it's nice to
be reminded that the actual thing is doing something much
more important, I think. I also, you know, there's a
line in that new song posing in Bondage and ASO
expanded up on in the book, where I say, you know,
when the world divides into two people, those who have
felt pain in those who have yet to.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
I've wrote it down. I have it written right here.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Oh well, those who run from pain, those who have
yet too.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
Yeah. I feel like that's how I see the world now.
And it's endless, like frustrating when you know people who
haven't gone through this experience, and it feels like such
an unfair hand to be dealt. But I also found
I have a much deeper sense of compassion to other people.
It was almost like I was invited into this new club.
I didn't want to be part of it, that's exactly,
(07:16):
that's exactly. Yeah. But I remember after my mom died,
I was sitting at a kitchen table with my mother
in law and her mother, my husband's grandmother, and they
were telling me about, you know, my mother in law's
brother died when she was in college. They were in
college together, and you know, she was telling me about
(07:37):
this experience, and then her mother was saying, you know,
I used to cry every day on the way to
work in the car and every day when I came home.
And now it was a strange feeling because I don't
know if they would have told me that story if
I hadn't sort of gone through this type of grief,
and I don't know if I would have felt it
so deeply, such an intense understanding, or even the way
(07:57):
that I feel towards you right now, that when you
just know that someone has gone through that you're understanding
and your feelings of closeness to a person really alters
after you go through something like that. And even though
it's really hard and it's not necessarily a club you
want to be a part of, there is some like
deeper connection to people. I think that you do start
(08:19):
to feel after you go through something like that that
is actually really beautiful one hundred.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
It moves from being I was angry, it's so awful
to say it.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
Then you then feel isolated in like you're this total pariah.
And then when you start talking to people who actually
have lost their moms and you realize that it's such
a particular club, it's such a particular journey. You are
very young to lose your mama. I mean, I'm one
hundred and forty, you know, I was. I'm older in it,
(08:56):
you know, but like it's still it was still too soon.
It was still too soon. What relationship, real or fictionalized,
(09:20):
defines love for you.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
I have a really wonderful relationship with my husband, and
I'm really lucky because we had dated for about a
year and a half when my mom got sick, and
when we found out her cancer was terminal, I called
him from a hospital in Korea and I was like,
if this is something that you are thinking of doing
(09:43):
in the next five years and you don't just do
it now, I don't think I'll ever be able to
forgive you. And so we threw together a wedding three
weeks before my mother passed away.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Because I was an only child, and you know, for me,
you know, getting married was never really that important of
a thing. For me, but I knew it was a
tremendously important thing for my mom and that if I
ever got married and she wasn't there, it would just
destroy me. I could never enjoy myself at a wedding.
So we were really lucky that she was able to
go to the wedding, and she went into a coma
(10:17):
two weeks after we got married. We got married in
my parents' backyard. I talked about it in the book,
and I am so lucky that it worked out. I mean,
I told him, you know, well, just get divorced if
it doesn't work out, you know, like we'll be like
young hip divorces. And you know, we can refer to
our first marriages in this like very you know, mature way,
(10:39):
you know, in our late twenties. And it just I
got so lucky because I think it worked out so
well because my family was able to fold him into
ours so seamlessly, and his family was able to embrace
me in such a deeper way because we got married,
and I think maybe subconsciously I could feel my nuclear
family apart and sort of needed to recreate that with someone.
(11:04):
And yeah, I mean I just I never knew that
I could feel this way about someone, and I feel
like we are very perfectly matched in this way that
you know, seemed realistically impossible, and so I can't think
of a I can't think of a greater love than our.
It's honestly, I truly feel that way. I'm very lucky
(11:25):
to have found that in my life.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Also, I think in a way, backing into these things
like it not happening in a traditional way, often it
destroys all of our previous ideas about it. The hearing
that you called him up and were like, listen, we
got to get married, or like or i'll hate you
or I hate you, just so you know, and the
fact that he could go this ritual is so important
(11:49):
to this person that I love. And not only that,
but like to her mother, I will do this as
an experience, but I love that the pressure is taken
off because it's like, yeah, and if we get divorced,
then maybe we'll get married again when we're like thirty.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Five, marriage right, exactly, like observing.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
The traditional desire of your mum to see you married,
but getting rid of the expectation it doesn't have to
work out. It's okay, And then that defines love.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
Yeah, and he. I mean, I wrote that song Till
Death about him, and you know, I don't know if
I could have honestly been there for someone so selflessly
the way that he was there for me during that time,
because you're just I mean, you know, like when you
go through the grief of losing someone so monumental to
your life, you become.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
So useless, totally and utterly useless.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
For a year, I felt like I was relearning how
to walk, you know, relearning how to feed myself, relearning
how to you know, breathe, and to have someone just
stand by you because there's absolutely nothing they can do
but just wait it out with you and wait for
the person they love to come back. I was really
(12:59):
lucky that I had someone like that, you know, to
just wait it out with me.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
I love I love that because you're right, it's standing
and waiting it out. And I felt that way when
when my mom was dying, was that all all we
could do was to be with her, was to hold
her hand and to be there and to love her.
And that's exactly what my boyfriend is doing for me now.
(13:25):
It's just standing.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
Yeah, he's not.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Trying to fix it because it's unfixable. It's kind of
like it's like standing by a really beautiful, really old tree.
It feels he's not old. He's actually much younger than me,
but it's he's an old tree in my in my life. Yeah,
it's funny, that, isn't it, Particularly when I don't know
about you. But I am such a doer. I want
(13:49):
to fix stuff. I want to make you know, I'm
a mom. I want to fix stuff for my kids.
I want to I want to make it better. And
you simply cannot make this better. You just have to
stand and witness it with as much compassion as you can.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
I guess totally. And there's just no skipping steps. I mean,
it is it's like a you know it is. It
is something that you just have to let take you
like a current, Like it's not it's not going to
wait for you, and when you think you've conquered it,
it's going to kick your ass in a totally new way.
I feel like.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
It's so true, and that by the way, it is
process like we are being forced or we are forced
to process this. There's no getting around it. There's no
jumping to the end of the alphabet. You have to
go through every step, and that felt suffocating to begin
with for me in the early days of grief, but
(14:41):
now it's sort of more of a this is.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
What we do.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
We wake up every day and you meet your grief
and you don't know how it's going to take you,
but you go with the current of it. You allow
that because fighting it is actually so much worse.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
Are you do you mind? If I ask her, are
you having a lot of dreams?
Speaker 3 (15:01):
You know?
Speaker 2 (15:02):
The strangest thing and that this is the part that
I've actually apart from her not being here, the thing
I've found hardest is that I have not dreamt. I've
been I've dreamt my whole life, like vividly, like write
them down dreams. I have not had a dream since
she died. And it's been it's been devastating. It's been
devastating to me that I haven't seen her in a dream.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
It'll happen. It'll happen when you're not at this place
where you're like where are you?
Speaker 3 (15:29):
You know, That's exactly it.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
Because my aunt, I'm pretty sure, was like, are you
dreaming about her? And I was like, oh my god,
I'm not, you know, like is that wrong?
Speaker 3 (15:38):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (15:38):
And I think it must have been because I was
like searching for it. But I feel like they they'll
come like when you aren't thinking about wanting them so badly,
you know.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
I wonder if they think it would make it worse,
if they're like, it would actually make it so much
worse if you do so. I don't want you to
wake up thinking that you've been with me. You need
to you need to have that little time path.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
You know. It was so frustrating because you see them
and then it's like trying to call your way back
to sleep and you can never do it. And it's
a really interesting part though. I mean, it's so interesting
because you think that all of these things are very
unique to you, but every person that goes through it
goes through the same thing. Even when I got married,
I was like, oh, I did this weird thing. And
I heard so many stories about people who put weddings
(16:22):
together when their parents were sick. Because there's a natural
you know, all human beings are kind of made up
of the same.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Stuff, exactly in the Venn diagram of our experiences, these
you know, matter made visible. There is so much that
is fundamental to all of us. We'll do the same
things in the same situations. I kind of love that
it feels tribal. Hmm, what is the quality that you
(16:51):
least like about yourself.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
I'm incredibly impatient in everything, and I can forget to
enjoy things sometimes.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Because you want the result like you, so you don't
pay attention to the journey of it as it were.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
Absolutely, yeah, that's my issue with art making. And sometimes
it's the great thing. But I'm not one to dwell
in the process, and I envy my husband's like that.
He is all processing sometimes never gets anything done because
he can learn something, can really take his time and
have full understanding of something, whereas I often tend to
(17:28):
skip steps and not in relish the process of things.
But I also can be really impatient with people too,
and I wish I wasn't like that.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
What triggers you about a person, like if they take
too long telling a story or what is it?
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Yeah? Yeah, that's definitely yeah, yeah, yeah, there's that. And
also if I think I'm quick to cut people out
of my life or like snap to judgment in a
way I don't suffer fools, Well.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
I know I'm exactly the same.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
I think a lot of it comes from my though,
because my mom raised me in this way where sometimes
my friends will confide in me about something, and you know,
my natural desire is to fix it. But I think
that when your friends confide in you, they're not asking
you to fix something. They just want to let it go,
you know, and they want someone to listen to them.
I want, I mean, I really want to get better
(18:18):
at like not being like, well, obviously you do this,
and then when they don't do that, you get naturally
kind of upset about it. And as I get older,
I'm realizing like, they're going to do whatever they want
to do. You can be you can offer some sound advice,
but I think largely what your friend really wants you
to do is just to be quiet and to listen
and offer up support. And I think sometimes I get
(18:40):
confused and I'm like, well, clearly this is like these
are the steps you need to take. And then if
they don't take them, because they're human and they have
their own interests and desires, like I have gotten frustrated
in the past, and that's like totally unfair and uh,
something that I just need to work on.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
I think, well, we all have stuff to work on.
But wait, so, because you write a lot about traditional
Korean cooking, and it feels to me that there is
an enormous amount of process in that, in the process
of cooking, in the process of like shopping for the
(19:19):
ingredients and.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
The whole thing.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
So is that an area where you're not focused on
the result, you really are in the journey. Would you
say that there's a lot of flow when you're making food.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
I do think so. I think it is like this
really tactle intuitive thing where you don't I'm not after
anything really when I'm doing I am like sort of
in the process of that, and I enjoy it and
I don't have to mentally like go after something in
the same way that I go after it in other
parts of my life. And I think that that's something
(19:52):
that I've really enjoyed about cooking, is because I'm such
analytical in my head person and there's none of that
really when you're cooking. It's all you know, very You're
very present and not thinking about the future really at all,
and your mind kind of unbusies itself in this beautiful way.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
That's so interesting. So it's like that's a that is
a meditation. I mean, that would be my description of
meditation or the meditative quality of absolutely. Yeah, that's so funny.
I think I read in something. I think it was
in the New Yorker in the excerpt from your book,
where you were like, somebody said, you just add enough
(20:30):
something until it tastes like mom's.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
Oh yeah, yeah, sesame oil, Are things enough?
Speaker 3 (20:35):
Samele? Did it taste that your mom's? That was excellent?
Thank you?
Speaker 1 (20:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
There's this meal that my mom would make for me
every time I came home from college. She would marinate
this short rib it's called Colby, this sweet Korean short
rib with white rice, this white radish kimchi in this
really tart brine with sesame oil and red piper flakes
(21:02):
and then this radish kimchi just the way that my mom.
It just is like a feeling, you know, it like
sits like here.
Speaker 3 (21:11):
Do you ever make that meal? Now?
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Not often? Not often, because it doesn't taste as good
when you make it for yourself. Part of it is
that you don't have to do anything, and it's just
this person has gone through this whole process of like
marinating this thing two days before and buying all the
ingredients like weeks before. You arrive and just knowing that
there was so much thought that went into it. It
(21:36):
doesn't taste as good or mean as much when you
make it for yourself.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
It's so true. But okay, hold on, I've got a plan.
So is your your is your husband? Is your husband
a good cooke?
Speaker 1 (21:48):
No, he's adorable, he's hoorable.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Okay, forget him. Do you have a friend who you love,
who you could say, okay.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
Can you pick a day?
Speaker 3 (21:57):
Don't tell me what it's gonna be.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
And I'm going to teach you and teach them how
to make it and then just have them, like on
your birthday, surprise you with this meal. And I think
that's a very good plan to see how I'm to
see how I'm trying to fix your You're not a problem,
Like you didn't have a problem.
Speaker 4 (22:16):
But I'm going to find a way to fix you're
not a problem.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
Where and when were you happiest? It's so funny because
it's such a childlike question to me, and when that
could be really be quantified by an actual moment, because
I know that happiness is like lots of different things
as we grow up, but like, if there is a
time that you can think of what would it be.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
The thing that comes to mind first, I guess is
I think that when you're a child, there's just such
like unadulterated feeling in this way that you never get back.
I think I could certainly say moments with my husband
or when I feel the greatest joy. But I grew
up in Eugene, Oregon, which is a really beautiful place
(23:12):
to grow up, and my friends and I used to
visit this little hole in a fence where we would
go through and have access to the Willamette River, and
we would sort of jump off these rocks and let
the current take us down maybe a quarter mile before
frantically swimming to shore and then scrambling back up to
(23:33):
do it again. And that is maybe one of my
favorite memories of just riding my bike in the summertime
and not worrying about much and being in nature and
the beautiful Pacific Northwest.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
God, that's amazing. That's a good image climbing through a
hole in a fence, jumping in a river and like
letting the current take you.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
That's like childhood in general, you know.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
But it is when there wasn't the same risk assess
month that certainly for me as a mother goes with
everything to do with my kid. I think our parents
were just so much freer with us. You know, I'd
freak out if I saw my son doing there, but
then I'd probably jump in and do it with him.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
I don't think my parents were too excited about it,
but they frequently didn't know, I think, or they just
gave up. There are certainly worse things that you can do,
I guess as a kid.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
Definitely, definitely.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
But it's so funny how that taking that risk, that
the risk assessment risk metric, which doesn't exist as a child,
where you are just where you're free. You're free of
second guessing, and so happiness is innate in a way
because it's not clouded by worry or irritation or judgment
or anything other than that present moment. I wish I
(24:47):
could be a bit more like that now.
Speaker 3 (24:49):
Me too.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
I don't know when that changed for me, you know,
I think that when my mom passed away, my relationship
to death changed a lot, and similarly, my risk aversion
and increased in this strange way, because I think once
you're really close to how fragile life can be and
(25:11):
how real death is in a way. I found myself
really afraid in this new way. Like I used to love,
you know, jumping off of high places into water, and
now after that's happened, I don't know if it's necessarily
because of that, or I also just got older and
became more afraid. I don't know if I would do
it anymore, or like even if I'm on a plane
(25:32):
and there's turbulence, that's something that I never was worried about,
and now I'm just certain I'm gonna die all the time.
Speaker 3 (25:42):
I'm certain I'm gonna die. Oh my god. It's so
it's so funny because like it is certain that we're
going to die.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
Yeah, say it like that, Like I'm certain we're going
to die in this moment. Losing someone you love so much,
it does. It makes you hang on to life life
really tightly. But there must be a version of that
where you can love life with looser hands.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
You know that.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Actually it's like no, no, no, just just be here,
just be here now and be in this life because yeah,
it is over way quicker than it's. One thing my
mom said it right as she was dying, was you know,
even if I had another another ten years, she was
eighty four. If I had another ten years, it still
wouldn't have been enough. Like it goes by in an instant,
(26:30):
it's so quick.
Speaker 3 (26:32):
Just love it. Maybe remembering the immediacy. It's so funny.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
I'm going to be thinking of that. If you crawling
through a hole on the fence and jumping and moving
water like it's so good, bike skidding and crawling through holes.
I think that was pretty much my whole childhood as well.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
Really, yeah, I wish that there was more of that
type of play incorporated into adult life, but I do
think that that is fair. I mean, I think I
lived my life. I'm just so aware of how limited
my time is in a way that I've accomplished so
much more in the past seven years because I think
(27:08):
I have so much to say before it's over. I
got married, I became successful as an artist for the
first time, I developed this incredible career, and really great
stuff happened also, you know, and it felt almost like
she was looking out for me in this way, and
I feel like it really lit a fire in me
(27:29):
to make those things happen in a way that I
didn't have before. And that is a more positive way
of looking at this these things.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
Yeah, yeah, I mean the rare gifts that come with
things that are hard that we don't incorporate into the
narrative often because we're too busy. We're too busy saying
that they're hard. You know, there's you know that quote
that Helen Keller. We only ever really say half of it,
where one door closes, another one opens. But what she
said was where and one door closes and another one opens.
(28:04):
I'm paraphrasing, we're so busy looking at the door that closed,
we forget to see the one that has opened. That's
actually the whole thing that she said. And I feel like,
since losing my mar I want to look at the
door that is opened. I felt every second of that
door closing, and I really just so firmly want to
(28:26):
look at the opening and to be in this moment because,
you know, to carry on, maybe to carry on the analogy.
The door closes really, really fucking quickly. Oh my gosh,
it has been such a pleasure. I'd say I'm sorry
about crying at the beginning of warranty, but I'm actually
(28:47):
not sorry that all. I'm so grateful to have connected
with the art that you're making. It's brilliant and thanks
for being here.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
Thank you so much. You're so welcome.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Michelle's new record, Jubilee, is out now and I strongly
suggest that you have a listen and dive into the
world that she creates and her book Crying in h
Mark has just had the film right sport, so you
should read the.
Speaker 3 (29:14):
Book before you see the movie. But I'm sure the
movie will be awesome.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
Mini Questions is hosted and written by Me Mini Driver,
supervising producer Aaron Kaufman, Producer Morgan Levoy, Research assistant Marissa Brown.
Original music Sorry Baby by Mini Driver, Additional music by
Aaron Kaufman.
Speaker 3 (29:39):
Executive produced by Me Mini Driver.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
Special thanks to Jim Nicolay, Will Pearson, Addison, O'Day, Lisa
Castella and Aniice Oppenheim, a WKPR, Dala Pescador, Kate Driver
and Jason Weinberg, and for constantly solicited tech support, Henry Driver.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
I mean I feel like we've let go of timelines
so hugely in this past year and a half, Like
the idea of deadlines and timelines and time has just
been so elastic. I've had to create discipline that I
didn't have previously. And I also like react badly when
people are like, Okay, this has to be done by this.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
Time, and it's like, well, why if time is elastic?
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Is that what you say? How does that go?
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Over's? Literally as like I wish i'd said that. I'm not.
I didn't say that to anybody except you.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Start I'm going to start saying that to my manager.
Time is elastic?
Speaker 3 (00:34):
What do you mean? Eleven thirty? Time is elastic?
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Hello, I'm Mini driver and welcome to Mini Questions. I've
always loved Pruce's questionnaire. It was originally an eighteenth century
parlor game meant to reveal an individual's true nature, but
with so many questions, there wasn't really an opportunity to
expand on anything. So I took the format of Prus's
questionnaire and adapted what I think are serve one of
(01:00):
the most important questions you could ever ask someone they
are when and where were you happiest what is the
quality you like least about yourself? What relationship, real or fictionalized,
defines love for you? What question would you most like answered,
What person, place, or experience has shaped you the most?
(01:24):
What would be your last meal? And can you tell
me something in your life that has grown out of
a personal disaster. The more people we ask, the more
we begin to see what makes us similar and what
makes us individual. I've gathered a group of really remarkable
people who I am honored and humbled to have had
a chance to engage with. My guest today is musician, author,
(01:50):
and poet in my estimation, Michelle's Honor. Michelle records as
the band Japanese Breakfast, and her new record Jubilee is
now one of my favorite albums. We have both lost
our mothers and listening to the last three of her
album's tracks an extraordinary journey through patience, rage, and grief.
(02:15):
My favorite song on her new album is called Posing
in Bondage, and there's a line that I think about
a lot in it. It goes those who run from
pain those who have yet to. I felt intensely comforted
by her purview of loss, and the music is like
this awesome low fi, nimble, pop funk. It's just excellent.
(02:40):
And she's also written an extraordinary book that was on
the New York Times bestseller list called Crying in h Mart,
which is deft and hilarious and heartbreaking all at the
same time. I'm such a fan of hers, and I
feel like I owe her for showing me that there
is at least some of light at the end of
(03:01):
the tunnel of grief. What person, place, or experience has
most altered your life.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
I feel like my entire life right now feels very
folded in half around this moment of losing my mom.
I'm a very different person after that. My whole life changed.
I mean, my whole family just dissolves when my mom
passed away. My dad moved to Thailand and we don't
speak anymore. And you know, this person that represented my
entire family is gone, but lives on in me in
(03:37):
this new way.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
So I lost my MoMA a month and a half ago.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Oh my god, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
But I've I've got to tell you.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
I didn't know the stories behind your albums. And when
I went back and I listened with this new purview,
when I got listened to posing in bondage.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
I was like, this is where I'm gonna get.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
M so lovely to hear thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
The fact that your record do you believe? Like what
that means in.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Terms of like the word itself, and the idea that
there is celebration. There is celebration beyond death. There is
celebration in the relationship that develops with your parent after
they die that nobody really talks about, and that energetically
right now, even though I'm not there, the idea that
(04:26):
I'm going to get to this place, because when I
read parts of Crying in h Mart, it was realizing
it was so familiar. Obviously the whole it's so familiar,
but the idea that there is a journey that even
though it feels like life stopped, it goes on and
you carry on and do you believe in me? Felt
like the emergence of life again, life after loss, real
(04:49):
life after death was so beautiful and so amazing, and
I'm so I'm so grateful because it's been so comforting
to listen to your music.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Oh, thank you so much. That means so much to me.
I feel like you've just put into words that I
am still wrapping my head around trying to explain, and
so it hits me so hard that I feel like
you've just gotten completely what I meant to say, and
it's the first time I'm hearing it back to me.
So I really appreciate that.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
How great that it is meaningful? How great that what
you're doing as an artist, because surely work quite self
regarding as artists, you know we're in our process. But
to create something that not only touches people but genuinely
helps them, I think is very It's rare. Sorry, I've like,
you know, we've been on for two minutes.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
I've cried.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
I've told you no, that's so moving, Like it's nuts.
I mean, it's a rare, precious thing to get to
be vulnerable and impacted deeply by art. I mean, there's
no greater gift to get to share with you. So
I appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
You're welcome. I think you're right.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Artists don't often know how they've impacted the people who
are who are metabolizing their aret.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
I mean, that's why you do it too. I feel
like so much of the past couple of months has
just been the rush of like running to make force
people to like interact with your art, you know, so
you forget when it actually hits someone, and like why
you actually do it in the first place, because you're
so convinced sometimes that your art is hitting because of
(06:28):
like a marketing scheme or something. So it's nice to
be reminded that the actual thing is doing something much
more important, I think. I also, you know, there's a
line in that new song posing in Bondage and ASO
expanded up on in the book, where I say, you know,
when the world divides into two people, those who have
felt pain in those who have yet to.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
I've wrote it down. I have it written right here.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Oh well, those who run from pain, those who have
yet too.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
Yeah. I feel like that's how I see the world now.
And it's endless, like frustrating when you know people who
haven't gone through this experience, and it feels like such
an unfair hand to be dealt. But I also found
I have a much deeper sense of compassion to other people.
It was almost like I was invited into this new club.
I didn't want to be part of it, that's exactly,
(07:16):
that's exactly. Yeah. But I remember after my mom died,
I was sitting at a kitchen table with my mother
in law and her mother, my husband's grandmother, and they
were telling me about, you know, my mother in law's
brother died when she was in college. They were in
college together, and you know, she was telling me about
(07:37):
this experience, and then her mother was saying, you know,
I used to cry every day on the way to
work in the car and every day when I came home.
And now it was a strange feeling because I don't
know if they would have told me that story if
I hadn't sort of gone through this type of grief,
and I don't know if I would have felt it
so deeply, such an intense understanding, or even the way
(07:57):
that I feel towards you right now, that when you
just know that someone has gone through that you're understanding
and your feelings of closeness to a person really alters
after you go through something like that. And even though
it's really hard and it's not necessarily a club you
want to be a part of, there is some like
deeper connection to people. I think that you do start
(08:19):
to feel after you go through something like that that
is actually really beautiful one hundred.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
It moves from being I was angry, it's so awful
to say it.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
Then you then feel isolated in like you're this total pariah.
And then when you start talking to people who actually
have lost their moms and you realize that it's such
a particular club, it's such a particular journey. You are
very young to lose your mama. I mean, I'm one
hundred and forty, you know, I was. I'm older in it,
(08:56):
you know, but like it's still it was still too soon.
It was still too soon. What relationship, real or fictionalized,
(09:20):
defines love for you.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
I have a really wonderful relationship with my husband, and
I'm really lucky because we had dated for about a
year and a half when my mom got sick, and
when we found out her cancer was terminal, I called
him from a hospital in Korea and I was like,
if this is something that you are thinking of doing
(09:43):
in the next five years and you don't just do
it now, I don't think I'll ever be able to
forgive you. And so we threw together a wedding three
weeks before my mother passed away.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Because I was an only child, and you know, for me,
you know, getting married was never really that important of
a thing. For me, but I knew it was a
tremendously important thing for my mom and that if I
ever got married and she wasn't there, it would just
destroy me. I could never enjoy myself at a wedding.
So we were really lucky that she was able to
go to the wedding, and she went into a coma
(10:17):
two weeks after we got married. We got married in
my parents' backyard. I talked about it in the book,
and I am so lucky that it worked out. I mean,
I told him, you know, well, just get divorced if
it doesn't work out, you know, like we'll be like
young hip divorces. And you know, we can refer to
our first marriages in this like very you know, mature way,
(10:39):
you know, in our late twenties. And it just I
got so lucky because I think it worked out so
well because my family was able to fold him into
ours so seamlessly, and his family was able to embrace
me in such a deeper way because we got married,
and I think maybe subconsciously I could feel my nuclear
family apart and sort of needed to recreate that with someone.
(11:04):
And yeah, I mean I just I never knew that
I could feel this way about someone, and I feel
like we are very perfectly matched in this way that
you know, seemed realistically impossible, and so I can't think
of a I can't think of a greater love than our.
It's honestly, I truly feel that way. I'm very lucky
(11:25):
to have found that in my life.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Also, I think in a way, backing into these things
like it not happening in a traditional way, often it
destroys all of our previous ideas about it. The hearing
that you called him up and were like, listen, we
got to get married, or like or i'll hate you
or I hate you, just so you know, and the
fact that he could go this ritual is so important
(11:49):
to this person that I love. And not only that,
but like to her mother, I will do this as
an experience, but I love that the pressure is taken
off because it's like, yeah, and if we get divorced,
then maybe we'll get married again when we're like thirty.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Five, marriage right, exactly, like observing.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
The traditional desire of your mum to see you married,
but getting rid of the expectation it doesn't have to
work out. It's okay, And then that defines love.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
Yeah, and he. I mean, I wrote that song Till
Death about him, and you know, I don't know if
I could have honestly been there for someone so selflessly
the way that he was there for me during that time,
because you're just I mean, you know, like when you
go through the grief of losing someone so monumental to
your life, you become.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
So useless, totally and utterly useless.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
For a year, I felt like I was relearning how
to walk, you know, relearning how to feed myself, relearning
how to you know, breathe, and to have someone just
stand by you because there's absolutely nothing they can do
but just wait it out with you and wait for
the person they love to come back. I was really
(12:59):
lucky that I had someone like that, you know, to
just wait it out with me.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
I love I love that because you're right, it's standing
and waiting it out. And I felt that way when
when my mom was dying, was that all all we
could do was to be with her, was to hold
her hand and to be there and to love her.
And that's exactly what my boyfriend is doing for me now.
(13:25):
It's just standing.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
Yeah, he's not.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Trying to fix it because it's unfixable. It's kind of
like it's like standing by a really beautiful, really old tree.
It feels he's not old. He's actually much younger than me,
but it's he's an old tree in my in my life. Yeah,
it's funny, that, isn't it, Particularly when I don't know
about you. But I am such a doer. I want
(13:49):
to fix stuff. I want to make you know, I'm
a mom. I want to fix stuff for my kids.
I want to I want to make it better. And
you simply cannot make this better. You just have to
stand and witness it with as much compassion as you can.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
I guess totally. And there's just no skipping steps. I mean,
it is it's like a you know it is. It
is something that you just have to let take you
like a current, Like it's not it's not going to
wait for you, and when you think you've conquered it,
it's going to kick your ass in a totally new way.
I feel like.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
It's so true, and that by the way, it is
process like we are being forced or we are forced
to process this. There's no getting around it. There's no
jumping to the end of the alphabet. You have to
go through every step, and that felt suffocating to begin
with for me in the early days of grief, but
(14:41):
now it's sort of more of a this is.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
What we do.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
We wake up every day and you meet your grief
and you don't know how it's going to take you,
but you go with the current of it. You allow
that because fighting it is actually so much worse.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
Are you do you mind? If I ask her, are
you having a lot of dreams?
Speaker 3 (15:01):
You know?
Speaker 2 (15:02):
The strangest thing and that this is the part that
I've actually apart from her not being here, the thing
I've found hardest is that I have not dreamt. I've
been I've dreamt my whole life, like vividly, like write
them down dreams. I have not had a dream since
she died. And it's been it's been devastating. It's been
devastating to me that I haven't seen her in a dream.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
It'll happen. It'll happen when you're not at this place
where you're like where are you?
Speaker 3 (15:29):
You know, That's exactly it.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
Because my aunt, I'm pretty sure, was like, are you
dreaming about her? And I was like, oh my god,
I'm not, you know, like is that wrong?
Speaker 3 (15:38):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (15:38):
And I think it must have been because I was
like searching for it. But I feel like they they'll
come like when you aren't thinking about wanting them so badly,
you know.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
I wonder if they think it would make it worse,
if they're like, it would actually make it so much
worse if you do so. I don't want you to
wake up thinking that you've been with me. You need
to you need to have that little time path.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
You know. It was so frustrating because you see them
and then it's like trying to call your way back
to sleep and you can never do it. And it's
a really interesting part though. I mean, it's so interesting
because you think that all of these things are very
unique to you, but every person that goes through it
goes through the same thing. Even when I got married,
I was like, oh, I did this weird thing. And
I heard so many stories about people who put weddings
(16:22):
together when their parents were sick. Because there's a natural
you know, all human beings are kind of made up
of the same.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Stuff, exactly in the Venn diagram of our experiences, these
you know, matter made visible. There is so much that
is fundamental to all of us. We'll do the same
things in the same situations. I kind of love that
it feels tribal. Hmm, what is the quality that you
(16:51):
least like about yourself.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
I'm incredibly impatient in everything, and I can forget to
enjoy things sometimes.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Because you want the result like you, so you don't
pay attention to the journey of it as it were.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
Absolutely, yeah, that's my issue with art making. And sometimes
it's the great thing. But I'm not one to dwell
in the process, and I envy my husband's like that.
He is all processing sometimes never gets anything done because
he can learn something, can really take his time and
have full understanding of something, whereas I often tend to
(17:28):
skip steps and not in relish the process of things.
But I also can be really impatient with people too,
and I wish I wasn't like that.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
What triggers you about a person, like if they take
too long telling a story or what is it?
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Yeah? Yeah, that's definitely yeah, yeah, yeah, there's that. And
also if I think I'm quick to cut people out
of my life or like snap to judgment in a
way I don't suffer fools, Well.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
I know I'm exactly the same.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
I think a lot of it comes from my though,
because my mom raised me in this way where sometimes
my friends will confide in me about something, and you know,
my natural desire is to fix it. But I think
that when your friends confide in you, they're not asking
you to fix something. They just want to let it go,
you know, and they want someone to listen to them.
I want, I mean, I really want to get better
(18:18):
at like not being like, well, obviously you do this,
and then when they don't do that, you get naturally
kind of upset about it. And as I get older,
I'm realizing like, they're going to do whatever they want
to do. You can be you can offer some sound advice,
but I think largely what your friend really wants you
to do is just to be quiet and to listen
and offer up support. And I think sometimes I get
(18:40):
confused and I'm like, well, clearly this is like these
are the steps you need to take. And then if
they don't take them, because they're human and they have
their own interests and desires, like I have gotten frustrated
in the past, and that's like totally unfair and uh,
something that I just need to work on.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
I think, well, we all have stuff to work on.
But wait, so, because you write a lot about traditional
Korean cooking, and it feels to me that there is
an enormous amount of process in that, in the process
of cooking, in the process of like shopping for the
(19:19):
ingredients and.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
The whole thing.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
So is that an area where you're not focused on
the result, you really are in the journey. Would you
say that there's a lot of flow when you're making food.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
I do think so. I think it is like this
really tactle intuitive thing where you don't I'm not after
anything really when I'm doing I am like sort of
in the process of that, and I enjoy it and
I don't have to mentally like go after something in
the same way that I go after it in other
parts of my life. And I think that that's something
(19:52):
that I've really enjoyed about cooking, is because I'm such
analytical in my head person and there's none of that
really when you're cooking. It's all you know, very You're
very present and not thinking about the future really at all,
and your mind kind of unbusies itself in this beautiful way.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
That's so interesting. So it's like that's a that is
a meditation. I mean, that would be my description of
meditation or the meditative quality of absolutely. Yeah, that's so funny.
I think I read in something. I think it was
in the New Yorker in the excerpt from your book,
where you were like, somebody said, you just add enough
(20:30):
something until it tastes like mom's.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
Oh yeah, yeah, sesame oil, Are things enough?
Speaker 3 (20:35):
Samele? Did it taste that your mom's? That was excellent?
Thank you?
Speaker 1 (20:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
There's this meal that my mom would make for me
every time I came home from college. She would marinate
this short rib it's called Colby, this sweet Korean short
rib with white rice, this white radish kimchi in this
really tart brine with sesame oil and red piper flakes
(21:02):
and then this radish kimchi just the way that my mom.
It just is like a feeling, you know, it like
sits like here.
Speaker 3 (21:11):
Do you ever make that meal? Now?
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Not often? Not often, because it doesn't taste as good
when you make it for yourself. Part of it is
that you don't have to do anything, and it's just
this person has gone through this whole process of like
marinating this thing two days before and buying all the
ingredients like weeks before. You arrive and just knowing that
there was so much thought that went into it. It
(21:36):
doesn't taste as good or mean as much when you
make it for yourself.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
It's so true. But okay, hold on, I've got a plan.
So is your your is your husband? Is your husband
a good cooke?
Speaker 1 (21:48):
No, he's adorable, he's hoorable.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Okay, forget him. Do you have a friend who you love,
who you could say, okay.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
Can you pick a day?
Speaker 3 (21:57):
Don't tell me what it's gonna be.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
And I'm going to teach you and teach them how
to make it and then just have them, like on
your birthday, surprise you with this meal. And I think
that's a very good plan to see how I'm to
see how I'm trying to fix your You're not a problem,
Like you didn't have a problem.
Speaker 4 (22:16):
But I'm going to find a way to fix you're
not a problem.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
Where and when were you happiest? It's so funny because
it's such a childlike question to me, and when that
could be really be quantified by an actual moment, because
I know that happiness is like lots of different things
as we grow up, but like, if there is a
time that you can think of what would it be.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
The thing that comes to mind first, I guess is
I think that when you're a child, there's just such
like unadulterated feeling in this way that you never get back.
I think I could certainly say moments with my husband
or when I feel the greatest joy. But I grew
up in Eugene, Oregon, which is a really beautiful place
(23:12):
to grow up, and my friends and I used to
visit this little hole in a fence where we would
go through and have access to the Willamette River, and
we would sort of jump off these rocks and let
the current take us down maybe a quarter mile before
frantically swimming to shore and then scrambling back up to
(23:33):
do it again. And that is maybe one of my
favorite memories of just riding my bike in the summertime
and not worrying about much and being in nature and
the beautiful Pacific Northwest.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
God, that's amazing. That's a good image climbing through a
hole in a fence, jumping in a river and like
letting the current take you.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
That's like childhood in general, you know.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
But it is when there wasn't the same risk assess
month that certainly for me as a mother goes with
everything to do with my kid. I think our parents
were just so much freer with us. You know, I'd
freak out if I saw my son doing there, but
then I'd probably jump in and do it with him.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
I don't think my parents were too excited about it,
but they frequently didn't know, I think, or they just
gave up. There are certainly worse things that you can do,
I guess as a kid.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
Definitely, definitely.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
But it's so funny how that taking that risk, that
the risk assessment risk metric, which doesn't exist as a child,
where you are just where you're free. You're free of
second guessing, and so happiness is innate in a way
because it's not clouded by worry or irritation or judgment
or anything other than that present moment. I wish I
(24:47):
could be a bit more like that now.
Speaker 3 (24:49):
Me too.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
I don't know when that changed for me, you know,
I think that when my mom passed away, my relationship
to death changed a lot, and similarly, my risk aversion
and increased in this strange way, because I think once
you're really close to how fragile life can be and
(25:11):
how real death is in a way. I found myself
really afraid in this new way. Like I used to love,
you know, jumping off of high places into water, and
now after that's happened, I don't know if it's necessarily
because of that, or I also just got older and
became more afraid. I don't know if I would do
it anymore, or like even if I'm on a plane
(25:32):
and there's turbulence, that's something that I never was worried about,
and now I'm just certain I'm gonna die all the time.
Speaker 3 (25:42):
I'm certain I'm gonna die. Oh my god. It's so
it's so funny because like it is certain that we're
going to die.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
Yeah, say it like that, Like I'm certain we're going
to die in this moment. Losing someone you love so much,
it does. It makes you hang on to life life
really tightly. But there must be a version of that
where you can love life with looser hands.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
You know that.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Actually it's like no, no, no, just just be here,
just be here now and be in this life because yeah,
it is over way quicker than it's. One thing my
mom said it right as she was dying, was you know,
even if I had another another ten years, she was
eighty four. If I had another ten years, it still
wouldn't have been enough. Like it goes by in an instant,
(26:30):
it's so quick.
Speaker 3 (26:32):
Just love it. Maybe remembering the immediacy. It's so funny.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
I'm going to be thinking of that. If you crawling
through a hole on the fence and jumping and moving
water like it's so good, bike skidding and crawling through holes.
I think that was pretty much my whole childhood as well.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
Really, yeah, I wish that there was more of that
type of play incorporated into adult life, but I do
think that that is fair. I mean, I think I
lived my life. I'm just so aware of how limited
my time is in a way that I've accomplished so
much more in the past seven years because I think
(27:08):
I have so much to say before it's over. I
got married, I became successful as an artist for the
first time, I developed this incredible career, and really great
stuff happened also, you know, and it felt almost like
she was looking out for me in this way, and
I feel like it really lit a fire in me
(27:29):
to make those things happen in a way that I
didn't have before. And that is a more positive way
of looking at this these things.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
Yeah, yeah, I mean the rare gifts that come with
things that are hard that we don't incorporate into the
narrative often because we're too busy. We're too busy saying
that they're hard. You know, there's you know that quote
that Helen Keller. We only ever really say half of it,
where one door closes, another one opens. But what she
said was where and one door closes and another one opens.
(28:04):
I'm paraphrasing, we're so busy looking at the door that closed,
we forget to see the one that has opened. That's
actually the whole thing that she said. And I feel like,
since losing my mar I want to look at the
door that is opened. I felt every second of that
door closing, and I really just so firmly want to
(28:26):
look at the opening and to be in this moment because,
you know, to carry on, maybe to carry on the analogy.
The door closes really, really fucking quickly. Oh my gosh,
it has been such a pleasure. I'd say I'm sorry
about crying at the beginning of warranty, but I'm actually
(28:47):
not sorry that all. I'm so grateful to have connected
with the art that you're making. It's brilliant and thanks
for being here.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
Thank you so much. You're so welcome.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Michelle's new record, Jubilee, is out now and I strongly
suggest that you have a listen and dive into the
world that she creates and her book Crying in h
Mark has just had the film right sport, so you
should read the.
Speaker 3 (29:14):
Book before you see the movie. But I'm sure the
movie will be awesome.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
Mini Questions is hosted and written by Me Mini Driver,
supervising producer Aaron Kaufman, Producer Morgan Levoy, Research assistant Marissa Brown.
Original music Sorry Baby by Mini Driver, Additional music by
Aaron Kaufman.
Speaker 3 (29:39):
Executive produced by Me Mini Driver.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
Special thanks to Jim Nicolay, Will Pearson, Addison, O'Day, Lisa
Castella and Aniice Oppenheim, a WKPR, Dala Pescador, Kate Driver
and Jason Weinberg, and for constantly solicited tech support, Henry Driver.
Host
Minnie Driver
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