November 29, 2025 • 37 mins
A stadium full of strangers rose to their feet, Bruce Springsteen smiled into the camera, and Ann Abel felt something she hadn’t in years: possibility. What followed wasn’t a fairy tale; it was a series of small, stubborn yeses that moved her from severe, recurrent depression and ECT-induced memory loss to a late-life surge of storytelling, two memoirs, and a social media community of more than 720,000 people.
We sit down with Ann to trace that path with honesty and heart. She shares how a reluctant first concert at 59 cracked open a window of hope, why quitting a draining job demanded a new kind of structure, and how she designed a solo trip to Australia around anchors—eight Springsteen shows, daily workouts, and early-morning writing. You’ll hear how watching people in hotel lobbies became fuel, how a thousand candid trip emails turned into the spine of a book, and how stepping onto a Moth stage helped her break years of writer’s block through live feedback and human connection.
Ann talks about going from “nothing interesting to say” to viral videos, bestsellers, and messages from listeners who find her voice calming and brave. Along the way, we dig into practical strategies for navigating depression: build routines that move your body, choose environments that give you energy, keep creative commitments small and repeatable, and ask what the real worst-case scenario is before you say no. If you’ve ever wondered whether a second act can start at 59—or 72—this is your sign to follow whatever gives you life, even if it begins with a single song.
If this conversation resonates, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs hope, and leave a review to help more listeners find stories like Ann’s. Your next yes might be closer than you think.
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Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_01 (00:23):
Well, hello, and welcome back to the Healthy
Living Podcast.
I'm your host, Joe Grumbine, andtoday we've got a very special
guest.
Her name is Ann Abel, and she'san author, a storyteller, and an
influencer.
Her first memoir, Maddie, Milo,and me, in 2024, was inspired by
her Moth Story Slam win in NewYork City.
(00:46):
She holds an MFA from New Schoolfor New for Social Research and
an MBA from the University ofCholera of Chicago.
Sorry, my reading skills arelacking today.
And a BS in chemical engineeringfrom Tufts.
She's freelanced for multipleoutlets and featured in
Newsweek's Boomer Story abouthow she met her husband of 45
(01:10):
years.
Captivates Internet.
Her new book, inspired by hermoth story Slam win in Chicago,
is High Hopes, a memoir.
And I think that's enough of anintro.
Welcome to the show.
Um, I hope I didn't screw thatup too bad.
I'm dealing with a chemotherapyrebound, and my brain is coming
(01:30):
back into my head.
Welcome to the show.
SPEAKER_00 (01:34):
Thank you very much.
It's really good to be here.
SPEAKER_01 (01:37):
Wonderful, wonderful.
Well, um, you have a compellingstory, and I always like to find
out uh from our guests kind ofhow you came to here.
And by that I mean I know thatyour story uh talks about uh a
Bruce Springsteen concert andall that.
(01:58):
I don't know if your story goesback before that, but why don't
you kind of share how did youget to this place?
SPEAKER_00 (02:03):
All right.
Well, I think in my next time Ido a bio, I'm going to say I'm a
late-in-life author,storyteller, and interpretation.
SPEAKER_01 (02:11):
There you go.
SPEAKER_00 (02:12):
Because my I suffer with severe, severe, severe
depression, severe currentdepression.
And um, you know, I've had ECTelectroconvulsive therapy three
times.
You know, you know, I really,really was depressed, and I
still depressed.
I don't think you're ever curedof depression, but um at the age
(02:35):
of 59, I had never been to aconcert.
SPEAKER_01 (02:37):
My parents Oh, nowhere.
SPEAKER_00 (02:39):
Yep, I know it's so weird.
When I first started telling thestory, people, how could you not
be to a con go to a concert?
And it never, I was like, Whatdo you mean?
How could I never have gone to aI mean it never occurred
occurred to me, but at the ageit as a matter of fact, in 1964,
when 73 million people tunedinto the Ed Sullivan show to
(03:00):
watch the Beatles, 12-year-oldme wasn't one of them.
My mother saw me turn on thetelevision, and she said, It's a
waste of time.
Go to your room and do somethingconstructive.
Wow.
And I just want to say before Iget started on the story, that
my story shows that it is nevertoo late to start to feel
better, start to move forward.
(03:21):
I mean, that's something thatI've learned now.
Um, so that was so that was atthe age of 59.
I had never been to a concert.
And then my Labor Day weekend,2012, my son and daughter-in-law
came at the last minute toPhiladelphia to visit so they
could go to a Bruce Springsteenconcert.
I knew nothing about the man andI had no interest in seeing him.
(03:43):
But a few hours before the show,I pushed myself up off the couch
to go because I wanted to spendtime with my kids.
Now, that summer I had undergonemy third regimen at ECT, and the
treatment had to be stoppedhalfway through because I
didn't, I was losing my memory.
And as a result of the memoryloss, I didn't remember the July
(04:04):
wedding of my son at Donald, theceremony, the guests, anything.
So that's why I wanted to bewith them.
And um, so but now we weretogether at the stadium when we
got to our seats, they startedtelling me wedding stories and
showing me pictures on theirphones.
And in one picture, they'reLindsay and Robert, they're
flanked on one side by herparents, and the other side by
(04:27):
my husband, Andy.
Me, they're beaming, her parentsare smiling, my husband's
smiling.
I'm just staring into thecamera, trance, like vacant.
I'm not smiling or frowned, I'mnot there.
And looking at that photograph,I just felt a jab in my heart.
I felt like a tourist in my ownlife, and then all of a sudden,
the crowd at the state, 40,000people just furiously rose in
(04:52):
unison, and I rose too.
And again, I knew nothing,nothing.
Um, and up on this giant screenwas the face of a man with the
biggest kindest smile I had everseen.
And my heart just opened for himand the 40,000 people around me,
and I was swaying you know, hisenergy filled the stadium, and
(05:13):
his energy filled me, and I wasswaying and clapping and
smiling.
And this man who had 62 andthree years older than me did
not stop.
And if he could keep doing it,so could I.
Three plus hours, BruceSpringsteen's energy,
enthusiasm, and humanity liftedme for three plus hours.
(05:33):
He made me feel like I had achance, he made me feel alive.
I had never, when the concertwas over, I just looked down at
the dark stage, just shaking myhead in disbelief that it was
possible to feel so good, sohappy, so energetic.
And it was the opposite ofanything I had ever felt before.
Then a year later, um, afterhaving one desk too many thrown
(05:57):
at me at the community collegewhere I had taught for five
years, I just walked out thedoor and thought, that's it.
I'm never coming back.
But as soon as I was in my carheading home, I was panicking.
I was terrified that without thestructure and focus of the
classroom, I'd slide back intothe abyss.
And I wasn't doing ECT again.
That had the last time had beena disaster.
(06:18):
And I knew I had to thinkoutside the box and grab onto a
lifeline fast.
And I somehow had seen thatBruce Springsteen was going to
be touring in Australia in fourmonths, and I remembered how
hopeful and alive I felt.
I'd gone to a few more of hisconcerts the previous year, how
(06:38):
hopeful and alive.
And as I remember exactly whereI was, you know, merging onto
the expressway.
I thought, I know I'll go toAustralia in February and follow
the High Hopes Bruce Springsteentour.
Now, I have to tell you, I hateto travel, I hate to be alone.
And remember, I hadn't known whothis guy was a year earlier, but
I really was fighting for mylife, and I'm not the kind of
(07:00):
person who can go, you know, mykids are grown, my husband
travels.
I could sitting in the familyroom of an empty house, I'm not
the kind of person I need to bemoving.
I knew I needed so I went homeand booked the trip.
Within a week, the trip wasbooked and paid for eight
concerts, five cities over 26years.
(07:20):
Wow.
And I was terrified.
I was terrified.
If I could have just disappearedfrom the world in a wisp of
smoke and not left anyone sadbehind me, I would have
preferred that.
But that wasn't a choice.
Right.
And I went, I mean, I wasreally, really terrified.
And I did not go on this trip tochange, but I came home a
(07:43):
different person.
And that was just the beginning.
Um, I for the first time in mylife when I came back, the first
time I had a positive ball ofenergy and a story about me that
I was proud of.
You know, a story I wanted totell.
And I suffered with severe,severe writer's block.
But we ended up moving toChicago for what was supposed to
be four months, but I liked it.
(08:06):
There's so much.
I stayed there for two and ahalf years, and my husband,
after six months, commuted fromPhiladelphia to Chicago.
I found a storytellingcommunity.
I had never heard ofstorytelling, and I had never,
but I started telling, you know,I knew I had this one story and
I just wanted to learn how totell it.
And then I um one thing led toanother, and I now have two
(08:30):
books.
I mean, you know, thetransformation that began with
that trip continues 12 yearslater, a year ago, when the
first memoir, Maddie, Milo, andme came out.
The publisher said I should goon social media to promote it.
And this seemed daunting.
I someone had put me on Facebook15 years ago.
I didn't know what to do, but itnow we're living in New York.
Another dog walker came in.
(08:51):
I said, Do you know anyone whodoes social media?
And she gave me the name of this19-year-old computer science
major at CUNY here who didsocial media for her.
And I now call him Maestro orSteven Spielberg.
We've had 26 viral videos.
I have over 720,000 followers.
And these are people who and myparents, until the days each of
(09:14):
them died, told me not to talkto them because I had nothing
interesting to say.
But then we started doing thesocial media and people started
writing.
You're in your voice issoothing, your voice is calming,
you're inspiring.
It was surreal.
Like I didn't understand it.
But you know, I've been doing itnow.
And um, so this trance, this isall just you know, certainly in
(09:39):
the last 12 years and a lot ofin the last three years.
So I say it's never too late tostart to feel better.
I mean, I I still wake up in themorning with a thud, but you
know, you just keep um you justkeep persevering and you just
and I say you have to be open.
Like if I gone to that firstconcert, I didn't care about
(10:01):
Bruce Springsteen and his music.
I just wanted to be with mykids.
And if when the concert startedand everyone was into the music,
if I just crossed my arms andsaid, Okay, I I can't stand
this, you know.
But but you know, if you're openas you go through your and I
didn't want to go on this trip,but at home people rolled their
eyes that I was chasing thisrock star across this aging rock
(10:26):
star.
But in in um Australia, manypeople called me courageous, and
young people told me theycouldn't get their mothers off
the couch to do things they haddone before they retired.
And each time someone saidsomething positive to me, as
disbelieving as I was, I wouldstep outside myself and try to
see the me they were seeing.
(10:47):
And I'm not saying every songand every concert was about
depression, but BruceSpringsteen did have songs that
resonated with me and that Ifound validating.
And of course, he's fun.
I had never done thethree-letter F word until I went
to one fun to one of hisconcerts.
But so there were things thatyou know got me, kind of woke me
(11:09):
up a little bit on this trip,even though that wasn't why I
went.
And it was just it's been babystep.
It's just I don't, you know, andI don't know what the next thing
is for me, but it's just beenbaby steps and being open.
I never say no when someone asksme to do something, even if I
have no, I'm doing a TEDx talknext week.
When they asked me to do this inSeptember, I was like, I have no
(11:33):
idea how to do this.
I don't say no, I don't say no.
And then I just it's sort oflike you jump and figure out how
to land, kind of thing.
SPEAKER_01 (11:42):
You know, it's so funny.
Just a couple of days ago, I sawan old Jim Carrey movie called
The Yes Man, and it was aboutwhat you were just talking
about.
He went to some you knowmotivational speaker, and it was
all about just say yes toeverything.
And I have to watch that, I lovehim.
It was transformative, you know,for his character, but it sounds
(12:02):
like you live this.
And um I I'm I'm kind of thesame way.
My wife is always saying no toeverything, and I'm always the
one that says, sure, let's doit.
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (12:13):
You know, my husband's like that too.
Everything's he's and I'm like,what's the worst that will
happen?
SPEAKER_01 (12:18):
What's you're never gonna know unless you try, and
right, you know, I I think thatwhen you say yes, you open the
door for something positive tohappen.
And if you fail, exactly youpick up yourself up and do it
again.
You know, you say I did my best,and if that's not good enough,
we'll go find somebody else.
SPEAKER_00 (12:37):
And I actually, that's one of my sayings is that
really one of the strongestthings you can do is just try
your best.
Because if you try your best andyou don't and you don't succeed,
well, you have the self-respectthat you've tried.
And you can no one could do morethan try their best.
That's right.
SPEAKER_01 (12:55):
No, 100%.
And I think that when you tryyour best, you put yourself in a
position to get even better.
Like, you know, if a bodybuilderonly lifts the same amount of
weight every day, they'll neverget stronger, but they always
try to beat their best.
You know, the runner alwaystries to get a little faster,
the whatever, you know, youalways try to do a little better
(13:18):
than you did before.
And it's that pushing, you know,the human spirit has the ability
to transcend where we've been.
And I think that that's it allcomes from that place of saying,
all right, I'm going all out,I'm gonna give it all I got.
And then when I think I've givenit all I got, I'm gonna give it
a little more.
And if it doesn't work out, sowhat?
(13:40):
You know, right.
SPEAKER_00 (13:42):
I I as someone who suffers with depression, and I
think people who suffer withthat, one of the hard things is
motivating yourself because youyou know, you feel stuck and you
don't have energy and you don'thave energy and it and you feel
hopeless, it's just you know, soit can be so I also say about
that, just take you know, themouth most powerful thing any of
(14:06):
us can do is to take that firststep toward a connection to
someone or something, just onestep, just take one step towards
something.
SPEAKER_01 (14:16):
And so with depression, I I've been
fortunate in my life, I've neversuffered depression except for
brief moments of you know,tremendous failure, and you get
a just a moment of being down,but but I know plenty of people
who do suffer depression, and II understand the reality of it,
even though I I've notexperienced it.
(14:37):
And I I I know that like you canfeel stuck in a where where you
just like you were saying, youjust don't want to move, you
don't want to just want to laythere and and just disappear.
And when you get on a trip, youknow, I've traveled around the
(14:59):
states quite a bit and the worlda little bit, but when you
travel, you find yourself in themidst of all these people you
don't know.
And you know, I'm kind of eventhough you know I do this all
day long and I interview peopleI don't know and I talk to
people I don't know all thetime, I'm good at it, I like it.
But my natural instinct is justto stay in my own little show.
(15:22):
Like I don't go out andgenerally start a conversation
with somebody.
Whereas my wife, she walks rightup to everybody and she's just
has no problem talking toanybody.
I I would imagine if thedepression was, you know,
prevalent and you're in a uh aplace with lots of people.
(15:44):
Like, I know you must have met alot of people on this trip.
Tell me a little bit about that.
SPEAKER_00 (15:50):
Yeah, it's a really interesting point.
Now, first of all, we used tothink I was an introvert, but
since I came back on my trip, Itook a Myers-Briggs test, and it
turns out I'm an extrovert.
So I was an extrovert indepressed people's clothing.
Wow.
But um, so first of all, on thistrip, to be honest, it was 26
days.
(16:10):
Um, and really, except forpeople I was sitting next to at
concerts, the only people Italked to were people that like
I was paying for a service for aride or for a meal.
And over the course of 26 days,uh I mean, I got exponentially
more lonely.
And I was also having issues,and this is in the book, with
(16:31):
one of my sons.
So I, you know, there were timeswhere I really could feel myself
being pushed closer to theabyss, but then I would, and the
reason I went on the trip wasthat for the structure and focus
of the trip.
And and I and now one thing I'vealways loved to do, even when I
was at home, my kids had lefthome in the afternoon when I
(16:52):
feel really dip, like justreally, believe it or not, I'd
get in my car and drive to theWhole Foods parking lot, and I
would just watch people.
I would it would be fascinatingto see them.
What cars did they get out of,and how they walked into the
store and how they walked out,and you can sometimes see their
groceries, and you know, just II just found that I love being a
(17:14):
fly on the wall.
And when I got to Australia, itturned out I stayed in the same
hotels as Bruce Springsteen anda lot of the band, E Street
Band.
So I had never been a fly on anA Street, an A-list wall, and
I'm also invisible.
I found out.
So I would literally, like inone hotel, it was just this tiny
(17:35):
lobby, and two of the bandmatesand the manager were sitting on
this bench.
I just went and sat next tothem.
My our shoulders were touching,they don't even notice me.
And I would listen to theconversations, and that would
give me energy.
And there were times, you know,there was one incident in the
book where I had an interchangewith my son, and I just uh I
(17:56):
ended up falling asleep, which Inever sleep, that's not my thing
in the afternoon.
And I decided I wasn't gonna goto the concert that night, I
just wasn't in the mood.
I did, and then I ended upgoing, you know, I got to I've
got a my a driver, and I said,Okay, you can drive me there,
but I'm probably gonna leaveearly.
He said, Oh, I've never heardanyone leaving a Bruce
(18:18):
Springsteen concert early.
And as we're driving there, hewas talking to me.
He knew about the musicindustry, and by the time we got
there, the 15 minutes of justtalking to him had given me
energy.
And when I got out of the car, Isaid, you know what?
(19:21):
I think I'm gonna stay.
Um so that part of it was, youknow, so even though I didn't
necessarily talk to people and Idid get lonely, when I needed
energy, I would I could go downto a lobby and just watch.
Um, I'm not really intosightseeing, so I didn't do any
of that.
SPEAKER_01 (19:41):
So you would like you would like connect to
somebody's energy and andwithout purposefully engaging
them, you were able to just justfeed off of their surroundings.
SPEAKER_00 (19:58):
Yeah, just what listening to what they were
saying, and even it wasn't evenjust the band members.
Sometimes I'd be like a youngcouple who had had just gotten
married.
This was their it was just likeas a sociocultural
anthropologist, it was justinteresting for me to listen to
all these very differentconversations, whether in a
dining room or in a lobby.
(20:20):
And it I I and actually, I toldthe travel agent when I booked
the trip I only want to do threethings.
I want to go to eight concerts,work out, because that that's
the only thing that has everhelped me with my depression.
And I want to write.
And I suffer with severewriter's block.
So I was I was surprised to hearmyself say that because I'd been
(20:42):
teaching English for five yearsat this community college.
And in those five years, I'djust been happy teaching other
people to write.
But as I was thinking about thetrip, my will to be happy or my
instinct to survive had bubbledup and told me, reminded me that
I want to write.
And every morning I would go tobreakfast at like 6:30 and I'd
read my newspapers, and then 12people at home asked me to send
(21:05):
them emails and tell them aboutmy trip.
And that was all I needed tohelp the like if I think
someone's interested in hearingwhat I have to say, I wrote over
26 days, I wrote a thousandpages of emails.
You know, there was stuffhappening, some of it was about
what I was, but I was alsothinking and reading a lot and
(21:26):
thinking about, you know, you'realone for 26 days, you have time
to do some pretty deep thinking.
And I actually, when I finallygot around to making myself sit
down and write high hopes, whichyou know, it took some it I came
home from that trip in 2014 andI sat down to start writing it
in 2018, maybe.
(21:49):
Um I had printed out all theseemails and I just started not
and started there.
SPEAKER_01 (21:57):
Okay.
You'd already told the story.
SPEAKER_00 (22:00):
You sort of yeah, I mean, and that wasn't the whole
story, but that was you know, ithelped it it helped me a lot.
SPEAKER_01 (22:08):
So when did you first um realize that you like
to write?
You know, was it something thatyou did early on in life and
just you know, because I'vealways written, I never
published anything, but youknow, I've always journaled and
I've always liked to write, butI never, you know, I never felt
the need to get it out there foranybody else to read.
SPEAKER_00 (22:30):
Well, believe it or not, when I was a junior in high
school applying to colleges atthe last minute, which for
reasons I will not go into here,my father, who never talked to
me and told me I had nothinginteresting to say, remember,
said, came to my room and said,if you want us to pay for
college, you will go toengineering school and major in
chemical engineering.
(22:50):
And I my father was not someoneyou spoke back to.
He threw my dog down when I wasseven down the stairs and killed
them.
I mean, he was a scary guy.
Yeah, he was a scary guy.
My mother was what I now know iscalled a dark triad.
So my father wasn't someone youtalked back to, but I said, Dad,
I've never gotten above a C inmath or science.
But you know, I went, I justwanted to please my parents.
(23:15):
I kept thinking if I dideverything they wanted me to,
eventually they would accept me,which never happened.
But I got the engineeringdegree, I got an MBA East you
read all that stuff.
And finally, um, when my secondson was born, I just I I just I
read a book by Ann Beatty calledPictur, and the main the
(23:37):
protagonist was a photographer,and she would go, and I thought,
that's what I want to do.
I can be a fly in a wall.
You go to PTA meetings, you goto weddings, you're a
photographer, you get to seeeverything.
So I studied photography forfour years, two years, and I
liked it, but I hated, believeit or not, the camera.
Like I hated having the camerabetween me and the person, and
(24:01):
plus, it's a lot of pressure ifyou don't get it in that moment.
It's not like writing where youcan think about it.
So, and then one day toward theend of the program, this young,
I was in my 40s, this young18-year-old who was really,
really good, said to me, Youshould spend more time in the
dark room.
And I had spent my whole lifedoing shoulds, and I didn't like
(24:24):
the dark room.
So I just left the I wentdownstairs, it was in March, the
middle of a spring semester atthis community college.
I knocked on the creativewriting teacher's door and said,
Can I sit in on your class?
And the next day I sat down inher class and it was like, oh my
god, I felt like I was home.
Wow and um, and so I got an MFA,and I could write anything
(24:49):
anyone asked me to write.
Like if an editor said, Writeabout that tree in your
backyard, I want 5,000 words, hecould have it the next day.
But if I looked out the windowand thought, oh, I love that
tree, I want to write about it,after one minute, I'd say, so
what?
Who cares?
And I couldn't do it.
So I could write for otherpeople, but I couldn't write for
(25:09):
me.
And that was why it was like soremarkable that I finally was
able to do this high hopes.
And and then what happened was Iwas in the middle of writing
High Hopes.
It was during the lockdown, andan editor had it, and she was
sitting on it forever.
And a friend kept saying, Writeabout Milo, write about Milo,
(25:30):
who was this really I ended upfalling in love with him, but he
was a rescue dog, a reallyaggressive rescue dog I got by
accident but couldn't return.
And I said, I can't write.
And then I found 50 pages I hadwritten about him right 15 years
earlier when he died, and Iquickly had a beginning, middle,
and end.
And I thought, you know, I'lltry to get this one out into the
(25:52):
world, and then I'll go back andwork on high hopes, and that's
what happened.
So that's how I thought too.
SPEAKER_01 (25:59):
Now, storytelling as as a performance art is I would
think much more difficult thanwriting because writing you can
go over and over again and edit,and you nobody's watching.
You might have a deadline, butyou still you you have the
(26:19):
ability to hit the rewind buttonif you want to.
Whereas if you're sitting infront of an audience and you're
telling a story, like you gotone shot, it's live, and and
you're a performance artist atthat point.
It seems like that would be themost difficult element of from
being depressed to sharing yourlife in a vulnerable way.
(26:43):
Um, how did you make that leap?
SPEAKER_00 (26:46):
Well, that was actually the bridge that got me
over the writer's blog.
We got to Chicago, and um, Iknew I had this story to tell
about my like I finally had astory about me that I was proud
of.
It was the first time in mylife, the story about the trip.
But I have this writer's block,and then the first day there,
our dog, I said, I said to mydog, What do you do when you're
(27:09):
not walking dogs?
And she said, I host astorytelling open mic, and I
also tell stories at the moth.
I had never heard ofstorytelling or the moth.
But I knew I had a story totell.
I'd never stood on a stage or infront of a mic, but I forced
myself to go to open mics andtell the story.
And the thing that's amazingthough, you're right, you're
right there in front of people.
But the good thing is, unlikewriting, if you tell an okay
(27:33):
story or people come up and theysay nice things, you know,
positive things to you, whichyou don't get when you're
sitting by yourself writing astory.
So that was like amazing to me,you know.
That was amazing that peoplewould say, and soon people were
asking me to be in their story,you know, their shows.
(27:54):
And then I went to the moth, andthen a friend took me to the
moth, which I'd never been to.
When we got there, he said, youhave to put your name in.
And I was terrified, but I didit.
And then I got called that nightas the last storyteller.
And I was, you know, I stumbled,I tripped on the you can go to
my website, the story's there.
I told the five-minute storyabout Australia, and um, I
(28:14):
tripped up the stairs goingthere.
The lights are so bright, Icouldn't see the audience.
Wow, but as I started speaking,I you know, I could hear people
laughing and gasping andconnecting, and then I won.
And like, you know, that gave meagain.
My parents had told me I hadnothing interesting to say at
the dinner table.
My father used to say, you canlisten, but don't speak.
(28:36):
But now people were saying, youknow, the audiences were telling
me something different.
And when I went on social medialast year, that was people.
I'm telling you, it was atfirst, it was just unbelievable.
And I didn't understand, Icouldn't understand it when
they'd say your voice issoothing.
I would just be sitting theretelling a story, and they'd
write, your voice is soothing,calming, you're inspired,
(29:00):
inspiring.
You know, I finally one of themI said, what do you mean?
And she wrote to me and shesaid, I'm in my 80s, I'm in late
stage uh um lupus.
I have late stage lupus, but youlistening to you inspires me to
get up in the morning, you know.
So you know, it's thevalidation, you know, so many of
(29:21):
us are struggling.
And you know, uh one of theBruce Springsteen moments at a
concert, he went back and forthon the stage saying over and
over, how do you get through theday and stay alive inside?
And when I heard that, Ithought, well, if he can say
this to an arena full of fans, Imust not be the only one feeling
(29:41):
like this.
It's okay to struggle and to tryand try again.
And for it helps to feel valid,you know, knowing you're not the
only one struggling, whatever itis, you know, if you're sick or
you're mentally ill, you know,it's okay to keep trying and
struggling.
I I don't know, somehow ithelped me and it it it it helps
(30:03):
my followers.
SPEAKER_01 (30:05):
So these two books that that you've published,
where are those that's that'syour body of published work?
Are the the Maddie Milo and meand High Hopes a memoir?
SPEAKER_00 (30:17):
Those are the two books.
I mean, I did freelance foryears and years, and some of
that's and I did some articlesfor magazines last year, it's
all on my website.
I mean, for years I freelanced,I you know, sure.
SPEAKER_01 (30:29):
And I how how have the books been received?
SPEAKER_00 (30:32):
Well, I will tell you something really crazy.
So I told you the the publishersaid to go on social media while
um so the book came out inApril.
We started doing social medialater that you know, during the
summer.
In November, we had I've had nowhad 26 viral videos in a year.
The first viral video we did,people wanted to see my
(30:56):
apartment.
I'm like, are you crazy?
Okay, okay.
Well, the video went viral in amillion, I forget how many,
maybe a million views, too many,and a thousands of comments.
I'm buying your book, I'm buyingyour book.
The book's been out four or fivemonths.
And do you know that book,Maddie Milo, and me, is now the
(31:16):
publisher's all-time bestseller.
Every time I would have a viralvideo, the book sales, you could
see it on Amazon two days later.
If you looked at the ranking,you you know, so social, you
know, it there's a lot of badthings about social media, but
it's it's really helped me withthe book, with my book.
It gets people to know about it.
SPEAKER_01 (31:38):
Absolutely.
Well, it sounds like this is avery recent story of
transformation.
I mean, you know, in in yourlife, this is really it's only
been a little while that thatall of this has happened.
And where do you see yourselfgoing from here?
I mean, you know, you've justgotten started on this
(31:59):
incredible journey of of youknow being able to uh let your
voice reach many, many people,and and you're you've been held
in an inspiring role.
You're doing a TEDx talk.
Where do you go from here?
SPEAKER_00 (32:14):
Well, it's a little scary, actually, to be honest,
because you know, I've had thesetwo books, and you know, that's
very structured, and you, youknow, and to be honest, I mean,
it's it's really and I I willuse the word terrifying because
I'm not good because I have Iwould love to write a third
memoir.
I've written parts of it when Iwork out every day, but I'm 72.
(32:38):
There are days when I, you know,I have Achilles problem, I have
to, I can't work out, you know,various spine surgeries.
And then I force myself to sitdown and write.
So I would love to write a thirdmemoir called She Tried and She
Tried and She Tried, becausethat's what I do.
Um, but again, I have to fightthis really horrible writer's
(33:00):
block, but that's what I'mtrying to gear up for right now.
And to keep it the social media.
I mean, I hate to travel, but myhusband had to give a paper in
June last um in Paris last June.
He was supposed to give it inlast September, but he had
surgery, so he went in June.
I would never have gone, butpeople we started doing posts
(33:21):
around New York City and peoplelove them.
So someone said, Ann, you shouldgo to Paris, maybe.
And I went to Paris, and now youcan believe it.
I'm going to Japan in May.
SPEAKER_01 (33:32):
Nice.
SPEAKER_00 (33:32):
That's someone, because it's viral.
So so I I don't like to travel,but look, if I don't do it now,
when am I gonna do it?
Right?
SPEAKER_01 (33:41):
I love it, I love it.
Well, it sounds like um yeah,you have a uh a message of of
hope and infinite possibilities.
SPEAKER_00 (33:51):
And don't give up, and don't give up, it's never
too late.
That's all I can say.
SPEAKER_01 (33:56):
Yeah, that's what I was gonna say is like, you know,
you have this background ofdepression, and I'm sure, like
you say, it's always sort ofthere, but you you deal with it.
What would you say, you know, toour listeners that are dealing
with depression or think theymight be dealing with depression
(34:17):
and and they're feeling you knowlost or or not feeling like
doing anything?
What would your message be tothem?
SPEAKER_00 (34:26):
Well, just try to find one thing that interests
you or gives you energy, whetherit's sitting in a Starbucks and
watching people, or just if youneed to get out of the house, if
if you're an extrovert, youknow, if that would help.
I mean, you can get help.
I you know, help is always goodto get help, professional help,
(34:48):
but don't give up.
Just keep trying and keep askingand keep trying to figure it
out.
And really, I'm proof.
I'm 72, and so much has happenedto me in the last few years,
never mind the last 12 years,and take a chance if you have
to.
What's the worst that's gonnahappen?
SPEAKER_01 (35:08):
I love it.
That's a beautiful message.
Well, how does somebody get ahold of you, find your
information, your social media,all of that?
It sounds like there's gonna bepeople that are like, Well, I
want to hear what she's up to.
How do they do that?
SPEAKER_00 (35:22):
Um, I'm on Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram, and it's
Ann Sema Abel.
That's my name.
A-N-N-E-S-I-M-A-A A-B-E-L is myhand, I guess you call it a
handle, and my website, iteverything's on my website, is
Ann Abel.
So it's A-N-N-E-A-B-E-Lauthor.com.
(35:45):
And everything is there that youcan.
SPEAKER_01 (35:49):
Well, and I I want to thank you for joining us
today.
And um, as always, well, as asoften is the case, uh,
conversation seems like uh wenever get all the way through
everything.
And I'd like to invite youanytime you see fit to come back
and and continue sharing yourstory with us.
And uh just want to thank youfor uh for being here with us
(36:11):
today.
SPEAKER_00 (36:12):
Well, thank you so much.
And when you want me, just letme know.
SPEAKER_01 (36:16):
I certainly will.
Excellent.
Well, this has been anotherepisode of the Healthy Living
Podcast.
I'm your host, Joe Grumbine, andI want to thank all of our
listeners for making this showpossible, and we will see you
next time.
Well, hello, and welcome back to the Healthy
Living Podcast.
I'm your host, Joe Grumbine, andtoday we've got a very special
guest.
Her name is Ann Abel, and she'san author, a storyteller, and an
influencer.
Her first memoir, Maddie, Milo,and me, in 2024, was inspired by
her Moth Story Slam win in NewYork City.
(00:46):
She holds an MFA from New Schoolfor New for Social Research and
an MBA from the University ofCholera of Chicago.
Sorry, my reading skills arelacking today.
And a BS in chemical engineeringfrom Tufts.
She's freelanced for multipleoutlets and featured in
Newsweek's Boomer Story abouthow she met her husband of 45
(01:10):
years.
Captivates Internet.
Her new book, inspired by hermoth story Slam win in Chicago,
is High Hopes, a memoir.
And I think that's enough of anintro.
Welcome to the show.
Um, I hope I didn't screw thatup too bad.
I'm dealing with a chemotherapyrebound, and my brain is coming
(01:30):
back into my head.
Welcome to the show.
SPEAKER_00 (01:34):
Thank you very much.
It's really good to be here.
SPEAKER_01 (01:37):
Wonderful, wonderful.
Well, um, you have a compellingstory, and I always like to find
out uh from our guests kind ofhow you came to here.
And by that I mean I know thatyour story uh talks about uh a
Bruce Springsteen concert andall that.
(01:58):
I don't know if your story goesback before that, but why don't
you kind of share how did youget to this place?
SPEAKER_00 (02:03):
All right.
Well, I think in my next time Ido a bio, I'm going to say I'm a
late-in-life author,storyteller, and interpretation.
SPEAKER_01 (02:11):
There you go.
SPEAKER_00 (02:12):
Because my I suffer with severe, severe, severe
depression, severe currentdepression.
And um, you know, I've had ECTelectroconvulsive therapy three
times.
You know, you know, I really,really was depressed, and I
still depressed.
I don't think you're ever curedof depression, but um at the age
(02:35):
of 59, I had never been to aconcert.
SPEAKER_01 (02:37):
My parents Oh, nowhere.
SPEAKER_00 (02:39):
Yep, I know it's so weird.
When I first started telling thestory, people, how could you not
be to a con go to a concert?
And it never, I was like, Whatdo you mean?
How could I never have gone to aI mean it never occurred
occurred to me, but at the ageit as a matter of fact, in 1964,
when 73 million people tunedinto the Ed Sullivan show to
(03:00):
watch the Beatles, 12-year-oldme wasn't one of them.
My mother saw me turn on thetelevision, and she said, It's a
waste of time.
Go to your room and do somethingconstructive.
Wow.
And I just want to say before Iget started on the story, that
my story shows that it is nevertoo late to start to feel
better, start to move forward.
(03:21):
I mean, that's something thatI've learned now.
Um, so that was so that was atthe age of 59.
I had never been to a concert.
And then my Labor Day weekend,2012, my son and daughter-in-law
came at the last minute toPhiladelphia to visit so they
could go to a Bruce Springsteenconcert.
I knew nothing about the man andI had no interest in seeing him.
(03:43):
But a few hours before the show,I pushed myself up off the couch
to go because I wanted to spendtime with my kids.
Now, that summer I had undergonemy third regimen at ECT, and the
treatment had to be stoppedhalfway through because I
didn't, I was losing my memory.
And as a result of the memoryloss, I didn't remember the July
(04:04):
wedding of my son at Donald, theceremony, the guests, anything.
So that's why I wanted to bewith them.
And um, so but now we weretogether at the stadium when we
got to our seats, they startedtelling me wedding stories and
showing me pictures on theirphones.
And in one picture, they'reLindsay and Robert, they're
flanked on one side by herparents, and the other side by
(04:27):
my husband, Andy.
Me, they're beaming, her parentsare smiling, my husband's
smiling.
I'm just staring into thecamera, trance, like vacant.
I'm not smiling or frowned, I'mnot there.
And looking at that photograph,I just felt a jab in my heart.
I felt like a tourist in my ownlife, and then all of a sudden,
the crowd at the state, 40,000people just furiously rose in
(04:52):
unison, and I rose too.
And again, I knew nothing,nothing.
Um, and up on this giant screenwas the face of a man with the
biggest kindest smile I had everseen.
And my heart just opened for himand the 40,000 people around me,
and I was swaying you know, hisenergy filled the stadium, and
(05:13):
his energy filled me, and I wasswaying and clapping and
smiling.
And this man who had 62 andthree years older than me did
not stop.
And if he could keep doing it,so could I.
Three plus hours, BruceSpringsteen's energy,
enthusiasm, and humanity liftedme for three plus hours.
(05:33):
He made me feel like I had achance, he made me feel alive.
I had never, when the concertwas over, I just looked down at
the dark stage, just shaking myhead in disbelief that it was
possible to feel so good, sohappy, so energetic.
And it was the opposite ofanything I had ever felt before.
Then a year later, um, afterhaving one desk too many thrown
(05:57):
at me at the community collegewhere I had taught for five
years, I just walked out thedoor and thought, that's it.
I'm never coming back.
But as soon as I was in my carheading home, I was panicking.
I was terrified that without thestructure and focus of the
classroom, I'd slide back intothe abyss.
And I wasn't doing ECT again.
That had the last time had beena disaster.
(06:18):
And I knew I had to thinkoutside the box and grab onto a
lifeline fast.
And I somehow had seen thatBruce Springsteen was going to
be touring in Australia in fourmonths, and I remembered how
hopeful and alive I felt.
I'd gone to a few more of hisconcerts the previous year, how
(06:38):
hopeful and alive.
And as I remember exactly whereI was, you know, merging onto
the expressway.
I thought, I know I'll go toAustralia in February and follow
the High Hopes Bruce Springsteentour.
Now, I have to tell you, I hateto travel, I hate to be alone.
And remember, I hadn't known whothis guy was a year earlier, but
I really was fighting for mylife, and I'm not the kind of
(07:00):
person who can go, you know, mykids are grown, my husband
travels.
I could sitting in the familyroom of an empty house, I'm not
the kind of person I need to bemoving.
I knew I needed so I went homeand booked the trip.
Within a week, the trip wasbooked and paid for eight
concerts, five cities over 26years.
(07:20):
Wow.
And I was terrified.
I was terrified.
If I could have just disappearedfrom the world in a wisp of
smoke and not left anyone sadbehind me, I would have
preferred that.
But that wasn't a choice.
Right.
And I went, I mean, I wasreally, really terrified.
And I did not go on this trip tochange, but I came home a
(07:43):
different person.
And that was just the beginning.
Um, I for the first time in mylife when I came back, the first
time I had a positive ball ofenergy and a story about me that
I was proud of.
You know, a story I wanted totell.
And I suffered with severe,severe writer's block.
But we ended up moving toChicago for what was supposed to
be four months, but I liked it.
(08:06):
There's so much.
I stayed there for two and ahalf years, and my husband,
after six months, commuted fromPhiladelphia to Chicago.
I found a storytellingcommunity.
I had never heard ofstorytelling, and I had never,
but I started telling, you know,I knew I had this one story and
I just wanted to learn how totell it.
And then I um one thing led toanother, and I now have two
(08:30):
books.
I mean, you know, thetransformation that began with
that trip continues 12 yearslater, a year ago, when the
first memoir, Maddie, Milo, andme came out.
The publisher said I should goon social media to promote it.
And this seemed daunting.
I someone had put me on Facebook15 years ago.
I didn't know what to do, but itnow we're living in New York.
Another dog walker came in.
(08:51):
I said, Do you know anyone whodoes social media?
And she gave me the name of this19-year-old computer science
major at CUNY here who didsocial media for her.
And I now call him Maestro orSteven Spielberg.
We've had 26 viral videos.
I have over 720,000 followers.
And these are people who and myparents, until the days each of
(09:14):
them died, told me not to talkto them because I had nothing
interesting to say.
But then we started doing thesocial media and people started
writing.
You're in your voice issoothing, your voice is calming,
you're inspiring.
It was surreal.
Like I didn't understand it.
But you know, I've been doing itnow.
And um, so this trance, this isall just you know, certainly in
(09:39):
the last 12 years and a lot ofin the last three years.
So I say it's never too late tostart to feel better.
I mean, I I still wake up in themorning with a thud, but you
know, you just keep um you justkeep persevering and you just
and I say you have to be open.
Like if I gone to that firstconcert, I didn't care about
(10:01):
Bruce Springsteen and his music.
I just wanted to be with mykids.
And if when the concert startedand everyone was into the music,
if I just crossed my arms andsaid, Okay, I I can't stand
this, you know.
But but you know, if you're openas you go through your and I
didn't want to go on this trip,but at home people rolled their
eyes that I was chasing thisrock star across this aging rock
(10:26):
star.
But in in um Australia, manypeople called me courageous, and
young people told me theycouldn't get their mothers off
the couch to do things they haddone before they retired.
And each time someone saidsomething positive to me, as
disbelieving as I was, I wouldstep outside myself and try to
see the me they were seeing.
(10:47):
And I'm not saying every songand every concert was about
depression, but BruceSpringsteen did have songs that
resonated with me and that Ifound validating.
And of course, he's fun.
I had never done thethree-letter F word until I went
to one fun to one of hisconcerts.
But so there were things thatyou know got me, kind of woke me
(11:09):
up a little bit on this trip,even though that wasn't why I
went.
And it was just it's been babystep.
It's just I don't, you know, andI don't know what the next thing
is for me, but it's just beenbaby steps and being open.
I never say no when someone asksme to do something, even if I
have no, I'm doing a TEDx talknext week.
When they asked me to do this inSeptember, I was like, I have no
(11:33):
idea how to do this.
I don't say no, I don't say no.
And then I just it's sort oflike you jump and figure out how
to land, kind of thing.
SPEAKER_01 (11:42):
You know, it's so funny.
Just a couple of days ago, I sawan old Jim Carrey movie called
The Yes Man, and it was aboutwhat you were just talking
about.
He went to some you knowmotivational speaker, and it was
all about just say yes toeverything.
And I have to watch that, I lovehim.
It was transformative, you know,for his character, but it sounds
(12:02):
like you live this.
And um I I'm I'm kind of thesame way.
My wife is always saying no toeverything, and I'm always the
one that says, sure, let's doit.
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (12:13):
You know, my husband's like that too.
Everything's he's and I'm like,what's the worst that will
happen?
SPEAKER_01 (12:18):
What's you're never gonna know unless you try, and
right, you know, I I think thatwhen you say yes, you open the
door for something positive tohappen.
And if you fail, exactly youpick up yourself up and do it
again.
You know, you say I did my best,and if that's not good enough,
we'll go find somebody else.
SPEAKER_00 (12:37):
And I actually, that's one of my sayings is that
really one of the strongestthings you can do is just try
your best.
Because if you try your best andyou don't and you don't succeed,
well, you have the self-respectthat you've tried.
And you can no one could do morethan try their best.
That's right.
SPEAKER_01 (12:55):
No, 100%.
And I think that when you tryyour best, you put yourself in a
position to get even better.
Like, you know, if a bodybuilderonly lifts the same amount of
weight every day, they'll neverget stronger, but they always
try to beat their best.
You know, the runner alwaystries to get a little faster,
the whatever, you know, youalways try to do a little better
(13:18):
than you did before.
And it's that pushing, you know,the human spirit has the ability
to transcend where we've been.
And I think that that's it allcomes from that place of saying,
all right, I'm going all out,I'm gonna give it all I got.
And then when I think I've givenit all I got, I'm gonna give it
a little more.
And if it doesn't work out, sowhat?
(13:40):
You know, right.
SPEAKER_00 (13:42):
I I as someone who suffers with depression, and I
think people who suffer withthat, one of the hard things is
motivating yourself because youyou know, you feel stuck and you
don't have energy and you don'thave energy and it and you feel
hopeless, it's just you know, soit can be so I also say about
that, just take you know, themouth most powerful thing any of
(14:06):
us can do is to take that firststep toward a connection to
someone or something, just onestep, just take one step towards
something.
SPEAKER_01 (14:16):
And so with depression, I I've been
fortunate in my life, I've neversuffered depression except for
brief moments of you know,tremendous failure, and you get
a just a moment of being down,but but I know plenty of people
who do suffer depression, and II understand the reality of it,
even though I I've notexperienced it.
(14:37):
And I I I know that like you canfeel stuck in a where where you
just like you were saying, youjust don't want to move, you
don't want to just want to laythere and and just disappear.
And when you get on a trip, youknow, I've traveled around the
(14:59):
states quite a bit and the worlda little bit, but when you
travel, you find yourself in themidst of all these people you
don't know.
And you know, I'm kind of eventhough you know I do this all
day long and I interview peopleI don't know and I talk to
people I don't know all thetime, I'm good at it, I like it.
But my natural instinct is justto stay in my own little show.
(15:22):
Like I don't go out andgenerally start a conversation
with somebody.
Whereas my wife, she walks rightup to everybody and she's just
has no problem talking toanybody.
I I would imagine if thedepression was, you know,
prevalent and you're in a uh aplace with lots of people.
(15:44):
Like, I know you must have met alot of people on this trip.
Tell me a little bit about that.
SPEAKER_00 (15:50):
Yeah, it's a really interesting point.
Now, first of all, we used tothink I was an introvert, but
since I came back on my trip, Itook a Myers-Briggs test, and it
turns out I'm an extrovert.
So I was an extrovert indepressed people's clothing.
Wow.
But um, so first of all, on thistrip, to be honest, it was 26
days.
(16:10):
Um, and really, except forpeople I was sitting next to at
concerts, the only people Italked to were people that like
I was paying for a service for aride or for a meal.
And over the course of 26 days,uh I mean, I got exponentially
more lonely.
And I was also having issues,and this is in the book, with
(16:31):
one of my sons.
So I, you know, there were timeswhere I really could feel myself
being pushed closer to theabyss, but then I would, and the
reason I went on the trip wasthat for the structure and focus
of the trip.
And and I and now one thing I'vealways loved to do, even when I
was at home, my kids had lefthome in the afternoon when I
(16:52):
feel really dip, like justreally, believe it or not, I'd
get in my car and drive to theWhole Foods parking lot, and I
would just watch people.
I would it would be fascinatingto see them.
What cars did they get out of,and how they walked into the
store and how they walked out,and you can sometimes see their
groceries, and you know, just II just found that I love being a
(17:14):
fly on the wall.
And when I got to Australia, itturned out I stayed in the same
hotels as Bruce Springsteen anda lot of the band, E Street
Band.
So I had never been a fly on anA Street, an A-list wall, and
I'm also invisible.
I found out.
So I would literally, like inone hotel, it was just this tiny
(17:35):
lobby, and two of the bandmatesand the manager were sitting on
this bench.
I just went and sat next tothem.
My our shoulders were touching,they don't even notice me.
And I would listen to theconversations, and that would
give me energy.
And there were times, you know,there was one incident in the
book where I had an interchangewith my son, and I just uh I
(17:56):
ended up falling asleep, which Inever sleep, that's not my thing
in the afternoon.
And I decided I wasn't gonna goto the concert that night, I
just wasn't in the mood.
I did, and then I ended upgoing, you know, I got to I've
got a my a driver, and I said,Okay, you can drive me there,
but I'm probably gonna leaveearly.
He said, Oh, I've never heardanyone leaving a Bruce
(18:18):
Springsteen concert early.
And as we're driving there, hewas talking to me.
He knew about the musicindustry, and by the time we got
there, the 15 minutes of justtalking to him had given me
energy.
And when I got out of the car, Isaid, you know what?
(19:21):
I think I'm gonna stay.
Um so that part of it was, youknow, so even though I didn't
necessarily talk to people and Idid get lonely, when I needed
energy, I would I could go downto a lobby and just watch.
Um, I'm not really intosightseeing, so I didn't do any
of that.
SPEAKER_01 (19:41):
So you would like you would like connect to
somebody's energy and andwithout purposefully engaging
them, you were able to just justfeed off of their surroundings.
SPEAKER_00 (19:58):
Yeah, just what listening to what they were
saying, and even it wasn't evenjust the band members.
Sometimes I'd be like a youngcouple who had had just gotten
married.
This was their it was just likeas a sociocultural
anthropologist, it was justinteresting for me to listen to
all these very differentconversations, whether in a
dining room or in a lobby.
(20:20):
And it I I and actually, I toldthe travel agent when I booked
the trip I only want to do threethings.
I want to go to eight concerts,work out, because that that's
the only thing that has everhelped me with my depression.
And I want to write.
And I suffer with severewriter's block.
So I was I was surprised to hearmyself say that because I'd been
(20:42):
teaching English for five yearsat this community college.
And in those five years, I'djust been happy teaching other
people to write.
But as I was thinking about thetrip, my will to be happy or my
instinct to survive had bubbledup and told me, reminded me that
I want to write.
And every morning I would go tobreakfast at like 6:30 and I'd
read my newspapers, and then 12people at home asked me to send
(21:05):
them emails and tell them aboutmy trip.
And that was all I needed tohelp the like if I think
someone's interested in hearingwhat I have to say, I wrote over
26 days, I wrote a thousandpages of emails.
You know, there was stuffhappening, some of it was about
what I was, but I was alsothinking and reading a lot and
(21:26):
thinking about, you know, you'realone for 26 days, you have time
to do some pretty deep thinking.
And I actually, when I finallygot around to making myself sit
down and write high hopes, whichyou know, it took some it I came
home from that trip in 2014 andI sat down to start writing it
in 2018, maybe.
(21:49):
Um I had printed out all theseemails and I just started not
and started there.
SPEAKER_01 (21:57):
Okay.
You'd already told the story.
SPEAKER_00 (22:00):
You sort of yeah, I mean, and that wasn't the whole
story, but that was you know, ithelped it it helped me a lot.
SPEAKER_01 (22:08):
So when did you first um realize that you like
to write?
You know, was it something thatyou did early on in life and
just you know, because I'vealways written, I never
published anything, but youknow, I've always journaled and
I've always liked to write, butI never, you know, I never felt
the need to get it out there foranybody else to read.
SPEAKER_00 (22:30):
Well, believe it or not, when I was a junior in high
school applying to colleges atthe last minute, which for
reasons I will not go into here,my father, who never talked to
me and told me I had nothinginteresting to say, remember,
said, came to my room and said,if you want us to pay for
college, you will go toengineering school and major in
chemical engineering.
(22:50):
And I my father was not someoneyou spoke back to.
He threw my dog down when I wasseven down the stairs and killed
them.
I mean, he was a scary guy.
Yeah, he was a scary guy.
My mother was what I now know iscalled a dark triad.
So my father wasn't someone youtalked back to, but I said, Dad,
I've never gotten above a C inmath or science.
But you know, I went, I justwanted to please my parents.
(23:15):
I kept thinking if I dideverything they wanted me to,
eventually they would accept me,which never happened.
But I got the engineeringdegree, I got an MBA East you
read all that stuff.
And finally, um, when my secondson was born, I just I I just I
read a book by Ann Beatty calledPictur, and the main the
(23:37):
protagonist was a photographer,and she would go, and I thought,
that's what I want to do.
I can be a fly in a wall.
You go to PTA meetings, you goto weddings, you're a
photographer, you get to seeeverything.
So I studied photography forfour years, two years, and I
liked it, but I hated, believeit or not, the camera.
Like I hated having the camerabetween me and the person, and
(24:01):
plus, it's a lot of pressure ifyou don't get it in that moment.
It's not like writing where youcan think about it.
So, and then one day toward theend of the program, this young,
I was in my 40s, this young18-year-old who was really,
really good, said to me, Youshould spend more time in the
dark room.
And I had spent my whole lifedoing shoulds, and I didn't like
(24:24):
the dark room.
So I just left the I wentdownstairs, it was in March, the
middle of a spring semester atthis community college.
I knocked on the creativewriting teacher's door and said,
Can I sit in on your class?
And the next day I sat down inher class and it was like, oh my
god, I felt like I was home.
Wow and um, and so I got an MFA,and I could write anything
(24:49):
anyone asked me to write.
Like if an editor said, Writeabout that tree in your
backyard, I want 5,000 words, hecould have it the next day.
But if I looked out the windowand thought, oh, I love that
tree, I want to write about it,after one minute, I'd say, so
what?
Who cares?
And I couldn't do it.
So I could write for otherpeople, but I couldn't write for
(25:09):
me.
And that was why it was like soremarkable that I finally was
able to do this high hopes.
And and then what happened was Iwas in the middle of writing
High Hopes.
It was during the lockdown, andan editor had it, and she was
sitting on it forever.
And a friend kept saying, Writeabout Milo, write about Milo,
(25:30):
who was this really I ended upfalling in love with him, but he
was a rescue dog, a reallyaggressive rescue dog I got by
accident but couldn't return.
And I said, I can't write.
And then I found 50 pages I hadwritten about him right 15 years
earlier when he died, and Iquickly had a beginning, middle,
and end.
And I thought, you know, I'lltry to get this one out into the
(25:52):
world, and then I'll go back andwork on high hopes, and that's
what happened.
So that's how I thought too.
SPEAKER_01 (25:59):
Now, storytelling as as a performance art is I would
think much more difficult thanwriting because writing you can
go over and over again and edit,and you nobody's watching.
You might have a deadline, butyou still you you have the
(26:19):
ability to hit the rewind buttonif you want to.
Whereas if you're sitting infront of an audience and you're
telling a story, like you gotone shot, it's live, and and
you're a performance artist atthat point.
It seems like that would be themost difficult element of from
being depressed to sharing yourlife in a vulnerable way.
(26:43):
Um, how did you make that leap?
SPEAKER_00 (26:46):
Well, that was actually the bridge that got me
over the writer's blog.
We got to Chicago, and um, Iknew I had this story to tell
about my like I finally had astory about me that I was proud
of.
It was the first time in mylife, the story about the trip.
But I have this writer's block,and then the first day there,
our dog, I said, I said to mydog, What do you do when you're
(27:09):
not walking dogs?
And she said, I host astorytelling open mic, and I
also tell stories at the moth.
I had never heard ofstorytelling or the moth.
But I knew I had a story totell.
I'd never stood on a stage or infront of a mic, but I forced
myself to go to open mics andtell the story.
And the thing that's amazingthough, you're right, you're
right there in front of people.
But the good thing is, unlikewriting, if you tell an okay
(27:33):
story or people come up and theysay nice things, you know,
positive things to you, whichyou don't get when you're
sitting by yourself writing astory.
So that was like amazing to me,you know.
That was amazing that peoplewould say, and soon people were
asking me to be in their story,you know, their shows.
(27:54):
And then I went to the moth, andthen a friend took me to the
moth, which I'd never been to.
When we got there, he said, youhave to put your name in.
And I was terrified, but I didit.
And then I got called that nightas the last storyteller.
And I was, you know, I stumbled,I tripped on the you can go to
my website, the story's there.
I told the five-minute storyabout Australia, and um, I
(28:14):
tripped up the stairs goingthere.
The lights are so bright, Icouldn't see the audience.
Wow, but as I started speaking,I you know, I could hear people
laughing and gasping andconnecting, and then I won.
And like, you know, that gave meagain.
My parents had told me I hadnothing interesting to say at
the dinner table.
My father used to say, you canlisten, but don't speak.
(28:36):
But now people were saying, youknow, the audiences were telling
me something different.
And when I went on social medialast year, that was people.
I'm telling you, it was atfirst, it was just unbelievable.
And I didn't understand, Icouldn't understand it when
they'd say your voice issoothing.
I would just be sitting theretelling a story, and they'd
write, your voice is soothing,calming, you're inspired,
(29:00):
inspiring.
You know, I finally one of themI said, what do you mean?
And she wrote to me and shesaid, I'm in my 80s, I'm in late
stage uh um lupus.
I have late stage lupus, but youlistening to you inspires me to
get up in the morning, you know.
So you know, it's thevalidation, you know, so many of
(29:21):
us are struggling.
And you know, uh one of theBruce Springsteen moments at a
concert, he went back and forthon the stage saying over and
over, how do you get through theday and stay alive inside?
And when I heard that, Ithought, well, if he can say
this to an arena full of fans, Imust not be the only one feeling
(29:41):
like this.
It's okay to struggle and to tryand try again.
And for it helps to feel valid,you know, knowing you're not the
only one struggling, whatever itis, you know, if you're sick or
you're mentally ill, you know,it's okay to keep trying and
struggling.
I I don't know, somehow ithelped me and it it it it helps
(30:03):
my followers.
SPEAKER_01 (30:05):
So these two books that that you've published,
where are those that's that'syour body of published work?
Are the the Maddie Milo and meand High Hopes a memoir?
SPEAKER_00 (30:17):
Those are the two books.
I mean, I did freelance foryears and years, and some of
that's and I did some articlesfor magazines last year, it's
all on my website.
I mean, for years I freelanced,I you know, sure.
SPEAKER_01 (30:29):
And I how how have the books been received?
SPEAKER_00 (30:32):
Well, I will tell you something really crazy.
So I told you the the publishersaid to go on social media while
um so the book came out inApril.
We started doing social medialater that you know, during the
summer.
In November, we had I've had nowhad 26 viral videos in a year.
The first viral video we did,people wanted to see my
(30:56):
apartment.
I'm like, are you crazy?
Okay, okay.
Well, the video went viral in amillion, I forget how many,
maybe a million views, too many,and a thousands of comments.
I'm buying your book, I'm buyingyour book.
The book's been out four or fivemonths.
And do you know that book,Maddie Milo, and me, is now the
(31:16):
publisher's all-time bestseller.
Every time I would have a viralvideo, the book sales, you could
see it on Amazon two days later.
If you looked at the ranking,you you know, so social, you
know, it there's a lot of badthings about social media, but
it's it's really helped me withthe book, with my book.
It gets people to know about it.
SPEAKER_01 (31:38):
Absolutely.
Well, it sounds like this is avery recent story of
transformation.
I mean, you know, in in yourlife, this is really it's only
been a little while that thatall of this has happened.
And where do you see yourselfgoing from here?
I mean, you know, you've justgotten started on this
(31:59):
incredible journey of of youknow being able to uh let your
voice reach many, many people,and and you're you've been held
in an inspiring role.
You're doing a TEDx talk.
Where do you go from here?
SPEAKER_00 (32:14):
Well, it's a little scary, actually, to be honest,
because you know, I've had thesetwo books, and you know, that's
very structured, and you, youknow, and to be honest, I mean,
it's it's really and I I willuse the word terrifying because
I'm not good because I have Iwould love to write a third
memoir.
I've written parts of it when Iwork out every day, but I'm 72.
(32:38):
There are days when I, you know,I have Achilles problem, I have
to, I can't work out, you know,various spine surgeries.
And then I force myself to sitdown and write.
So I would love to write a thirdmemoir called She Tried and She
Tried and She Tried, becausethat's what I do.
Um, but again, I have to fightthis really horrible writer's
(33:00):
block, but that's what I'mtrying to gear up for right now.
And to keep it the social media.
I mean, I hate to travel, but myhusband had to give a paper in
June last um in Paris last June.
He was supposed to give it inlast September, but he had
surgery, so he went in June.
I would never have gone, butpeople we started doing posts
(33:21):
around New York City and peoplelove them.
So someone said, Ann, you shouldgo to Paris, maybe.
And I went to Paris, and now youcan believe it.
I'm going to Japan in May.
SPEAKER_01 (33:32):
Nice.
SPEAKER_00 (33:32):
That's someone, because it's viral.
So so I I don't like to travel,but look, if I don't do it now,
when am I gonna do it?
Right?
SPEAKER_01 (33:41):
I love it, I love it.
Well, it sounds like um yeah,you have a uh a message of of
hope and infinite possibilities.
SPEAKER_00 (33:51):
And don't give up, and don't give up, it's never
too late.
That's all I can say.
SPEAKER_01 (33:56):
Yeah, that's what I was gonna say is like, you know,
you have this background ofdepression, and I'm sure, like
you say, it's always sort ofthere, but you you deal with it.
What would you say, you know, toour listeners that are dealing
with depression or think theymight be dealing with depression
(34:17):
and and they're feeling you knowlost or or not feeling like
doing anything?
What would your message be tothem?
SPEAKER_00 (34:26):
Well, just try to find one thing that interests
you or gives you energy, whetherit's sitting in a Starbucks and
watching people, or just if youneed to get out of the house, if
if you're an extrovert, youknow, if that would help.
I mean, you can get help.
I you know, help is always goodto get help, professional help,
(34:48):
but don't give up.
Just keep trying and keep askingand keep trying to figure it
out.
And really, I'm proof.
I'm 72, and so much has happenedto me in the last few years,
never mind the last 12 years,and take a chance if you have
to.
What's the worst that's gonnahappen?
SPEAKER_01 (35:08):
I love it.
That's a beautiful message.
Well, how does somebody get ahold of you, find your
information, your social media,all of that?
It sounds like there's gonna bepeople that are like, Well, I
want to hear what she's up to.
How do they do that?
SPEAKER_00 (35:22):
Um, I'm on Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram, and it's
Ann Sema Abel.
That's my name.
A-N-N-E-S-I-M-A-A A-B-E-L is myhand, I guess you call it a
handle, and my website, iteverything's on my website, is
Ann Abel.
So it's A-N-N-E-A-B-E-Lauthor.com.
(35:45):
And everything is there that youcan.
SPEAKER_01 (35:49):
Well, and I I want to thank you for joining us
today.
And um, as always, well, as asoften is the case, uh,
conversation seems like uh wenever get all the way through
everything.
And I'd like to invite youanytime you see fit to come back
and and continue sharing yourstory with us.
And uh just want to thank youfor uh for being here with us
(36:11):
today.
SPEAKER_00 (36:12):
Well, thank you so much.
And when you want me, just letme know.
SPEAKER_01 (36:16):
I certainly will.
Excellent.
Well, this has been anotherepisode of the Healthy Living
Podcast.
I'm your host, Joe Grumbine, andI want to thank all of our
listeners for making this showpossible, and we will see you
next time.
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