February 12, 2025 • 36 mins
Minnie questions Shawn Colvin, Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter best known for her hits “Sunny Came Home” and “Steady On.” Shawn and Minnie bond over their love of being in the water, the music playlists they curated for childbirth, and absolutely horrible song lyrics.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
I've tried not to prepare really so we'll see.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Yeah, it's funny.
Speaker 3 (00:05):
It goes one of two ways. People either really think
about it or they don't.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
I've gone like care from her.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
I think it's fine because I think it's all sort
of a trigger anyway, you know, for a larger conversation
about yeah, life and being here.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
I think that's exactly right. It made me think a lot.
Speaker 4 (00:26):
Hello, I'm mini driver. I've always loved Preust's questionnaire. It
was originally in nineteenth century parlor game where players would
ask each other thirty five questions aimed at revealing.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
The other player's true nature.
Speaker 4 (00:40):
In asking different people the same set of questions, you
can make observations about which truths appear to be universal.
And it made me wonder, what if these questions were
just a jumping off point, what greater depths would be
revealed if I asked these questions as conversation starters.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
So I adapted Prus's.
Speaker 4 (00:58):
Questionnaire and I wrote my own seven questions that I
personally think are pertinent to a person's story. 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?
(01:18):
What would be your last meal? And can you tell
me something in your life that's grown out of a
personal disaster? And I've gathered a group of really remarkable people,
ones that I am honored and humbled to have had
the chance to engage with. You may not hear their
answers to all seven of these questions. We've whittled it
down to which questions felt closest to their experience, or
(01:42):
the most surprising, or created the most fertile ground to connect.
Speaker 5 (01:49):
My guest today is the multiple Grammy Award winning musician
and songwriter Sean Colvin. I feel like Sean's song Sonny
Came Home, which came out in nineteen ninety six, was
the soundtrack to one of the most poignant parts of
my life, and so it was probably poignant in yours too.
I still find that song to be both beautiful and
(02:10):
haunting for all kinds of reasons. She writes what I
consider to be pure folk music and has a voice
that is both transporting and full of wisdom. Rather like
Sean herself, we had such a wonderful conversation bonding about
swimming in great, big bodies of water and a shared
love of Barton Springs, which is this amazing natural pool
in Austin, Texas, where Sean lives.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
A few years ago she published.
Speaker 5 (02:34):
A really lovely memoir called Diamond in the Rath, and
this year she is touring with Kebmo and her tour
dates are available at Seancolvin music dot com.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
It's so funny.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
I've been doing pressed or something, and lots of these
journalists have asked me, you know, I'd like to ask
you my favorite question of your questions, and I have
given the most useless answers. It really on the spot,
like really not great answers.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
I don't believe you all.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
It really wasn't.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
I really regretted one of them. They asked me what relationship,
real or fictionalized, defined love for me, and I said
that it was I used to stand in the rain
and watch Daniel da Lewis play soccer because he went
to my school and he was older than me, much
older than me. He used to come back and play
in these old boy football matches, and I loved him
(03:22):
so much, and he was related to my uncle who
married my aunt, and so I felt like he was family.
And what I really wanted to say was not Daniel
da Lewis necessarily defines love for me, but the generosity
and the kindness.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
That he showed me.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
He would always walk back to the changing rooms slowly,
even if it was pounding rain. He would answer all
of my questions. He had patience, he had kindness, had
incredible energy and focus, and I felt like all those
things are real definers of love and I've never forgotten it.
But obviously the journalist is only going to write about
(04:01):
I love Daniel Davis.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Yeah, I know.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
It will be good publicity.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
You know what you do.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
Yeah, there you're going, Okay, Well, I'm going to ask
you my first question, which is when and why were
you happiest.
Speaker 6 (04:21):
I looked up the definition of the word happiness. I
wanted kind of a prompt, and that helped me think
about it more.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
I think safety is a big part of it.
Speaker 6 (04:30):
To feel safe is the very happy place, and to me,
it comes down to music, playing music, writing music, hearing music,
and water bodies of water. I grew up in South
Dakota and my father, who was the most fun loving
(04:52):
prankster ish, cool, goofy guy loved the water. And we
had a late close to us called Lewis and Clark
Lake in Yanked in South Dakota. And things weren't always
great at home, but being in that lake, by that lake,
on the boat, everything was okay. I felt a sense
(05:13):
of contentment, belonging, happiness, joy and safety. And we slept
all in this camper, all of us together, and there
was a closeness and a safety there.
Speaker 5 (05:26):
You know.
Speaker 6 (05:27):
I was a kid who didn't like having the door
shut to my room and darkness and being alone there,
So that was wonderful too.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
And body's of water. Just do it for me?
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Swimming does it?
Speaker 6 (05:37):
Immersing myself in them, It's very important, not just looking
at them. There's a beach in Positano, Italy that some
of my ashes are going there, okay. And there's a
naturally fed springs pool here in Austin, Texas.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
I know it bought in springs that is where Texas
breeds through Boughton Springs.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
It seems to me it is.
Speaker 6 (05:56):
It's a miracle. It's a wonder of nature. I don't
know any place like it that's in the middle of
a city. I go there every morning. I go there
every single morning. That's how I start my day.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
And I'm having.
Speaker 6 (06:07):
Ashes spread there too, but that's a secret because I'm
sure it's against the law.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
Shania during the recent eclipse, my best friend in the world,
Alexandra Valenti and Avid listener.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Of this podcast. She'll be listening now, the photographer.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Yes, she's taken my picture many.
Speaker 6 (06:23):
Okay, Yeah, she's wonderful.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
She used to live there. Okay, she does, she still
lives still.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
We went out, we were in we were in the
water up you know, there's that jetty where boats can
refuel and there's a great kind of general store. We
were past there and just between these two bridges and
we were in the water with our glasses on for
the eclipse.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
And it was.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
Honestly one of the most incredible moments of my life.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
I think I have it on my Instagram.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
I have the video which is just a lot of
screaming as it goes to pitch black.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
Where you Well, I was here? Were you near the water?
Will you?
Speaker 6 (07:03):
I was not. I was in my home. I was
in my home and I just was sitting around, going, well,
we'll see. I thought, well, it's going to be crowded
out there, and I couldn't wait for it, but I
didn't make a big social thing out of it.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
And it got a little dark and I was like, yeah,
all right, and then it's got pitch black and the screaming.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
I ran outside. The screaming started.
Speaker 6 (07:26):
All the street lights came on, and one of the
I looked up. What happened to animals in the zoos
when the eclipse happened. A lot of them herded together,
which was interesting. But what I like the most was
the ones who were nocturnal came out.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Okay, time to get up, and the ones that.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
You know usually went to bed at night just started
going to their beds.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Gosh, I mean, that makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
There was a huge amount of bird and butterfly activity
out on the water.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
It was what happened.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
First of all, everything cleared, all of the birds and
all of the butterflies. They all came sort of swarming
across the water, and then they just disappeared into the
trees and under the bridges. And then as the light
was coming back, I assume in their beings they were
thinking it was dawn, and so they were swooping and
one of the guys on the boat. He was like,
(08:20):
I think it's because this is what they do in
the morning. They sort of swooped back was and forwards
from underneath the bridges and out of the trees, like
away from their nest and out into the day, and
again the butterflies kind of swarmed back the other way.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
It was truly spiritual.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
Yea, what it's going to happen in another four hundred
years or something?
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Is that the k is a long time?
Speaker 6 (08:40):
Were they singing like morning birds? Were they tweeting a lot?
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Yeah? They were.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
They absolutely were making a lot of noise. It was
really magical, truly truly amazing. That makes a lot of
sense if I lived in Arson and I would go
to Barton Springs every single morning and swim, It's fantastic.
What person place or experience most ultitude life.
Speaker 6 (09:06):
I really have to say the experience of getting so
I was twenty seven, so I was very lucky, but
I was miserable. As I like to say, I had
my share. I mean, it's just that was my timeline.
I didn't have to go till I was however old.
I bottomed out and in New York City, and you know,
(09:29):
you know, lecture everyone about addiction and alcoholism, but it's
a disease, and I was very sick, and it's a
very tough.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Disease, you know.
Speaker 6 (09:39):
It's a disease of denial, and addiction is a rough one.
It's an obsession of the mind, the craving of the body.
I mean, it's fierce, and not everybody makes it. And
for me, it was more than mornings after where I
just felt suicidally depressed. And I remember one of the
(10:00):
thoughts I had that really kind of made a difference
in me having a revelatory moment that this had to stop.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
And it was ego driven.
Speaker 6 (10:12):
I thought to myself, you know, because in high school
I was in all the musicals and debate team and
speech team and duet acting.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
I had a lot of friends.
Speaker 6 (10:22):
I was the girl guitar, seemed to have a lot
of potential, right and there was in New York. Yeah,
I was doing music and suddenly I thought all my
friends in high school are going to find out I'm
a drunk.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
And that really got me. I really remember that.
Speaker 6 (10:39):
It was just kind of a come to Jesus about
this is this is real?
Speaker 1 (10:43):
This is what's going on with you.
Speaker 6 (10:45):
So I got help, and I was so blessed and
lucky because it took, and it doesn't with everyone. I
just feel like I was really blessed with that. So
it transformed my life. Was in a program that really
kind of taught me how to live and introduced a
(11:06):
spiritual overview to living. All the things that have happened
to me since then, my dreams have come true. And
I firmly believe that would not have happened had I
not had a combination of some light shining on me
and just the epiphany that just couldn't go on, and
(11:31):
then I've found somewhere to take it.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
Have you found what you found through the program all
through the people that you met or through that experience.
Have you sort of handed that on to someone else?
Like have you kind of continued that chain and like
what you were given. Have you had the opportunity to
kind of.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Have that on?
Speaker 6 (11:52):
I mean, I've tried, and I've found that there's not
much you can say true. All I can hope for
is and I know this because of people that talk
to me, because they know me, because of what I do.
The other person, you're setting an example, not encouraging it,
proselytizing you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
I do. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
I think it's just through my actions effected.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
People the most.
Speaker 6 (12:18):
Yeah, it's doing it because I remember once I was
sober for a year or two, had a great friend
who was a drummer, sweetest guy, great guy, terrible alcoholic,
and I told him what had happened to me and
he was like, oh man, I got to do that,
I got to do that.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
And I'm like, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
I was just so happy. I'm like, yay, he's going
to come in.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
He died.
Speaker 6 (12:45):
He died before he came in. And that taught me
a lot. It kind of taught me a lot, like
you can't convince somebody except through your own experience and
through their willingness to want to change, yeah and recover. Yeah,
so that's the defining experience for sure. I don't know
(13:06):
what i'd be doing right now. How old were you
when you had your daughter?
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Forty two?
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Nice? Nice?
Speaker 5 (13:17):
No?
Speaker 2 (13:17):
How about you? I was thirty eight? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (13:23):
Yeah, I mean you know, they called it a geriatric pregnancy,
which I thought was so unnecessary.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
They did. They did so sad like these labels. But yeah,
he's magic.
Speaker 6 (13:36):
Yeah, they are magic. Does he have a good sense
of humor? That's what he thinks. I loved the most
about my kid. She's hysterical. Isn't that very absolutely?
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (13:46):
Because I think kind, funny, clever. Those were sort of
my benchmarks of what I sort of loving a person.
I've always thrown that around and thought that everything can
actually be distilled into those things.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
That makes a lot of sense to me.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
Can you tell me about something that has grown out
of the personal disaster?
Speaker 2 (14:23):
Gray Heir? That is the truth, That is the literal truth.
Speaker 6 (14:32):
When I saw the word grown, I was like, oh, yeah, that.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
I'm trying to think of something else.
Speaker 6 (14:39):
Besides the kind of pivotal thing about giving up alcohol.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
Being a single mom?
Speaker 3 (14:46):
Was that difficult in the beginning because I was also
a single mom, And while it was heavenly in a
lot of respects, I love not having anybody telling me
what to do.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
With vapor misers. No, no, no, no no no, I didn't.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
But there were definitely moments where I was like, holy cow,
I am so alone in this. Yeah, she's meaning this
little tiny baby he can't speak to me, And I
remember thinking we were both growing out of this, not
disastrous situation.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
But it was suddeny not easy.
Speaker 6 (15:18):
Yes, that's really applicable here. Yeah, single parenthood and realizing
you're making all the decisions and a lot of them
are fucking hard. You're responsible, and Calli's had her share
of difficulties. You know, she wouldn't mind my saying that.
And I had to make decisions. She can now, and
(15:39):
thank god she's twenty six and she launched. But yeah,
to be alone making every decision. And I feel like,
as far as growing from that sort of disaster or
very uncomfortable, challenging thing, I think the most creative job
in the world is being a mother. Yeah, and anybody
(16:02):
who's the mother, I.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Wish I could sing like you. I wish I could
be it.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
You're being creative, honey.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
Was it hard being on the road with a little child.
Speaker 6 (16:11):
Well, she came along for a while, and then when
she started school, she stayed back with her dad and
it just sucked, you.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
Know, for me to be away like that. Yeah, that
must have been very hot.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
It was very hard, but I took a couple of
years off.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Yeah, it was very hard.
Speaker 6 (16:28):
But she's amazing and our bond is ironclad, and it
worked out.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
Oh, old Henry, he's fifteen.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
Oh yeah, has he gone into his cave yet?
Speaker 2 (16:40):
You know what, I think he's in the cave, and
he's in the cave. He is, he in the cave.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
He's fighting the bar right now. He's fighting the bat
in the cave. And I just keep handing him supplies.
I heard they go into a cave.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
They really do.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
And I think it's really that initiation and that journey.
It's very hard to sit by and watch and not
want to make it easier. I got to say, I
don't do a great job not interfering. I really tried.
But it's agony watching someone being born into adulthood.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
It is.
Speaker 6 (17:13):
And you know, your instincts to try to avoid controlling and.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
Advising and you know, like babying them through it are
really good.
Speaker 5 (17:25):
You know.
Speaker 6 (17:26):
I wish I could say my instincts had been better
as far as that went.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
I came from a place.
Speaker 6 (17:31):
Where I was going to outdo my parents, you know
the things that I didn't get. Man, she was going
to get it in spades, and I overdid it. There's
somebody told.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Me the other day our generation overcorrected.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
Huh.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
That's interesting. I actually think that's really true. I think
that they were so hands off. Yeah, I think I definitely,
to his detriment, sometimes been super prescriptive, like too prescriptive.
But I don't know what we were talking about this
last night, my sister and some friends. Oh you can
just it's just the best you can do, right. Oh yeah,
And there's no handbook, you have no idea. You often
(18:08):
don't realize the things you've handed on to your kids
until they've been handed on.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
So all you can do is just keep talking about it.
And I don't know.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
All you can do is keep talking about it, and
it's hard to watch them struggle, and then you reach
a point where you are over correcting. And somebody said,
you've got to give them the dignity of learning.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
Oh that's good. I like that a lot.
Speaker 6 (18:33):
I do too, and my folks were on the other
side of the spectrum. But I figured it out. Yeah,
we all figured it out.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
So what is the quality that you like least about yourself?
Speaker 1 (18:49):
A few, but I'll try to focus on one.
Speaker 6 (18:52):
I did kind of an inventory of the things that
I do that I really wasn't aware that I was doing,
just to cope in life.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
I think we all have these things, and I gave
them names.
Speaker 6 (19:05):
What I was going to say was the quality I
like least in myself is I isolate. I enjoy time alone,
but I isolate too much. I just do, and I'm
trying to work on that. I'm just kind of a recluse,
I guess. And I love texting with people and talking
on the phone.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
But I just kind of stood put.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
But this other thing I was telling you about where
I started to make a list of my coping mechanisms
that aren't healthy, and I gave them names. And one
was the contractor. So you know, you meet people.
Speaker 6 (19:41):
You fall in love, you have certain friends, whatever shaped
you in your childhood, you make unconscious contracts with people you.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
Know you do, or at least I do.
Speaker 6 (19:51):
If you do do do, then you will get Weah.
I just realized how full of manipulation I was, and
how I would make these contracts rather than accepting the
situation just as it is. Another one was the pontificator.
I think I'm an expert in so many areas, and
(20:14):
I give tons of advice. I just think I know it.
You know, you asked me about mental health, music, fashion,
you know, bring it up. So those are just two
and the isolation. But you know, there's so many things
to improve in myself is just becoming aware of what
they are, which comes to you whenever it comes to you.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
What do you get out of isolating? Like, what are
the benefits of it?
Speaker 6 (20:40):
That's a really good question. I guess I have social anxiety.
I guess that's kind of that's really kind of it.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
Just more comfortable being by yourself.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
I like being by myself, but I can lonely with
that in that isolation. So it's kind of a you know,
edged sword, because for example, when I get up to
go to the pool, I get up when it's very dark,
and I get in the car and listen to the
music I love and get a cup of coffee and
(21:12):
sit in the parking lot in my car at the
pool in the dark, and it's my favorite time.
Speaker 6 (21:18):
It's day.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
And then the dawn starts to break, and I wandered.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
That's beautiful.
Speaker 6 (21:23):
Well, it's great, but then you know, the day goes
on and I live alone. So I've realized that in
my isolation there's something to do with pleasing people.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
I don't know. I drift away from.
Speaker 6 (21:38):
People that are very important to me, that I may
have known from the past or worked with, but don't
work with anymore. I tend to drift away from the
people that understand me the most. It's something I'm looking at.
So this isolation is some kind of protection in some way,
and I think it's just perhaps some to some degree
kind of low self esteem of being closed intimacy.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
Mm hmm, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (22:03):
I think it's really interesting to not just fill a
space because it's empty, or maybe to reframe the notion
of emptiness with space. I started doing that with things
that were I guess problematic, and that was one of
the words I would supplant. So emptiness, this feeling of emptiness,
I have it a lot around my son being at
(22:25):
boarding school and I don't get to see him every
single day, and he is truly the great love of
my life. And I started playing around with when I
say empty, how that makes me feel. But if I
say space, which feels something that I can share with
someone else, something I could share with even him at a
later day, or it's like it took my foot off
(22:49):
the pedal of slamming into that wall.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
That just felt one way. Yeah, you reframed, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
I mean I wonder if like there's I feel like
all this. Huxley talked a bit about it, wow, which
is I'm totally paraphrasing this idea of if we don't
follow along with social norms, that it's somehow wrong and
that it's only not beneficial if we actively feel it
hurting ourselves. But if it's just something that's different from
the norm, maybe so be it.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
And there's an.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
Exploration of what that is that is pertinent to the
human is doing it.
Speaker 6 (23:21):
Yeah, there are expectations and rules as we grow up
and we get kind.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Of trapped by those.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
Yeah, I understand what you're meaning.
Speaker 6 (23:29):
With my daughter being gone, I felt an emptiness And
for me, filling up the space has been well the
opportunity to kind of soul search and realize the things
I've been sort of pushing under because I was so
busy raising my daughter and how do I get to
focus on myself now? You know, it's a great opportunity
(23:50):
for me to look inward and reclaim hobbies, interests, more travel.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
So I'm trying to kind of turn it on its.
Speaker 6 (24:01):
Ear, and, like you said, instead of feeling empty, recreating
it into an idea of space where I get to thrive.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
I started doing the things that felt good more than
once a day. Do you know how you kind of
feel if you have like an itinerary in your day,
and it's like, well, you know, so I wake up
and I get my coffee, and I go for a swim,
and then I do this, and I do all these
these things just singularly, right, And I started going, I'm
(24:33):
going to swim three times a day.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
I'm going to go down to the beach and I'm
swim oh yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
But are you in London.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
I am, and I go and swim, and we have
these lighters, so we have these amazing ponds all over London.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
I work you did.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
I went to the Ladies pond last time I was
in London.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
I gotta find that water wherever I go.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
One hundred percent. But it was interesting because I used
to feel really sad. I come in from my surf
or my swim in the morning, and these are in night,
you know, moments that were difficult or hard. And I
said that, going, God, you know, my happiest moment has happened.
And I've just got the rest of the days stretching out.
And eventually I went, well, fuck that, I'm going to
(25:13):
go and do it again. I'm going to sit here
and I don't know, I'll write or talk to someone,
or I'll play some music, or i'll make some food
or I'll do whatever, and then I'm going to go again.
And I kept doing it until once was again enough.
And I really liked that idea of the things that
make us feel good doing it more than once.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
Yeah, you know, I totally relate to that.
Speaker 6 (25:35):
I even wrote something about it once, but I had
to do with Texas Monthly and Austin and I talked
about the ritual that I do in the morning, about
going to the springs, get up, have the coffee at
the dark, the music, and then on the way home
stopping at juice Land and getting my favorite smoothie and
(25:55):
talking to somebody on the phone and then and then
the best part of my day. So, and you're right,
and people have so just go swimming again. You know,
that's that's a great song.
Speaker 3 (26:09):
Actually, that's a beautiful song, Go swimming again. What relationship,
(26:30):
real or fictionalized, defines lovely?
Speaker 6 (26:34):
Well, it has to be my kid. Yeah, I know
what you were saying about Daniel Day Lewis and the
selfless and dear actions of another person and the gift
of not being judged by someone and the gift of
being accepted and understood.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
And treated well.
Speaker 6 (26:58):
But being a parent, first of all, you're responsible, you know,
from our one And that was totally intimidating to me.
I was like, someone's how have I taken on this job?
Speaker 2 (27:13):
And I think the.
Speaker 6 (27:14):
Only thing that keeps you going on some level is
this bond that's kind of inexplicable. I mean, it's been
a hard job, you know, it's not been easy, but
it's she's the love of my life. It's been the
most fulfilling job and it'll never be over. And I'm
sure it's a very common answer, so it's hard to describe.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
Well, it's a hard one to look away from because
it is like for me, it's the most defining relationship
of my life, like without a shadow of a doubt,
Like I can think of other ones, Like I said,
I talked about Daniel da Liz, particularly because I rather
talk about Henry all the time. And I was like, oh,
let me, I'll talk about something else for a minute.
But it is magical and is my greatest proof that
(28:01):
there is something other than what we see here. The
way that I feel about Henry and the connection that
we have reminds me of this other place or this
other time. But it's not like because I don't consciously
remember it. But the feeling of connection to something out
of this time and place is how I feel about him.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
And it's hard to put into words. It really is.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
It's deep.
Speaker 3 (28:29):
It is deep, and it makes me think about It's
funny you said you were talking about the contractor and
like these contracts, I wonder about those, the idea of
soul contracts, and whether we are playing out these relationships
in different forms because I don't know the feeling of
connectivity it feels like it goes so much further than
(28:51):
even beyond the extraordinary act of giving birth, which, as
you'll know, is.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
You know, it's otherworldly.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
It really is.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
It really is. I mean, just did you have music playing?
Speaker 3 (29:02):
Oh my gosh, did I have music playing? I sure did.
I did have an amazing playlist, I really did. And
there's this really beautiful devotional that rummed us sang. It
was a live recording and it was on the playlist,
and that happened to be as Henry was being born,
but I didn't know that Henry was a boy. I'd
(29:24):
been told I was having a girl, even though I
didn't want to know. So when he came out, and
I wanted love to be the first word that he heard.
So as I'm listening to like Ram dass Is in
Turning Love Lover, I'm like pushing h And then the
baby comes out and my mom goes, oh my god,
it's a boy, and I went.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
What the fuck?
Speaker 2 (29:43):
So the whole deeply.
Speaker 3 (29:44):
Spiritual entry from my kid was a bit it went
a bit sideways, but.
Speaker 6 (29:48):
Well, yeah, but it's sounds like really great. Well hopefully
not when you give birth exactly, hopefully. That's just you know,
did you have a playlist going?
Speaker 5 (29:58):
Like?
Speaker 2 (29:58):
Did you have music? I did? I have a playlist.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
I had one song that I wanted played when it
was imminent. Oh wow, yeah, I don't know why.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
I know.
Speaker 6 (30:10):
I was just concentrating on what needed to be done, and.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
I would you mind sharing? Would you do?
Speaker 1 (30:17):
Is that?
Speaker 4 (30:17):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (30:17):
No? And it's the song is.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
No, I don't mind sharing at all. And it's a little.
Speaker 6 (30:21):
Strange, but to me, it's a very transcendent spiritual song.
It certainly is not necessarily positive and it's a little abstract,
but it's proco hair and whiter shade of pale.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
No way, way. I was just just oh wow. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:41):
For me instantly, it's the movie with Nil and I,
which is my son and my favorite movie.
Speaker 1 (30:47):
I love that movie.
Speaker 3 (30:48):
I'm not thinking of it in I'm not thinking of
it in terms of somebody being born into this world,
and like hearing that it is it's transcendent.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
It has transcendence in it that song, for sure, it does.
Speaker 6 (31:00):
And if you look at it lyrically, it's not necessarily
the ideal thing for someone to be born to. But
that's the thing. That's the thing about music. It transcends
a lot of things. The words don't even have to
necessarily make sense, you know.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
I mean, it's a stream of.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
Consciousness, bizarre, bizarre.
Speaker 6 (31:20):
Song, but it's just steep, and that's why it feels
holy to me.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
You know, it just feelt holy to me. So yeah,
that's what I did.
Speaker 3 (31:28):
I think that's also really beautiful to pay attention to
the things that feel holy to us, Like I don't
think we I think it's really cool to consciously do
that and go whatever that is, whatever that sounds like
or looks like this feels holy to me.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
That's really wild.
Speaker 3 (31:42):
I'm just thinking about as a kid listening to The
Cocktail Twins, and you know, for the first like struggling
for those first few months of listening, going why why
don't I understand what she's saying? Like I can't what
is she saying? And then my mom, rather casual, went,
she's not saying anything. She's just making amazing sounds and
she's intoning like it is whatever you want it to be.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
And I was like, ah, what do you mean? What
does it mean?
Speaker 3 (32:07):
And she, my mother said a much more caustic version
of like, stop looking for meaning in everything and just
enjoy the way that it feels slash sounds. And I
always think that way about music, particularly if there are
lyrics that I don't particularly love, Like there's a there's
a songwriter whose lyrics I don't love at all, but
I love the music. I love the music so much.
(32:32):
And my son and I genuinely have like changed the
lyrics about four of this song. And do you like
his singing? I love his voice, I love his music,
and his lyrics are just they're just not good. They're
just not good to me, and they invoke images that
are like, really really rubbish. There's one about like, I'm
(32:54):
not kidding, it's like a comestain on sheets in the
middle of this beautiful song that's where he's referencing. And
I was so horrified by this whole thing that I've
had to like rewrite it. Like when we play that song,
which may sound terrible, book.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
No, it doesn't sound fair.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
That's great to rewrite the.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
Lyrics and instead of just turn off the music. If
you love the voice and you love the music itself.
Speaker 3 (33:14):
I know, and I think that sometimes there's a whole
bigger feeling at play than what somebody meant in there.
Speaker 6 (33:20):
Yeah, but you're reminded me of a funny story, if
I may tell me.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
Well, I was dating this guy once who was an actor.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
Oh god, pol you.
Speaker 6 (33:29):
This was in New York and he hadn't reached any
big success. He was a sweet guy, but yeah, maybe
a little narcissist. But of course, like any actor wants
to be a musician, and like any musician wants to
be an actor, right, so here, this guy's really good
actor and getting.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
Somewhere and doing well.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
But he's a songwriter too.
Speaker 6 (33:48):
He said, Oh, no, so he wanted me to listen
to his cassette tape.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
That's how long ago it was. And I'm like, okay,
you know, tell him what I thought so bad?
Speaker 6 (34:01):
And my favorite lyric that he had was he rhymed
apocalypse with Picasso lips.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
Across?
Speaker 3 (34:13):
Is that not a horrible apocalypse with Picasso lips?
Speaker 6 (34:17):
Picasso lips? And my best friend, who's a writer.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
I said, what do I do? What do I say?
You run?
Speaker 6 (34:26):
Well, you just find something that you do like, you know,
and you just kind of go with that. And I said,
he rhymed apocalypse with Picasso lips And my friend goes,
what are you gonna do? So I don't know, but
I think that's cool. You rewrote the lyrics because you
love the old parts so much.
Speaker 3 (34:46):
The cool progression is so beautiful, The melody top line
is beautiful, The whole thing's beautiful.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
It's just this really, it's like.
Speaker 3 (34:52):
Very young when he wrote these lyrics, like they feel
like a sort of fifteen year old boy fantasy of
that means judge, but obviously will.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
You get to like you?
Speaker 3 (35:02):
I think that's exactly right. Yeah, Oh, Sean, thank you
so much, Thanks, thank you.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
That's it. That's my seventh Questions. I've made it. You
did you made it? Thank you? Oh, thank you, Minnie.
It was a pleasure. Great, It's a real pleasure. Thank
you so much.
Speaker 4 (35:21):
Mini Questions is hosted and written by Me Mini Driver,
Executive produced by Me and Aaron Kaufman, with production support
from Jennifer Bassett, Zoe Denkler, and Ali Perry.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
The theme music is also by Me and additional music
by Aaron Kaufman.
Speaker 5 (35:39):
Special thanks to Jim Nikolay Addison, O'Day, Henry Driver, Lisa Castella,
Anick oppenheim, A, Nick Muller and Annette wolf A w kPr,
Will Pearson, Nicki Etoor, Morgan Levoy and mangesh Had tigg Adore.
I've tried not to prepare really so we'll see.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Yeah, it's funny.
Speaker 3 (00:05):
It goes one of two ways. People either really think
about it or they don't.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
I've gone like care from her.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
I think it's fine because I think it's all sort
of a trigger anyway, you know, for a larger conversation
about yeah, life and being here.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
I think that's exactly right. It made me think a lot.
Speaker 4 (00:26):
Hello, I'm mini driver. I've always loved Preust's questionnaire. It
was originally in nineteenth century parlor game where players would
ask each other thirty five questions aimed at revealing.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
The other player's true nature.
Speaker 4 (00:40):
In asking different people the same set of questions, you
can make observations about which truths appear to be universal.
And it made me wonder, what if these questions were
just a jumping off point, what greater depths would be
revealed if I asked these questions as conversation starters.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
So I adapted Prus's.
Speaker 4 (00:58):
Questionnaire and I wrote my own seven questions that I
personally think are pertinent to a person's story. 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?
(01:18):
What would be your last meal? And can you tell
me something in your life that's grown out of a
personal disaster? And I've gathered a group of really remarkable people,
ones that I am honored and humbled to have had
the chance to engage with. You may not hear their
answers to all seven of these questions. We've whittled it
down to which questions felt closest to their experience, or
(01:42):
the most surprising, or created the most fertile ground to connect.
Speaker 5 (01:49):
My guest today is the multiple Grammy Award winning musician
and songwriter Sean Colvin. I feel like Sean's song Sonny
Came Home, which came out in nineteen ninety six, was
the soundtrack to one of the most poignant parts of
my life, and so it was probably poignant in yours too.
I still find that song to be both beautiful and
(02:10):
haunting for all kinds of reasons. She writes what I
consider to be pure folk music and has a voice
that is both transporting and full of wisdom. Rather like
Sean herself, we had such a wonderful conversation bonding about
swimming in great, big bodies of water and a shared
love of Barton Springs, which is this amazing natural pool
in Austin, Texas, where Sean lives.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
A few years ago she published.
Speaker 5 (02:34):
A really lovely memoir called Diamond in the Rath, and
this year she is touring with Kebmo and her tour
dates are available at Seancolvin music dot com.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
It's so funny.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
I've been doing pressed or something, and lots of these
journalists have asked me, you know, I'd like to ask
you my favorite question of your questions, and I have
given the most useless answers. It really on the spot,
like really not great answers.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
I don't believe you all.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
It really wasn't.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
I really regretted one of them. They asked me what relationship,
real or fictionalized, defined love for me, and I said
that it was I used to stand in the rain
and watch Daniel da Lewis play soccer because he went
to my school and he was older than me, much
older than me. He used to come back and play
in these old boy football matches, and I loved him
(03:22):
so much, and he was related to my uncle who
married my aunt, and so I felt like he was family.
And what I really wanted to say was not Daniel
da Lewis necessarily defines love for me, but the generosity
and the kindness.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
That he showed me.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
He would always walk back to the changing rooms slowly,
even if it was pounding rain. He would answer all
of my questions. He had patience, he had kindness, had
incredible energy and focus, and I felt like all those
things are real definers of love and I've never forgotten it.
But obviously the journalist is only going to write about
(04:01):
I love Daniel Davis.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Yeah, I know.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
It will be good publicity.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
You know what you do.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
Yeah, there you're going, Okay, Well, I'm going to ask
you my first question, which is when and why were
you happiest.
Speaker 6 (04:21):
I looked up the definition of the word happiness. I
wanted kind of a prompt, and that helped me think
about it more.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
I think safety is a big part of it.
Speaker 6 (04:30):
To feel safe is the very happy place, and to me,
it comes down to music, playing music, writing music, hearing music,
and water bodies of water. I grew up in South
Dakota and my father, who was the most fun loving
(04:52):
prankster ish, cool, goofy guy loved the water. And we
had a late close to us called Lewis and Clark
Lake in Yanked in South Dakota. And things weren't always
great at home, but being in that lake, by that lake,
on the boat, everything was okay. I felt a sense
(05:13):
of contentment, belonging, happiness, joy and safety. And we slept
all in this camper, all of us together, and there
was a closeness and a safety there.
Speaker 5 (05:26):
You know.
Speaker 6 (05:27):
I was a kid who didn't like having the door
shut to my room and darkness and being alone there,
So that was wonderful too.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
And body's of water. Just do it for me?
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Swimming does it?
Speaker 6 (05:37):
Immersing myself in them, It's very important, not just looking
at them. There's a beach in Positano, Italy that some
of my ashes are going there, okay. And there's a
naturally fed springs pool here in Austin, Texas.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
I know it bought in springs that is where Texas
breeds through Boughton Springs.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
It seems to me it is.
Speaker 6 (05:56):
It's a miracle. It's a wonder of nature. I don't
know any place like it that's in the middle of
a city. I go there every morning. I go there
every single morning. That's how I start my day.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
And I'm having.
Speaker 6 (06:07):
Ashes spread there too, but that's a secret because I'm
sure it's against the law.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
Shania during the recent eclipse, my best friend in the world,
Alexandra Valenti and Avid listener.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Of this podcast. She'll be listening now, the photographer.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Yes, she's taken my picture many.
Speaker 6 (06:23):
Okay, Yeah, she's wonderful.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
She used to live there. Okay, she does, she still
lives still.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
We went out, we were in we were in the
water up you know, there's that jetty where boats can
refuel and there's a great kind of general store. We
were past there and just between these two bridges and
we were in the water with our glasses on for
the eclipse.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
And it was.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
Honestly one of the most incredible moments of my life.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
I think I have it on my Instagram.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
I have the video which is just a lot of
screaming as it goes to pitch black.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
Where you Well, I was here? Were you near the water?
Will you?
Speaker 6 (07:03):
I was not. I was in my home. I was
in my home and I just was sitting around, going, well,
we'll see. I thought, well, it's going to be crowded
out there, and I couldn't wait for it, but I
didn't make a big social thing out of it.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
And it got a little dark and I was like, yeah,
all right, and then it's got pitch black and the screaming.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
I ran outside. The screaming started.
Speaker 6 (07:26):
All the street lights came on, and one of the
I looked up. What happened to animals in the zoos
when the eclipse happened. A lot of them herded together,
which was interesting. But what I like the most was
the ones who were nocturnal came out.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Okay, time to get up, and the ones that.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
You know usually went to bed at night just started
going to their beds.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Gosh, I mean, that makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
There was a huge amount of bird and butterfly activity
out on the water.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
It was what happened.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
First of all, everything cleared, all of the birds and
all of the butterflies. They all came sort of swarming
across the water, and then they just disappeared into the
trees and under the bridges. And then as the light
was coming back, I assume in their beings they were
thinking it was dawn, and so they were swooping and
one of the guys on the boat. He was like,
(08:20):
I think it's because this is what they do in
the morning. They sort of swooped back was and forwards
from underneath the bridges and out of the trees, like
away from their nest and out into the day, and
again the butterflies kind of swarmed back the other way.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
It was truly spiritual.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
Yea, what it's going to happen in another four hundred
years or something?
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Is that the k is a long time?
Speaker 6 (08:40):
Were they singing like morning birds? Were they tweeting a lot?
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Yeah? They were.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
They absolutely were making a lot of noise. It was
really magical, truly truly amazing. That makes a lot of
sense if I lived in Arson and I would go
to Barton Springs every single morning and swim, It's fantastic.
What person place or experience most ultitude life.
Speaker 6 (09:06):
I really have to say the experience of getting so
I was twenty seven, so I was very lucky, but
I was miserable. As I like to say, I had
my share. I mean, it's just that was my timeline.
I didn't have to go till I was however old.
I bottomed out and in New York City, and you know,
(09:29):
you know, lecture everyone about addiction and alcoholism, but it's
a disease, and I was very sick, and it's a
very tough.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Disease, you know.
Speaker 6 (09:39):
It's a disease of denial, and addiction is a rough one.
It's an obsession of the mind, the craving of the body.
I mean, it's fierce, and not everybody makes it. And
for me, it was more than mornings after where I
just felt suicidally depressed. And I remember one of the
(10:00):
thoughts I had that really kind of made a difference
in me having a revelatory moment that this had to stop.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
And it was ego driven.
Speaker 6 (10:12):
I thought to myself, you know, because in high school
I was in all the musicals and debate team and
speech team and duet acting.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
I had a lot of friends.
Speaker 6 (10:22):
I was the girl guitar, seemed to have a lot
of potential, right and there was in New York. Yeah,
I was doing music and suddenly I thought all my
friends in high school are going to find out I'm
a drunk.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
And that really got me. I really remember that.
Speaker 6 (10:39):
It was just kind of a come to Jesus about
this is this is real?
Speaker 1 (10:43):
This is what's going on with you.
Speaker 6 (10:45):
So I got help, and I was so blessed and
lucky because it took, and it doesn't with everyone. I
just feel like I was really blessed with that. So
it transformed my life. Was in a program that really
kind of taught me how to live and introduced a
(11:06):
spiritual overview to living. All the things that have happened
to me since then, my dreams have come true. And
I firmly believe that would not have happened had I
not had a combination of some light shining on me
and just the epiphany that just couldn't go on, and
(11:31):
then I've found somewhere to take it.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
Have you found what you found through the program all
through the people that you met or through that experience.
Have you sort of handed that on to someone else?
Like have you kind of continued that chain and like
what you were given. Have you had the opportunity to
kind of.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Have that on?
Speaker 6 (11:52):
I mean, I've tried, and I've found that there's not
much you can say true. All I can hope for
is and I know this because of people that talk
to me, because they know me, because of what I do.
The other person, you're setting an example, not encouraging it,
proselytizing you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
I do. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
I think it's just through my actions effected.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
People the most.
Speaker 6 (12:18):
Yeah, it's doing it because I remember once I was
sober for a year or two, had a great friend
who was a drummer, sweetest guy, great guy, terrible alcoholic,
and I told him what had happened to me and
he was like, oh man, I got to do that,
I got to do that.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
And I'm like, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
I was just so happy. I'm like, yay, he's going
to come in.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
He died.
Speaker 6 (12:45):
He died before he came in. And that taught me
a lot. It kind of taught me a lot, like
you can't convince somebody except through your own experience and
through their willingness to want to change, yeah and recover. Yeah,
so that's the defining experience for sure. I don't know
(13:06):
what i'd be doing right now. How old were you
when you had your daughter?
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Forty two?
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Nice? Nice?
Speaker 5 (13:17):
No?
Speaker 2 (13:17):
How about you? I was thirty eight? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (13:23):
Yeah, I mean you know, they called it a geriatric pregnancy,
which I thought was so unnecessary.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
They did. They did so sad like these labels. But yeah,
he's magic.
Speaker 6 (13:36):
Yeah, they are magic. Does he have a good sense
of humor? That's what he thinks. I loved the most
about my kid. She's hysterical. Isn't that very absolutely?
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (13:46):
Because I think kind, funny, clever. Those were sort of
my benchmarks of what I sort of loving a person.
I've always thrown that around and thought that everything can
actually be distilled into those things.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
That makes a lot of sense to me.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
Can you tell me about something that has grown out
of the personal disaster?
Speaker 2 (14:23):
Gray Heir? That is the truth, That is the literal truth.
Speaker 6 (14:32):
When I saw the word grown, I was like, oh, yeah, that.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
I'm trying to think of something else.
Speaker 6 (14:39):
Besides the kind of pivotal thing about giving up alcohol.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
Being a single mom?
Speaker 3 (14:46):
Was that difficult in the beginning because I was also
a single mom, And while it was heavenly in a
lot of respects, I love not having anybody telling me
what to do.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
With vapor misers. No, no, no, no no no, I didn't.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
But there were definitely moments where I was like, holy cow,
I am so alone in this. Yeah, she's meaning this
little tiny baby he can't speak to me, And I
remember thinking we were both growing out of this, not
disastrous situation.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
But it was suddeny not easy.
Speaker 6 (15:18):
Yes, that's really applicable here. Yeah, single parenthood and realizing
you're making all the decisions and a lot of them
are fucking hard. You're responsible, and Calli's had her share
of difficulties. You know, she wouldn't mind my saying that.
And I had to make decisions. She can now, and
(15:39):
thank god she's twenty six and she launched. But yeah,
to be alone making every decision. And I feel like,
as far as growing from that sort of disaster or
very uncomfortable, challenging thing, I think the most creative job
in the world is being a mother. Yeah, and anybody
(16:02):
who's the mother, I.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Wish I could sing like you. I wish I could
be it.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
You're being creative, honey.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
Was it hard being on the road with a little child.
Speaker 6 (16:11):
Well, she came along for a while, and then when
she started school, she stayed back with her dad and
it just sucked, you.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
Know, for me to be away like that. Yeah, that
must have been very hot.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
It was very hard, but I took a couple of
years off.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Yeah, it was very hard.
Speaker 6 (16:28):
But she's amazing and our bond is ironclad, and it
worked out.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
Oh, old Henry, he's fifteen.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
Oh yeah, has he gone into his cave yet?
Speaker 2 (16:40):
You know what, I think he's in the cave, and
he's in the cave. He is, he in the cave.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
He's fighting the bar right now. He's fighting the bat
in the cave. And I just keep handing him supplies.
I heard they go into a cave.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
They really do.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
And I think it's really that initiation and that journey.
It's very hard to sit by and watch and not
want to make it easier. I got to say, I
don't do a great job not interfering. I really tried.
But it's agony watching someone being born into adulthood.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
It is.
Speaker 6 (17:13):
And you know, your instincts to try to avoid controlling and.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
Advising and you know, like babying them through it are
really good.
Speaker 5 (17:25):
You know.
Speaker 6 (17:26):
I wish I could say my instincts had been better
as far as that went.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
I came from a place.
Speaker 6 (17:31):
Where I was going to outdo my parents, you know
the things that I didn't get. Man, she was going
to get it in spades, and I overdid it. There's
somebody told.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Me the other day our generation overcorrected.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
Huh.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
That's interesting. I actually think that's really true. I think
that they were so hands off. Yeah, I think I definitely,
to his detriment, sometimes been super prescriptive, like too prescriptive.
But I don't know what we were talking about this
last night, my sister and some friends. Oh you can
just it's just the best you can do, right. Oh yeah,
And there's no handbook, you have no idea. You often
(18:08):
don't realize the things you've handed on to your kids
until they've been handed on.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
So all you can do is just keep talking about it.
And I don't know.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
All you can do is keep talking about it, and
it's hard to watch them struggle, and then you reach
a point where you are over correcting. And somebody said,
you've got to give them the dignity of learning.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
Oh that's good. I like that a lot.
Speaker 6 (18:33):
I do too, and my folks were on the other
side of the spectrum. But I figured it out. Yeah,
we all figured it out.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
So what is the quality that you like least about yourself?
Speaker 1 (18:49):
A few, but I'll try to focus on one.
Speaker 6 (18:52):
I did kind of an inventory of the things that
I do that I really wasn't aware that I was doing,
just to cope in life.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
I think we all have these things, and I gave
them names.
Speaker 6 (19:05):
What I was going to say was the quality I
like least in myself is I isolate. I enjoy time alone,
but I isolate too much. I just do, and I'm
trying to work on that. I'm just kind of a recluse,
I guess. And I love texting with people and talking
on the phone.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
But I just kind of stood put.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
But this other thing I was telling you about where
I started to make a list of my coping mechanisms
that aren't healthy, and I gave them names. And one
was the contractor. So you know, you meet people.
Speaker 6 (19:41):
You fall in love, you have certain friends, whatever shaped
you in your childhood, you make unconscious contracts with people you.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
Know you do, or at least I do.
Speaker 6 (19:51):
If you do do do, then you will get Weah.
I just realized how full of manipulation I was, and
how I would make these contracts rather than accepting the
situation just as it is. Another one was the pontificator.
I think I'm an expert in so many areas, and
(20:14):
I give tons of advice. I just think I know it.
You know, you asked me about mental health, music, fashion,
you know, bring it up. So those are just two
and the isolation. But you know, there's so many things
to improve in myself is just becoming aware of what
they are, which comes to you whenever it comes to you.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
What do you get out of isolating? Like, what are
the benefits of it?
Speaker 6 (20:40):
That's a really good question. I guess I have social anxiety.
I guess that's kind of that's really kind of it.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
Just more comfortable being by yourself.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
I like being by myself, but I can lonely with
that in that isolation. So it's kind of a you know,
edged sword, because for example, when I get up to
go to the pool, I get up when it's very dark,
and I get in the car and listen to the
music I love and get a cup of coffee and
(21:12):
sit in the parking lot in my car at the
pool in the dark, and it's my favorite time.
Speaker 6 (21:18):
It's day.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
And then the dawn starts to break, and I wandered.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
That's beautiful.
Speaker 6 (21:23):
Well, it's great, but then you know, the day goes
on and I live alone. So I've realized that in
my isolation there's something to do with pleasing people.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
I don't know. I drift away from.
Speaker 6 (21:38):
People that are very important to me, that I may
have known from the past or worked with, but don't
work with anymore. I tend to drift away from the
people that understand me the most. It's something I'm looking at.
So this isolation is some kind of protection in some way,
and I think it's just perhaps some to some degree
kind of low self esteem of being closed intimacy.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
Mm hmm, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (22:03):
I think it's really interesting to not just fill a
space because it's empty, or maybe to reframe the notion
of emptiness with space. I started doing that with things
that were I guess problematic, and that was one of
the words I would supplant. So emptiness, this feeling of emptiness,
I have it a lot around my son being at
(22:25):
boarding school and I don't get to see him every
single day, and he is truly the great love of
my life. And I started playing around with when I
say empty, how that makes me feel. But if I
say space, which feels something that I can share with
someone else, something I could share with even him at a
later day, or it's like it took my foot off
(22:49):
the pedal of slamming into that wall.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
That just felt one way. Yeah, you reframed, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
I mean I wonder if like there's I feel like
all this. Huxley talked a bit about it, wow, which
is I'm totally paraphrasing this idea of if we don't
follow along with social norms, that it's somehow wrong and
that it's only not beneficial if we actively feel it
hurting ourselves. But if it's just something that's different from
the norm, maybe so be it.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
And there's an.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
Exploration of what that is that is pertinent to the
human is doing it.
Speaker 6 (23:21):
Yeah, there are expectations and rules as we grow up
and we get kind.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Of trapped by those.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
Yeah, I understand what you're meaning.
Speaker 6 (23:29):
With my daughter being gone, I felt an emptiness And
for me, filling up the space has been well the
opportunity to kind of soul search and realize the things
I've been sort of pushing under because I was so
busy raising my daughter and how do I get to
focus on myself now? You know, it's a great opportunity
(23:50):
for me to look inward and reclaim hobbies, interests, more travel.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
So I'm trying to kind of turn it on its.
Speaker 6 (24:01):
Ear, and, like you said, instead of feeling empty, recreating
it into an idea of space where I get to thrive.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
I started doing the things that felt good more than
once a day. Do you know how you kind of
feel if you have like an itinerary in your day,
and it's like, well, you know, so I wake up
and I get my coffee, and I go for a swim,
and then I do this, and I do all these
these things just singularly, right, And I started going, I'm
(24:33):
going to swim three times a day.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
I'm going to go down to the beach and I'm
swim oh yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
But are you in London.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
I am, and I go and swim, and we have
these lighters, so we have these amazing ponds all over London.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
I work you did.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
I went to the Ladies pond last time I was
in London.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
I gotta find that water wherever I go.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
One hundred percent. But it was interesting because I used
to feel really sad. I come in from my surf
or my swim in the morning, and these are in night,
you know, moments that were difficult or hard. And I
said that, going, God, you know, my happiest moment has happened.
And I've just got the rest of the days stretching out.
And eventually I went, well, fuck that, I'm going to
(25:13):
go and do it again. I'm going to sit here
and I don't know, I'll write or talk to someone,
or I'll play some music, or i'll make some food
or I'll do whatever, and then I'm going to go again.
And I kept doing it until once was again enough.
And I really liked that idea of the things that
make us feel good doing it more than once.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
Yeah, you know, I totally relate to that.
Speaker 6 (25:35):
I even wrote something about it once, but I had
to do with Texas Monthly and Austin and I talked
about the ritual that I do in the morning, about
going to the springs, get up, have the coffee at
the dark, the music, and then on the way home
stopping at juice Land and getting my favorite smoothie and
(25:55):
talking to somebody on the phone and then and then
the best part of my day. So, and you're right,
and people have so just go swimming again. You know,
that's that's a great song.
Speaker 3 (26:09):
Actually, that's a beautiful song, Go swimming again. What relationship,
(26:30):
real or fictionalized, defines lovely?
Speaker 6 (26:34):
Well, it has to be my kid. Yeah, I know
what you were saying about Daniel Day Lewis and the
selfless and dear actions of another person and the gift
of not being judged by someone and the gift of
being accepted and understood.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
And treated well.
Speaker 6 (26:58):
But being a parent, first of all, you're responsible, you know,
from our one And that was totally intimidating to me.
I was like, someone's how have I taken on this job?
Speaker 2 (27:13):
And I think the.
Speaker 6 (27:14):
Only thing that keeps you going on some level is
this bond that's kind of inexplicable. I mean, it's been
a hard job, you know, it's not been easy, but
it's she's the love of my life. It's been the
most fulfilling job and it'll never be over. And I'm
sure it's a very common answer, so it's hard to describe.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
Well, it's a hard one to look away from because
it is like for me, it's the most defining relationship
of my life, like without a shadow of a doubt,
Like I can think of other ones, Like I said,
I talked about Daniel da Liz, particularly because I rather
talk about Henry all the time. And I was like, oh,
let me, I'll talk about something else for a minute.
But it is magical and is my greatest proof that
(28:01):
there is something other than what we see here. The
way that I feel about Henry and the connection that
we have reminds me of this other place or this
other time. But it's not like because I don't consciously
remember it. But the feeling of connection to something out
of this time and place is how I feel about him.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
And it's hard to put into words. It really is.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
It's deep.
Speaker 3 (28:29):
It is deep, and it makes me think about It's
funny you said you were talking about the contractor and
like these contracts, I wonder about those, the idea of
soul contracts, and whether we are playing out these relationships
in different forms because I don't know the feeling of
connectivity it feels like it goes so much further than
(28:51):
even beyond the extraordinary act of giving birth, which, as
you'll know, is.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
You know, it's otherworldly.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
It really is.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
It really is. I mean, just did you have music playing?
Speaker 3 (29:02):
Oh my gosh, did I have music playing? I sure did.
I did have an amazing playlist, I really did. And
there's this really beautiful devotional that rummed us sang. It
was a live recording and it was on the playlist,
and that happened to be as Henry was being born,
but I didn't know that Henry was a boy. I'd
(29:24):
been told I was having a girl, even though I
didn't want to know. So when he came out, and
I wanted love to be the first word that he heard.
So as I'm listening to like Ram dass Is in
Turning Love Lover, I'm like pushing h And then the
baby comes out and my mom goes, oh my god,
it's a boy, and I went.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
What the fuck?
Speaker 2 (29:43):
So the whole deeply.
Speaker 3 (29:44):
Spiritual entry from my kid was a bit it went
a bit sideways, but.
Speaker 6 (29:48):
Well, yeah, but it's sounds like really great. Well hopefully
not when you give birth exactly, hopefully. That's just you know,
did you have a playlist going?
Speaker 5 (29:58):
Like?
Speaker 2 (29:58):
Did you have music? I did? I have a playlist.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
I had one song that I wanted played when it
was imminent. Oh wow, yeah, I don't know why.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
I know.
Speaker 6 (30:10):
I was just concentrating on what needed to be done, and.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
I would you mind sharing? Would you do?
Speaker 1 (30:17):
Is that?
Speaker 4 (30:17):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (30:17):
No? And it's the song is.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
No, I don't mind sharing at all. And it's a little.
Speaker 6 (30:21):
Strange, but to me, it's a very transcendent spiritual song.
It certainly is not necessarily positive and it's a little abstract,
but it's proco hair and whiter shade of pale.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
No way, way. I was just just oh wow. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:41):
For me instantly, it's the movie with Nil and I,
which is my son and my favorite movie.
Speaker 1 (30:47):
I love that movie.
Speaker 3 (30:48):
I'm not thinking of it in I'm not thinking of
it in terms of somebody being born into this world,
and like hearing that it is it's transcendent.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
It has transcendence in it that song, for sure, it does.
Speaker 6 (31:00):
And if you look at it lyrically, it's not necessarily
the ideal thing for someone to be born to. But
that's the thing. That's the thing about music. It transcends
a lot of things. The words don't even have to
necessarily make sense, you know.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
I mean, it's a stream of.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
Consciousness, bizarre, bizarre.
Speaker 6 (31:20):
Song, but it's just steep, and that's why it feels
holy to me.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
You know, it just feelt holy to me. So yeah,
that's what I did.
Speaker 3 (31:28):
I think that's also really beautiful to pay attention to
the things that feel holy to us, Like I don't
think we I think it's really cool to consciously do
that and go whatever that is, whatever that sounds like
or looks like this feels holy to me.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
That's really wild.
Speaker 3 (31:42):
I'm just thinking about as a kid listening to The
Cocktail Twins, and you know, for the first like struggling
for those first few months of listening, going why why
don't I understand what she's saying? Like I can't what
is she saying? And then my mom, rather casual, went,
she's not saying anything. She's just making amazing sounds and
she's intoning like it is whatever you want it to be.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
And I was like, ah, what do you mean? What
does it mean?
Speaker 3 (32:07):
And she, my mother said a much more caustic version
of like, stop looking for meaning in everything and just
enjoy the way that it feels slash sounds. And I
always think that way about music, particularly if there are
lyrics that I don't particularly love, Like there's a there's
a songwriter whose lyrics I don't love at all, but
I love the music. I love the music so much.
(32:32):
And my son and I genuinely have like changed the
lyrics about four of this song. And do you like
his singing? I love his voice, I love his music,
and his lyrics are just they're just not good. They're
just not good to me, and they invoke images that
are like, really really rubbish. There's one about like, I'm
(32:54):
not kidding, it's like a comestain on sheets in the
middle of this beautiful song that's where he's referencing. And
I was so horrified by this whole thing that I've
had to like rewrite it. Like when we play that song,
which may sound terrible, book.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
No, it doesn't sound fair.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
That's great to rewrite the.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
Lyrics and instead of just turn off the music. If
you love the voice and you love the music itself.
Speaker 3 (33:14):
I know, and I think that sometimes there's a whole
bigger feeling at play than what somebody meant in there.
Speaker 6 (33:20):
Yeah, but you're reminded me of a funny story, if
I may tell me.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
Well, I was dating this guy once who was an actor.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
Oh god, pol you.
Speaker 6 (33:29):
This was in New York and he hadn't reached any
big success. He was a sweet guy, but yeah, maybe
a little narcissist. But of course, like any actor wants
to be a musician, and like any musician wants to
be an actor, right, so here, this guy's really good
actor and getting.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
Somewhere and doing well.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
But he's a songwriter too.
Speaker 6 (33:48):
He said, Oh, no, so he wanted me to listen
to his cassette tape.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
That's how long ago it was. And I'm like, okay,
you know, tell him what I thought so bad?
Speaker 6 (34:01):
And my favorite lyric that he had was he rhymed
apocalypse with Picasso lips.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
Across?
Speaker 3 (34:13):
Is that not a horrible apocalypse with Picasso lips?
Speaker 6 (34:17):
Picasso lips? And my best friend, who's a writer.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
I said, what do I do? What do I say?
You run?
Speaker 6 (34:26):
Well, you just find something that you do like, you know,
and you just kind of go with that. And I said,
he rhymed apocalypse with Picasso lips And my friend goes,
what are you gonna do? So I don't know, but
I think that's cool. You rewrote the lyrics because you
love the old parts so much.
Speaker 3 (34:46):
The cool progression is so beautiful, The melody top line
is beautiful, The whole thing's beautiful.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
It's just this really, it's like.
Speaker 3 (34:52):
Very young when he wrote these lyrics, like they feel
like a sort of fifteen year old boy fantasy of
that means judge, but obviously will.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
You get to like you?
Speaker 3 (35:02):
I think that's exactly right. Yeah, Oh, Sean, thank you
so much, Thanks, thank you.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
That's it. That's my seventh Questions. I've made it. You
did you made it? Thank you? Oh, thank you, Minnie.
It was a pleasure. Great, It's a real pleasure. Thank
you so much.
Speaker 4 (35:21):
Mini Questions is hosted and written by Me Mini Driver,
Executive produced by Me and Aaron Kaufman, with production support
from Jennifer Bassett, Zoe Denkler, and Ali Perry.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
The theme music is also by Me and additional music
by Aaron Kaufman.
Speaker 5 (35:39):
Special thanks to Jim Nikolay Addison, O'Day, Henry Driver, Lisa Castella,
Anick oppenheim, A, Nick Muller and Annette wolf A w kPr,
Will Pearson, Nicki Etoor, Morgan Levoy and mangesh Had tigg Adore.
Host
Minnie Driver
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