April 22, 2024 • 49 mins
Edith Rosenblat, host of the Naked Onion Mystery Tour Podcast, talks about her mother's death, aliens, and answers some hard questions about what it means to be free.
Find Edith here:
https://www.tiktok.com/@nomtpodcast
https://www.youtube.com/c/KimGodin
Music by Guilherme Silva (https://www.fiverr.com/guimoraes)
Official Intro by Suzana J (https://www.suzanasvoice.com/)
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Before we start this podcast, I want to say that every project I have pretty much has
(00:04):
a village behind it, and this one is no exception.
I want to thank the patrons who stepped in on my Kickstarter to really make sure that
this got off the ground.
Denise Grady, Caden White-Wattam, Amanda Peake, Todd A. Davis, Jay Grant, and Corey Watson.
Without you guys, I wouldn't be sitting here talking with the awesome guest that I'm
(00:28):
about to talk to.
Thank you so much.
No one wants to have their parents pass.
Is there any part of you that goes, I miss her, but I'm glad that she's gone because
I'm where I'm at right now?
Yes.
Welcome to It's Your Loss podcast, where raw stories of resilience and healing are told,
(00:52):
all while uncovering and destigmatizing the diverse symptoms of loss.
Welcome back to the podcast.
If you missed any of the promos or anything before this episode, well, It's Your Loss.
I'm Michael LeBlanc, the host of It's Your Loss podcast.
With me today is Edith Rosenblatt.
(01:14):
She is the host of the Naked Onion Mystery Tour podcast.
She's got a lot to say.
Well, she wanted to say she had a lot to say about the patriarchy and women, but I'm also
here to probe her brain about anything that's going on in her life about loss, which she
said there's plenty to go there.
Edith, how are you?
Hello, hello, hello.
(01:35):
I am well.
How are you, sir?
I am doing well for episode, I'm calling this episode zero because this will be the one
where we find out what kinks we have in the tablecloth before we just spread everything
out.
So you couldn't have a better guess for that.
You know, I'm starting to feel that.
(01:55):
All the kinks.
I'm ready for the kinks.
Yeah, aren't we all?
Well, Edith, this is your chance.
Tell some people about you.
What brings you here?
Well, I have to say that in 2018, my mother died.
(02:16):
I just wanted to give you the premise to the beginning of my journey and like what kind
of stimulated that when she was alive, it was you have to go to nursing school.
Actually, you have to we're thinking about medical school should be a nurse practitioner
this, this and this.
It was very motherly instructed life.
(02:40):
My life was instructed by her.
I did everything she told me to do.
But in the back of my mind, I was, I was an absolutely different person.
Yes, I was an amazing nurse.
But in the back of my mind, I'm an artist first and foremost.
I'm very esoteric in my way of thinking, painting, photography, all of these things I put on
(03:04):
the wayside.
I didn't, I didn't do any of it.
And even when I was in my thirties, I was thinking about doing a rag.
Back then we didn't have the internet quite like it is.
I wanted to do almost like a comic book called Deliberated Onion.
So in 2018, my mother died and she was the one that dictated literally every step, all
(03:33):
the moving parts in my life.
So when she died, it was almost like, okay, what do I do next?
And you know, I didn't know, I didn't know.
My family left the state.
My dad pretty much, he didn't want to have anything to do with me because of his grief.
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So I ended up buying my first place.
I had lived on my parents' property for as long as I can remember and I was her caregiver.
So I moved off the property.
Here I am laying in bed night after night.
Like what am I going to do?
What am I going to do?
So I started listening to my own inner voice and my inner voice was saying, because I had
(04:19):
met Kevin Smith also when my mom was alive and he told me to start my own podcast a long
time ago.
He did a show at, what was it?
There's improv.
Okay.
Evo or improv.
Was it one of the ones that were recorded?
I don't know if it was recorded.
(04:41):
I don't think so.
I love Kevin Smith's stage show and I'm not going to lie.
A little bit envious that you met the guy.
That's awesome.
Man, he's tremendous.
If you can get the opportunity, he is so loving and so kind and he's so grateful.
And that's why, that's why one night I was in bed and I'm laying there and I was sleeping.
(05:04):
That was before a shift and I wake up and I was like, naked onion mystery tours podcast.
Just came to you.
Yep.
Beamed into your head.
Came into my head and I haven't stopped since.
I met Kitty Rebellion and Mel the podcaster.
(05:25):
They podcast with me now.
That's awesome.
I just had Mary Catherine McDonald.
She is.
I saw Mary Catherine PhD.
She just wrote a book called Unbroken.
The trauma responses.
I saw that TikTok video that you do ended with her.
She was, she was awesome.
I was hooked the moment she started talking.
(05:48):
Brilliant.
This woman is brilliant.
I've had Adam A. Vitable.
He's a comedian.
He also has a podcast.
It's called dating kind of sucks and he comes over to our podcast.
I'll have to hook you guys up.
I mean, he is also a tremendous human being.
I'm in love with everybody that comes on.
(06:10):
Just the stories they have to tell.
We also have Astro poet.
Astro poets come on.
She's written a book of poetry.
She's a physics professor.
So I'm telling you this journey naked onion mystery tours podcast.
They're there to be the friend, parent to women they didn't have when they're growing
(06:32):
up basically.
That's, that's, that's severely important.
I was, I have a tendency of throwing the word stupidly in front of it.
I don't think it fit at that point.
That's stupidly important.
But it is.
It is.
It is.
And it's, it's a simple concept that, you know, people don't really realize that we're
(06:53):
really looking for a lot of things to be fixed and or augmented from when we were young.
And so meeting somebody who can, can see the, the sunshine in people and really address
that and kind of latch onto that and, and magnify that the way that I see that you've
been doing.
Uh, Edith, that's amazing.
(07:14):
Namaste, my friend.
Hey, is it Namaste to you?
Is that the great way to say that?
See the light.
Yes.
Okay.
Light in you.
I see the light in you.
I just learned something today.
It's when I believe a part of our TikTok community and I'm a part of your family now.
(07:35):
You're a part of my family.
We're just all interconnected and we're a part of each other's family.
And when you can see the light in another human being instead of being judgy or critical
or any of those things, like, I'm, look, is that stitch, do you have stitch?
(07:56):
Stitch is Spider-Man.
Oh, this, this is Spider-Man.
This is definitely a Spider-Man shirt.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
I've got stitch.
I don't know.
That's lovely.
I saw, I love that.
Yeah.
Stitch is my, he's an alien.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
He's my alien.
My wife is a huge Disney fan.
(08:17):
And so there's a lot of Disney memorabilia, little pieces, odds and ends here.
Heck, one of her Christmas presents one year was when Disney came out, Disney plus, I'm
like, I know you're going to want to watch it.
She's like, yes, I do.
That's awesome.
I don't know if you specifically mentioned about the loss of your mom.
I think you told me that over a text or, or a phone call or something like that.
(08:41):
But I was looking at other things on here and I'm not going to lie.
I saw like five or six other different points of loss that probably has shaped you probably
either before then.
I don't know.
I'm pretty sure your transformation journey, no, it doesn't just start at 2018.
(09:03):
You said that you had a shift from Barbie mentality to believing in extraterrestrial
life, which was a great sentence and which was top of my list.
I was like, I want to know about that, which I saw as, you know, almost like a loss of,
of, of a childhood mentality.
It's, it's a change, but a change is also losing something and gaining something else
(09:28):
doesn't necessarily trigger the grief response.
But I just want to know what was your, what was the point of transformation when you went,
I believe, an extra-terrestrial life?
Well, it's Barbie mentality to me, especially in my childhood.
I believed everything my mom told me.
(09:49):
Okay.
My mom came from a very repressed era, 1943, Texas.
Very, they discriminated.
They, you believed in government.
You wholeheartedly, you believed in government.
No questions asked.
You just do as they say.
You do as your doctor tells you, you do, you know, yes, you're very obedient and it was
(10:15):
always about being obedient.
And I have to tell you, I'm, I'm very, I'm neurodivergent.
Okay.
I have ADHD.
There are a lot of special things about me.
Yeah.
So trying to be obedient, thinking about it.
I didn't start really thinking about how I was acting and that's exactly what it is.
(10:39):
It's an act.
I had all these things, like I am pan.
I am gender neutral.
I am non-binary.
I am, these are all these, the things, the words that I use to describe myself now.
Then I, I'm a woman.
I would have never worn a hat like this.
(11:00):
I would have.
Love that hat.
I would stitch sweatshirt.
What do you mean?
But I was repressing all of my, my feelings, you know, being an artist is first and foremost
who I am, you know?
So this past year, I, it all came to a head.
(11:20):
I sold everything I own.
I sold my house.
I got rid of everything in my house, all my furniture, all my clothes.
I packed up my car and moved, I moved out to New Mexico and I spent the entire summer
trying to figure out who I am, you know?
That's, there's no question.
(11:41):
That's kind of brave.
I'll be honest with you.
Like I, I'm a Buddhist myself.
I'm not the best Buddhist in the world.
I kind of like some of the things that I have.
It's hard.
There, I've gotten to the point where I'm a lot easier at easy, come easy go when it
comes to losing things or gaining things.
I'm trying to not see them so much as a stagnant thing in my life.
(12:03):
But like uprooting and like just me moving across state was huge for me.
Like I did it because of love.
I don't know if I could have done it just because of like personal ideology.
That's amazing.
I, I'm in love with me.
I am in love with me.
I can pick up and leave at any time.
I have a partner right now, but I have the kind of partner that says, because I'm going
(12:26):
back to New Mexico, I have to.
There's a lot of hiking I haven't done.
There's I want to start mountain climbing.
There's, there's things that I want to do.
And this partner that I have right now is like, go, go babe, go.
Nice.
As long as we have a phone, we'll be okay.
That's important.
(12:47):
That's huge.
Having a partner who's willing to do that.
Um, there's, there's too many partners out there is going, you know, hey, if, if there's
not room for me on your journey, then, you know, is it even, is it even us?
You know, and that's not, that's not healthy.
And that's, I'm so glad you have that.
Yeah.
I mean, well, and I, it's rest, it's reciprocal, right?
(13:07):
So I told him, whatever you need for you do that.
And I don't, I don't do any punishing behaviors towards him.
I don't get angry.
You mentioned on here, you had a shift away from you put shebes, which I hadn't seen it
(13:29):
written down like that in a while.
And I saw that just kind of made me smile.
It kind of reminded me a little bit about my past when I was like traveling from Christianity
to where I am now.
Where, where do you find yourself now?
And when you did move away from Christianity, was there any like existential problems?
Like did you, or did you get like worried or like really, oh man, I'm turning my back.
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What if I'm wrong?
Anything like that.
So the shift was more, so the patriarchy is where Christianity in the United States is
today.
It's a very codependent relationship between the parishioners at the church, the pastor,
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and, and everyone.
And I noticed this before I left to New Mexico, I had a patient who was a pastor of a church
and he invited me.
It had been a while since I had been to the church.
He invited me to church.
So I went and I remember the, the weeping and the, you just, the weeping and the reaching
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out and the singing and all of that.
So I was doing that and it was very moving.
And in the beginning, I'm only giving like $20 in the pot, $20 in the pot.
So you're, you're more in charismatic style.
Yeah.
Piscopal, whatever.
Right.
But I was definitely in a place where I just want to be free of guilt and shame, guilt
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and shame.
No, no more guilt and shame.
So I would, I would show up to this church and I would literally let go, give all the
guilt and shame away.
And like I said, in the beginning, I was only giving like 20 bucks a go.
Well, they have a large Hispanic community and me loving the technical aspect of things.
(15:27):
They needed headsets so that the translator could be heard to, to the parishioners and
they needed just amount of money.
So me being me and I wanted that, that for them.
I just started giving a couple of hundred here, a couple hundred here.
But then I started noticing the pastor, my patient was starting to call me.
(15:53):
Hey, do you need anything?
Do you need any help with anything?
Do you need any groceries?
Do you need any this?
And you sure, you know, sure.
I went and I tried their, they have a kitchen and they have food and they have to give them
food for me.
And I thought that was really sweet.
But what I was seeing, pardon me, I was seeing more of a codependency they're trying to build
(16:18):
with me.
You think they saw a big fish and they were trying to keep it to us.
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that's a perspective, right?
Like maybe, maybe in their minds, they justify their actions in a certain way.
I don't know, but my perception in that moment, it was not well received because I don't want
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to be somewhere where somebody is trying to hook me and keep me codependent.
I don't want to be codependent.
I want to feed myself.
I'm going to say it.
I want to wipe my own ass.
There you go.
I want to make sure that all my own bills are paid and, and, and that's that.
(17:00):
I don't want to discuss it with anybody.
I don't want to ask permission from anybody.
Sure.
So I started seeing these behaviors.
I quit going to church.
I quit picking up my phone.
That wasn't, they kept trying to call.
They had a guy at church trying to date me even.
I don't know if he was saying he was friends with the pastor and his wife.
(17:22):
But I was just not interested.
What year was this?
So this would have been last June.
Oh, okay.
So this is pretty recent.
Wow.
Well, I left Christianity behind for a while just because the fact the idea of that particular
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religion was giving me anxiety and I'm a firm believer that the thing that you're looking
to give you peace shouldn't give you anxiety.
So that was my own internal perspective of it.
But it took me, it took me a while.
Like I was stepping down and I was like, okay, I'm Christian, but I'm not going to church.
(18:02):
Okay.
I still believe in God, but I don't know if I necessarily believe in anything.
Okay.
Some of the stories make sense, but not really.
I might be considered a Buddhist.
How about a Christian Buddhist?
Oh, there are other Christian Buddhists online I found out as I was Googling.
And then, which basically for me seems like it's a marriage of karma and the golden rule.
(18:23):
And they kind of like just realized that there was like a similarity between the two.
And then I just, it took me about a year, I think.
And eventually I just let go of the Christian side of things and I became what I consider
to be Buddhist.
And the fact that you seem pretty firm on your platform and this is only happening in
June, do you have like any lingering, like where do you consider yourself now?
(18:46):
I'm an alien ontologist.
You want to go into depth in that or do you want people to, to go dig around for them
theirself?
What does that mean to you?
What does alien ontology mean?
Yeah.
It means that I love the unknown.
That's what it means to me.
I absolutely adore it.
(19:07):
And if it's unknown to me, it doesn't mean that it's wrong, right?
I mean, I'm having fun talking with people now that I'm in this space and I'm not codependent.
I'm not sitting across from the table and I'm not looking at them like, well, you're
just a jackass.
Everything coming out of your mouth is bullshit.
I don't feel that way.
(19:28):
I literally do not feel that way.
I have such a respect for people and just their journeys and I'm in a good spot.
When I sit back and I get to hear all the great stories and talk to them first kind
of thing.
Where do aliens fit in with that?
That's where I'm trying to figure it out.
Okay.
(19:49):
So when I went to New Mexico, I stopped in Roswell.
I felt like Roswell would have been part of the story.
I was right.
All right.
Keep going.
Keep going.
I stopped in Roswell and I did speak with a lot of people there and there's a guy there.
I can't remember his name off the top of my head.
I'll have to email it to you, but he has a small podcast that I think his name is also
(20:12):
Michael.
A popular name.
Yeah.
He actually interviewed his grandfather and his grandfather's friends.
Okay.
All right.
So there is proof that there are aliens.
I also went to a museum there that has an archive of all the copies of letters sent to
(20:35):
the government about aliens.
They also, they have, I wish I could give you specific names, but there are so many
people.
Even in Maine, there's been aliens there that have landed there that have physically landed
there.
But if you listen to a lot of the stories, it's like, you know, the thing where they
(20:59):
say that if dragons didn't exist, then how did so many cultures who are so far away have
like very similar depiction of dragons, you know, and it's kind of like the same thing
when it comes to Bigfoot sightings aliens.
And I throw a big foot in there because I firmly believe that Bigfoot was probably something
that did exist and went extinct before we had a chance to actually do anything about
(21:23):
it. And because of all that corroboration, I mean, who am I?
I've never experienced anything.
But then again, I've also never experienced holding a million dollars in my hand, but
I guarantee you somebody out there has.
Few have ever held a million dollars in your hand.
Let me know.
But in the meantime, I want to let you know that this podcast is brought to you by Dink,
(21:44):
D-I-N-Q, D-N-D in the coffin hold of the USS Enterprise.
It's not just a tale of adventures.
It's a journey through the losses, triumphs and the magic of tabletop role playing games
that helped me heal and kept me alive.
Get your copy on Amazon and paperback or on Kindle.
Your support keeps my quest alive.
Now let's get back to the story unfolding with Edith.
(22:09):
Right.
Or think about, think about, there are people that have some that we would miss moment at
this time, be able to fathom how much they literally dispose of their China that they've
spent thousands of dots on.
(22:30):
Some of these people are throwing this China away.
Right.
Monthly.
You know, and it's got, it's, it's got gold on it.
I mean, you'll, I've got a couple of friends on TikTok that clean houses for some of these
people and you wouldn't believe the things they throw away.
I've seen some of those TikToks.
It is, it's a variable.
(22:51):
Like the trash look like somebody emptied out a nice thrift shop.
Like the thrift shop you wanted to go to, but you never got a chance to.
Like that's what the trash cans are looking like.
Exactly.
Look, I want, I'm really quick.
I wanted to tell you that Mel, the podcaster, her husband works for NASA.
Yeah.
And when I said, yes, and I went to the pod gals experience in Houston and they took
(23:17):
me to NASA.
It's awesome.
Which was, man, you have no idea what that meant.
Closest, closest experience I had as I went to space camp in Huntsville, Alabama for two
nights.
That was pretty cool.
But not to the big place itself.
I don't get jealous so much, but I'll tell you, I really, really would like to, I would,
(23:40):
space camp would be great.
I mean, if I could get, if I could go to space, that would be even better.
I'm sure.
I get sick on the way out, but I'll tell you what, I'd be fine on the way in.
The closest thing I think that I would want to do when it comes to like space exploration
would be to do that really deep simulation pool that gives them like the buoyancy effect.
(24:04):
So it makes them feel like they're weightless and that thing.
I think that would be really cool.
I mean, you're still in the suit and everything like that.
I just, I think that would be awesome.
The things, the things we want to do, you know?
Right.
I would like to be, I would like to grow plants in space.
I grow them here on earth, which is the fine, whatever, but I'd like to be in space.
(24:28):
Hydroponics, hydroponics for long-term space travel from what we understand, you know,
that's going to be pretty important.
So, you know, if they're not having rope, you know, Matt Damon was growing potatoes
on Mars, according to that movie.
That's the only thing I've seen of them.
Is it good?
Because I haven't seen it yet.
It's so good.
You have to see that.
I need to see that.
(24:48):
All right.
So let's see.
It's amazing what you're doing.
You're almost kind of like going down the list of the things that I had because the last
thing we had was talking about, you know, relationships with the people that you've had while you've
been traveling and whatnot.
And it's just kind of gone down from there.
You know, it's almost like I'm talking to somebody who's run a podcast before.
(25:11):
That's, it's amazing.
So, so let's talk about the big loss of 2018 where your mom passed away and also the loss
of your family.
I mean, let's be honest because it sounds like it sounds like she was very much a hub,
a matriarchal hub, right?
(25:31):
For everybody, for everybody in our family.
That loss, like I said, mind loss generated a lot of change for me.
How do you feel like the biggest change past that point was?
I mean, it sounds like a lot has happened, but what would you consider to be your biggest
change?
Well, after she died, I became very codependent.
(25:54):
Like I mean, very aware my codependency, right?
And codependency at work.
Like I'd be somewhere constantly getting criticism by my boss and I would stay because it was
something I was used to.
My mom, my mom did that.
It felt comfortable to me.
(26:15):
And then finally, I'm like, dude, this is not normal.
She should not be coming for me like this every single day, you know, as a nurse, you
either trust your nurses that work for you or you don't.
Sure.
Especially after COVID.
I could tell you, I before COVID even happened, I caught COVID at work.
(26:38):
And my boss, I stayed home.
I was like, I am not whatever this is.
I am not bringing this into the office.
I went to my doctor.
They didn't have a tech for it.
It was October.
Was that 2018?
I think.
Uh, 2020 is when it hit.
2020 was when, oh, okay.
(27:00):
So it would have been October of 2020.
Okay.
And I went home that day and every single day she had with a nurse that I went, contact
me at home, asking me when I was coming back into work every single day.
And it was so bad that even me not knowing what it was, I didn't leave my house.
(27:23):
I wouldn't leave my house.
I didn't come back into work until nine days later.
Makes sense.
And she was so angry at me and she thought, yeah, she thought I was faking.
And then she got it.
I've, I've heard similar stories, uh, similar stories like that, especially when it comes
(27:43):
to the medical field.
So that's when the real, yeah, to work at a restaurant, he was a manager at a restaurant
where elderly people, Bob Evans, where elderly people come in and his boss called and I picked
up the phone and she was like, we need Sean to come in.
(28:08):
And I said, absolutely not.
He's not coming in.
You're going to have to deal with it.
That's what I said.
That's the point I had gotten to people.
Then being aware of my codependency, I started, it was almost like lopping people out that
I'd never even noticed that they were dragging me into this vortex of BS.
(28:32):
I did, I cleaned out my entire closet of human beings and, you know, the universe filled
my closet.
That's the way I look at it.
That's good.
That's, that's important.
Um, I guess it's important, I guess, to find something that's going to, to fill a void
(28:53):
after a loss that is going to be beneficial for you.
Not a lot of people see it like that.
They kind of think of just grabbing whatever's comfort.
And you know, I mean, here's the thing for each, for each person their own.
I mean, some people, they want to, to surround themselves with as many people as possible
(29:13):
and get those comfort items and kind of just like, soothe the hurt until they don't think
it's going to be as bad later or some people tend to wallow.
I mean, it's, it's all things, but I'll be honest with you, finding good people to be
around to fill that void, that can't be a bad one.
I don't think so.
No, that's, that's after my mom died, that's pretty much it up happening.
(29:36):
I quit filling my closet with people that were like her that were take, take, take,
take, take, take, take.
My mom needed me to live the life, I guess, that she didn't live when she was younger.
So going to nursing school and, and medicine and all of these things were quite the accomplishment
(29:59):
in her book.
And now presently I, you know, came out as queer to my dad and my brother.
And my brother was like, Oh, okay.
I already knew, he already knew, he already knew.
And then my dad was like, Oh, Edie, everybody makes mistakes.
(30:20):
And I said, Oh no, this is not a mistake.
This is who I am.
And he goes, this is who you, who you are.
And I said, yeah, dad.
And he goes, okay.
Wow.
Okay.
And he talks to me every single day.
And my brother talks to me like three or four times a week.
(30:42):
But I think it was better for them when I came out.
That's good.
I was not going to lie, I'm a little envious, but that's, I think that's because we got
different dads.
I mean, there, there was no way I was going to be able to tell my dad I was bi.
Like he almost lost his, his shit when, when he found out that I had a crush on somebody
(31:07):
that wasn't white.
And I was like, well, this is, this didn't know at the time, but there was a little voice
that told me, it's like, this is the moment you're not going to tell him much anymore.
But no, that's, I'm so glad you have that.
And I'll be honest with you, when it comes to like a person who has, who has lost a parent
(31:29):
and lost connections on purpose, like it's not like they ripped from you of the things
that you knew and believed to just start new ones.
It sounds like it's been a wild ride, but it sounds like it's been relatively smooth.
Like, but smooth in the way is like you're being tied to a rocket, but at least the rocket's
(31:50):
going in like a good upward secretion.
Well, I, I have to be honest with you.
I, I had to meditate through all my old beers.
And when I was in New Mexico, Powell's bad calf really put me this place of no fear.
It was as close to being on another planet.
(32:12):
Honestly, if you ever go there, I would love to be there.
I would love to be your guide.
I know everything about it.
I was there for three or four days.
I walked the entire cave all by myself.
And when I say the entrance is just mind blowing, mind blowing.
(32:34):
It's hundreds of feet.
The entrance is hundreds of feet.
The entire cavern is as tall as the Empire State Building.
That's what I've heard.
And that's, that mind boggles me.
It's hard, it's hard for me to fit that in my brain.
It's when I, my whole body was a tangle.
(32:55):
I was sweating from pure joy.
I was like, because when you walk inside and you can smell the bat down, which was like
home to me, it really was.
It was like, oh, that's a sentence I didn't think I was going to hear.
And I'd be honest with you, that might turn into a title.
We'll see.
But I, when I walked into that entrance and you look and you're losing the light from
(33:22):
outside, the deeper you walk in, the darker it is.
The only light that you have is the illumination that the part gives you.
And it's small amounts of light because you can't, because light is so destructive to
the cavern.
Right.
You know, even human breath, the oil from your skin and your hair.
(33:45):
And I never touched a thing, your voice raising it over a certain octave, which there are
people, there were people there.
And I will have to say it did get annoying.
You know, when you hear these voices raised because I had such a respect for it going in
there.
And so I went down the first time down the elevator because I was too much of a chicken
(34:10):
shit to watch, to walk through the natural entrance.
So, and that was 750 feet down.
It's crazy.
I imagine that you would probably have less problem with pressure differential if you
walked rather than taking the elevator.
I bet your ears were freaking out.
(34:31):
They did a really, really good job.
They did that's good job of that elevator and they're still working on the elevator.
And back in 1923, when they first started, when they first opened the cavern, you had
to go down a wooden ladder.
Wow.
(34:52):
Okay.
No, I'm not doing 750 foot.
Well, I'm sure I'm sure there were there are landings like you probably had ladder landing.
Yep.
Like, look, he calling almost.
That's still wild to me.
Like leg and arm day for days.
Like wouldn't do anything for two weeks after I would just lay there on the floor.
Just hope somebody comes and finds me later.
(35:14):
We went, we went to the cave system and I can't remember where it was.
It was in Kentucky.
And the name of it escapes me right now, but it's the first cave I've ever been into.
And I mean, the same thing.
Don't touch anything.
It's just from your skin.
You could tell where people had touched things because it was like a different color, like
(35:35):
a different color black or something like that.
Yeah, I told myself I'd have a Google machine up too, but I totally damn it.
Hey, that's it.
That's it.
Okay.
Which is my book of caves.
It was, it was great.
We went during the summer.
So it's like natural air conditioning on the way there and also in there.
(35:55):
It was just, it was lovely.
I had some wonderful photography using the lights that they had in there as accent points.
That way I didn't bring my own flash.
It was just, it was fantastic.
Good cave is awesome.
And now I just want to see one that's 750 feet deep.
That's my next thing I got to do.
It's for you.
It is absolutely for you.
And then they have the bottomless lakes in New Mexico.
(36:19):
Oh yeah.
They have a few of those heading further down south where they, you know, they were testing
them, right?
Somebody got lost in it and they're like, Oh no.
So they threw a rope down in there and the rope just went on forever.
And they were thinking, Oh, it's just forever deep.
And then like finally, like somebody from MIT came through with, with a couple of sensors
(36:40):
and whatnot.
I was like, no, this thing just takes a really sharp turn.
It just keeps going guys.
Like it's, oh, yep.
There's that dead guy.
Yeah.
Well,
But the world is flat.
Don't you know?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Totally.
We have no idea what's beneath all the surfaces.
We have no clue.
(37:01):
That's, that's a different feeling in itself is when you start to realize that you, the,
the world around you is, is much deeper and stranger than you will ever probably get a
chance to see the unknowns that we keep thinking of tend to be pale in comparison to the knowns
that we actually find.
(37:21):
And so it just keeps compounding the world.
It's just a little bit wild.
It was wild.
It was too wild.
So are you, are you still doing nursing things or is podcasting your job now?
Or what is so good?
So I left this up to the universe and I'm in a really good spot.
(37:47):
Eventually say at the end of 2024, I'm going to be completely done with nursing, completely
done.
And at this moment, I am not, I, I love it.
And what I do for the people that I take care of, I love that too.
And you know, we have such a great elderly population and they have so many beautiful
(38:11):
stories to tell.
I don't know how you feel about that, but yeah, I'm still doing that.
And I believe the end of 2024, that's when I'm going to retire and be a podcast.
So how are you, how are you feeling about that?
Like, is there any, any, any regrets that the time is coming towards that?
(38:32):
Or like, like, how, how is that making you feel that, you know, that the, that you're
making yourself turn this page on that chapter?
I'm loving it.
Okay.
So ready for it.
I have stopped all extemporaneous spending.
Yeah.
Every penny.
I need to do that.
Yeah.
I'm telling you, no more Starbucks.
(38:55):
I'm like, I, look, I love you, but I'm no longer a fan because every dollar that I make
is going towards the podcast.
Okay.
So I don't have time for subscriptions.
I don't have time for Team U. I don't have time for TikTok shop.
I'm not going to have time for these things because I know, and I told you, I just bought
(39:16):
a $400 mic.
Yeah.
So these are the kind of commitments I am making to myself and I believe I'm completely worth
it.
And I have met enough amazing people that, you know, I am also writing a book, you know,
these are things that I told myself for years, you're a piece of shit, but no one's going
(39:40):
to read it.
No one cares.
No one cares.
No one this.
No one.
I'm telling ugly stories I used to tell myself.
I quit doing that.
I quit.
Were they stories based off of your fears?
Fears that are implanted into my mind by my mother, by my grandmother, by every woman
(40:02):
that prefaced me back to the Barbie scenario.
The whole women just don't do those things.
Okay.
They don't believe in aliens.
They don't write a book about themselves and what they've gone through.
They don't, you know, sure you voted, but you voted for who your mother told you to
(40:23):
vote for.
I don't want to live my life like that anymore where someone else is dictating to me my successes.
That seems to resonate with everything that you said so far.
That's definitely a, yeah, feel the conviction.
I feel the conviction in that.
This leads me to ask what people may consider kind of a harsh question, but both of my parents
(40:50):
have passed and I know the answer to this one for myself.
Is there any part of you that no one wants, no one wants to see, no one wants to have
their parents pass.
Is there any part of you that goes, I miss her, but I'm glad that she's gone because
I'm where I'm at right now.
(41:11):
Yes, I do miss her.
I do.
Isn't that the weirdest scam feeling?
Like you, you spend like your entire, you know, childhood up to whenever your parents
actually passionate.
You're like, I'm glad I have my parents.
Everybody says you should be glad you have your parents.
You're going to totally miss your parents when they're gone.
You're right.
You're totally right.
But would I be the person I am now if it wasn't for that?
(41:34):
No, no, I wouldn't.
I'll be honest with you.
I wouldn't be here and not just speaking, not just doing a podcast about loss.
I probably wouldn't be as creative as I am right now.
And there's a, there's a freedom in it that almost makes you feel guilty.
Would you agree?
Yeah.
Oh my God.
Yeah.
Because I don't know about you.
(41:55):
So my mom is your dad.
Okay.
You know, I mean, my mom was a complete racist and, and she was a misogynistic female.
She hated other women.
Every time I see one of those in like film or in real life, or if I read about them,
(42:18):
I'm not going to lie.
That always kind of gives me like a little bit of, a little bit of shutter because that
it's, it's like a oraboris man.
It's like they're eating their own tail.
Like where does it end?
It ends when there's nothing left.
Oh, that's rough.
Yeah.
She did not age well.
My mom did not age well.
She was a smoker and she took a lot of pills.
(42:39):
Wow.
You know?
Yeah.
And I mean, I, here I am a vegetarian and I mean, drink juice.
I have a juicer.
My partner bought me a juicer and I do my own juices and I drink water all day and it's
all about having, being kind to my liver.
(43:00):
You know, it's not about looks.
It's not, am I sexy to this person?
Do I have abs?
I don't give a fuck about it.
No.
Yeah.
It's not about, it's not about, you know, looking good.
It's about how many more years do I have to keep putting out stuff?
How can I make myself live longer to keep experiencing life the way that I want it?
(43:21):
I, good for you.
I need to have more of that because I got myself the diabetes type two just after years
of not taking care of my body right and everything and I've learned, you know, what's eat whatnot,
but I still hard to tell the kick cards.
I'm just saying it's, I'm working on it, but it's hard because the last thing I want
(43:42):
to do is to put my, to put the people I love through premature loss before I know that
I've left this place better than when I found it.
And that's, that's life for me.
That, that, when everybody, anybody asks me what the meaning of life is, that's what
I tell them.
I want everybody should leave this place a little bit better than we found it for the
(44:02):
people who are coming after us.
Cause it's not about us and it's not, and when it gets to them, it's not about them.
It's the chain.
It's going to keep going until eventually the earth has her fill of us and she doesn't
want to support us anymore.
And she just, you know, worldwide extinction event.
Right.
We all, we all just get thrown down to the sleast acts.
Tell, tell me, you know what a sleast act is, don't you?
(44:24):
Come on.
Do you know what a sleast act is?
I don't.
It is the lizard people from the land of the lost.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
Did I, did I just unlock a memory that you'd never thought you forgot?
Oh my God.
I can even see them.
I can even picture them.
Yep.
In my, why does that live in my head as a word that I could just pull out on a vocabulary
(44:49):
night?
I don't know, but sleast acts live in my brain.
You know what?
That couldn't be more perfect.
Well, man.
Okay.
Um, we eat if you can enjoy to talk to, and I don't know how long this episode is actually
going to be because I forgot to say any timers except for what zoom told me I had no time
(45:09):
for.
Also, while we were recording, yeah, this is just good first episode stuff to know.
I ran out of room on my laptop and I had to buy more space on my cloud thing while we
were talking.
So what, hopefully we have all the audio here.
If not, I'll patch something together again.
(45:30):
This is episode zero.
People may not even hear this, but you know what, you know what though?
I have to tell you the universe edits what she wants out.
Hey, this is, this is how I look at everything.
I don't look at law.
There's no loss for me anymore.
If that means anything to you.
Oh, keep talking.
(45:50):
That's perfect for this podcast.
Keep talking about that.
Yeah, this is how, so if you want to change your loss, you change your perspective and
your beliefs and your ideologies.
And I, what I've done is I used to get so upset, you know, like the shit show that
would happen at Word where I'd have my boss behind me beep, beep, beep, beep, beep.
(46:14):
Right?
Right.
It's bitching at me and I now I just turn around and say, look, unless you have something
of value that you are adding to my life, you are taking away from my life.
I can't be in an environment like this.
(46:34):
If you want me to be here, you have the control.
You can walk away right now.
However, if, you know, of course, if she's tuning me out and being the complete narcissist
that I know she is.
Sounds like you have someone specific in mind when you're saying this, but I feel you.
(46:55):
So I have an idea for how to kind of end off my podcast for right now, which is to ask
the person, given the choice to go back.
You don't have to take the choice.
But if you do, would you go back and prevent yourself from losing?
I have a daughter.
I was pregnant at 19 years old and I didn't know my mom sent me away because that's what
(47:22):
you did.
You were pregnant.
No one's supposed to know.
Oh my God, my daughter's pregnant.
Right.
So she sent me away to lifesavers ministries where I had my daughter and she had to get
a lawyer to place my daughter with the family that I chose before I even went up there.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
(47:42):
So if I could do it all over again, I would keep my kid.
That is my child, my daughter.
I would have found a way for us both to eat.
I would have left my mom and I look at it like that.
I love her.
She is tremendous, by the way.
She is the vice president at a college.
(48:03):
She is a journalist.
That's awesome.
I'm glad that you got you know her.
I mean, that's amazing.
It's a gift.
You know, your podcast is aptly named, you know, naked onion because right, the layers,
the layers you have, lady.
(48:25):
I know.
Excuse me.
All right.
We'll eat if.
Yeah.
Thank you so much.
I mean, two minutes if you want to plug anything else other than your podcast, if you want
to tell people, tell you talk, you got two minutes to plug yourself.
All right.
My name is Edith Ivy Rosenblatt.
I am the host, producer and writer, writer of the naked onion mystery tours podcast.
(48:47):
I have a Tik Tok.
I also have a YouTube channel.
Please check me out on YouTube and Mel the podcaster is my co-host.
So thank you, Michael LeBlanc for having me on your podcast.
I'm truly grateful and I am touched by you, my beautiful friend.
Well, thank you.
(49:08):
This has just been a surprisingly bright and shiny moment talking about the things that
have changed us in this life.
Thank you so much for that.
So that's it for this episode.
Tune in next time where I don't tell you about what happened during this episode because
again, this is your loss.
(49:30):
I'll talk to you next time.
Bye bye.
Before we start this podcast, I want to say that every project I have pretty much has
(00:04):
a village behind it, and this one is no exception.
I want to thank the patrons who stepped in on my Kickstarter to really make sure that
this got off the ground.
Denise Grady, Caden White-Wattam, Amanda Peake, Todd A. Davis, Jay Grant, and Corey Watson.
Without you guys, I wouldn't be sitting here talking with the awesome guest that I'm
(00:28):
about to talk to.
Thank you so much.
No one wants to have their parents pass.
Is there any part of you that goes, I miss her, but I'm glad that she's gone because
I'm where I'm at right now?
Yes.
Welcome to It's Your Loss podcast, where raw stories of resilience and healing are told,
(00:52):
all while uncovering and destigmatizing the diverse symptoms of loss.
Welcome back to the podcast.
If you missed any of the promos or anything before this episode, well, It's Your Loss.
I'm Michael LeBlanc, the host of It's Your Loss podcast.
With me today is Edith Rosenblatt.
(01:14):
She is the host of the Naked Onion Mystery Tour podcast.
She's got a lot to say.
Well, she wanted to say she had a lot to say about the patriarchy and women, but I'm also
here to probe her brain about anything that's going on in her life about loss, which she
said there's plenty to go there.
Edith, how are you?
Hello, hello, hello.
(01:35):
I am well.
How are you, sir?
I am doing well for episode, I'm calling this episode zero because this will be the one
where we find out what kinks we have in the tablecloth before we just spread everything
out.
So you couldn't have a better guess for that.
You know, I'm starting to feel that.
(01:55):
All the kinks.
I'm ready for the kinks.
Yeah, aren't we all?
Well, Edith, this is your chance.
Tell some people about you.
What brings you here?
Well, I have to say that in 2018, my mother died.
(02:16):
I just wanted to give you the premise to the beginning of my journey and like what kind
of stimulated that when she was alive, it was you have to go to nursing school.
Actually, you have to we're thinking about medical school should be a nurse practitioner
this, this and this.
It was very motherly instructed life.
(02:40):
My life was instructed by her.
I did everything she told me to do.
But in the back of my mind, I was, I was an absolutely different person.
Yes, I was an amazing nurse.
But in the back of my mind, I'm an artist first and foremost.
I'm very esoteric in my way of thinking, painting, photography, all of these things I put on
(03:04):
the wayside.
I didn't, I didn't do any of it.
And even when I was in my thirties, I was thinking about doing a rag.
Back then we didn't have the internet quite like it is.
I wanted to do almost like a comic book called Deliberated Onion.
So in 2018, my mother died and she was the one that dictated literally every step, all
(03:33):
the moving parts in my life.
So when she died, it was almost like, okay, what do I do next?
And you know, I didn't know, I didn't know.
My family left the state.
My dad pretty much, he didn't want to have anything to do with me because of his grief.
(03:54):
So I ended up buying my first place.
I had lived on my parents' property for as long as I can remember and I was her caregiver.
So I moved off the property.
Here I am laying in bed night after night.
Like what am I going to do?
What am I going to do?
So I started listening to my own inner voice and my inner voice was saying, because I had
(04:19):
met Kevin Smith also when my mom was alive and he told me to start my own podcast a long
time ago.
He did a show at, what was it?
There's improv.
Okay.
Evo or improv.
Was it one of the ones that were recorded?
I don't know if it was recorded.
(04:41):
I don't think so.
I love Kevin Smith's stage show and I'm not going to lie.
A little bit envious that you met the guy.
That's awesome.
Man, he's tremendous.
If you can get the opportunity, he is so loving and so kind and he's so grateful.
And that's why, that's why one night I was in bed and I'm laying there and I was sleeping.
(05:04):
That was before a shift and I wake up and I was like, naked onion mystery tours podcast.
Just came to you.
Yep.
Beamed into your head.
Came into my head and I haven't stopped since.
I met Kitty Rebellion and Mel the podcaster.
(05:25):
They podcast with me now.
That's awesome.
I just had Mary Catherine McDonald.
She is.
I saw Mary Catherine PhD.
She just wrote a book called Unbroken.
The trauma responses.
I saw that TikTok video that you do ended with her.
She was, she was awesome.
I was hooked the moment she started talking.
(05:48):
Brilliant.
This woman is brilliant.
I've had Adam A. Vitable.
He's a comedian.
He also has a podcast.
It's called dating kind of sucks and he comes over to our podcast.
I'll have to hook you guys up.
I mean, he is also a tremendous human being.
I'm in love with everybody that comes on.
(06:10):
Just the stories they have to tell.
We also have Astro poet.
Astro poets come on.
She's written a book of poetry.
She's a physics professor.
So I'm telling you this journey naked onion mystery tours podcast.
They're there to be the friend, parent to women they didn't have when they're growing
(06:32):
up basically.
That's, that's, that's severely important.
I was, I have a tendency of throwing the word stupidly in front of it.
I don't think it fit at that point.
That's stupidly important.
But it is.
It is.
It is.
And it's, it's a simple concept that, you know, people don't really realize that we're
(06:53):
really looking for a lot of things to be fixed and or augmented from when we were young.
And so meeting somebody who can, can see the, the sunshine in people and really address
that and kind of latch onto that and, and magnify that the way that I see that you've
been doing.
Uh, Edith, that's amazing.
(07:14):
Namaste, my friend.
Hey, is it Namaste to you?
Is that the great way to say that?
See the light.
Yes.
Okay.
Light in you.
I see the light in you.
I just learned something today.
It's when I believe a part of our TikTok community and I'm a part of your family now.
(07:35):
You're a part of my family.
We're just all interconnected and we're a part of each other's family.
And when you can see the light in another human being instead of being judgy or critical
or any of those things, like, I'm, look, is that stitch, do you have stitch?
(07:56):
Stitch is Spider-Man.
Oh, this, this is Spider-Man.
This is definitely a Spider-Man shirt.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
I've got stitch.
I don't know.
That's lovely.
I saw, I love that.
Yeah.
Stitch is my, he's an alien.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
He's my alien.
My wife is a huge Disney fan.
(08:17):
And so there's a lot of Disney memorabilia, little pieces, odds and ends here.
Heck, one of her Christmas presents one year was when Disney came out, Disney plus, I'm
like, I know you're going to want to watch it.
She's like, yes, I do.
That's awesome.
I don't know if you specifically mentioned about the loss of your mom.
I think you told me that over a text or, or a phone call or something like that.
(08:41):
But I was looking at other things on here and I'm not going to lie.
I saw like five or six other different points of loss that probably has shaped you probably
either before then.
I don't know.
I'm pretty sure your transformation journey, no, it doesn't just start at 2018.
(09:03):
You said that you had a shift from Barbie mentality to believing in extraterrestrial
life, which was a great sentence and which was top of my list.
I was like, I want to know about that, which I saw as, you know, almost like a loss of,
of, of a childhood mentality.
It's, it's a change, but a change is also losing something and gaining something else
(09:28):
doesn't necessarily trigger the grief response.
But I just want to know what was your, what was the point of transformation when you went,
I believe, an extra-terrestrial life?
Well, it's Barbie mentality to me, especially in my childhood.
I believed everything my mom told me.
(09:49):
Okay.
My mom came from a very repressed era, 1943, Texas.
Very, they discriminated.
They, you believed in government.
You wholeheartedly, you believed in government.
No questions asked.
You just do as they say.
You do as your doctor tells you, you do, you know, yes, you're very obedient and it was
(10:15):
always about being obedient.
And I have to tell you, I'm, I'm very, I'm neurodivergent.
Okay.
I have ADHD.
There are a lot of special things about me.
Yeah.
So trying to be obedient, thinking about it.
I didn't start really thinking about how I was acting and that's exactly what it is.
(10:39):
It's an act.
I had all these things, like I am pan.
I am gender neutral.
I am non-binary.
I am, these are all these, the things, the words that I use to describe myself now.
Then I, I'm a woman.
I would have never worn a hat like this.
(11:00):
I would have.
Love that hat.
I would stitch sweatshirt.
What do you mean?
But I was repressing all of my, my feelings, you know, being an artist is first and foremost
who I am, you know?
So this past year, I, it all came to a head.
(11:20):
I sold everything I own.
I sold my house.
I got rid of everything in my house, all my furniture, all my clothes.
I packed up my car and moved, I moved out to New Mexico and I spent the entire summer
trying to figure out who I am, you know?
That's, there's no question.
(11:41):
That's kind of brave.
I'll be honest with you.
Like I, I'm a Buddhist myself.
I'm not the best Buddhist in the world.
I kind of like some of the things that I have.
It's hard.
There, I've gotten to the point where I'm a lot easier at easy, come easy go when it
comes to losing things or gaining things.
I'm trying to not see them so much as a stagnant thing in my life.
(12:03):
But like uprooting and like just me moving across state was huge for me.
Like I did it because of love.
I don't know if I could have done it just because of like personal ideology.
That's amazing.
I, I'm in love with me.
I am in love with me.
I can pick up and leave at any time.
I have a partner right now, but I have the kind of partner that says, because I'm going
(12:26):
back to New Mexico, I have to.
There's a lot of hiking I haven't done.
There's I want to start mountain climbing.
There's, there's things that I want to do.
And this partner that I have right now is like, go, go babe, go.
Nice.
As long as we have a phone, we'll be okay.
That's important.
(12:47):
That's huge.
Having a partner who's willing to do that.
Um, there's, there's too many partners out there is going, you know, hey, if, if there's
not room for me on your journey, then, you know, is it even, is it even us?
You know, and that's not, that's not healthy.
And that's, I'm so glad you have that.
Yeah.
I mean, well, and I, it's rest, it's reciprocal, right?
(13:07):
So I told him, whatever you need for you do that.
And I don't, I don't do any punishing behaviors towards him.
I don't get angry.
You mentioned on here, you had a shift away from you put shebes, which I hadn't seen it
(13:29):
written down like that in a while.
And I saw that just kind of made me smile.
It kind of reminded me a little bit about my past when I was like traveling from Christianity
to where I am now.
Where, where do you find yourself now?
And when you did move away from Christianity, was there any like existential problems?
Like did you, or did you get like worried or like really, oh man, I'm turning my back.
(13:54):
What if I'm wrong?
Anything like that.
So the shift was more, so the patriarchy is where Christianity in the United States is
today.
It's a very codependent relationship between the parishioners at the church, the pastor,
(14:16):
and, and everyone.
And I noticed this before I left to New Mexico, I had a patient who was a pastor of a church
and he invited me.
It had been a while since I had been to the church.
He invited me to church.
So I went and I remember the, the weeping and the, you just, the weeping and the reaching
(14:38):
out and the singing and all of that.
So I was doing that and it was very moving.
And in the beginning, I'm only giving like $20 in the pot, $20 in the pot.
So you're, you're more in charismatic style.
Yeah.
Piscopal, whatever.
Right.
But I was definitely in a place where I just want to be free of guilt and shame, guilt
(15:04):
and shame.
No, no more guilt and shame.
So I would, I would show up to this church and I would literally let go, give all the
guilt and shame away.
And like I said, in the beginning, I was only giving like 20 bucks a go.
Well, they have a large Hispanic community and me loving the technical aspect of things.
(15:27):
They needed headsets so that the translator could be heard to, to the parishioners and
they needed just amount of money.
So me being me and I wanted that, that for them.
I just started giving a couple of hundred here, a couple hundred here.
But then I started noticing the pastor, my patient was starting to call me.
(15:53):
Hey, do you need anything?
Do you need any help with anything?
Do you need any groceries?
Do you need any this?
And you sure, you know, sure.
I went and I tried their, they have a kitchen and they have food and they have to give them
food for me.
And I thought that was really sweet.
But what I was seeing, pardon me, I was seeing more of a codependency they're trying to build
(16:18):
with me.
You think they saw a big fish and they were trying to keep it to us.
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that's a perspective, right?
Like maybe, maybe in their minds, they justify their actions in a certain way.
I don't know, but my perception in that moment, it was not well received because I don't want
(16:40):
to be somewhere where somebody is trying to hook me and keep me codependent.
I don't want to be codependent.
I want to feed myself.
I'm going to say it.
I want to wipe my own ass.
There you go.
I want to make sure that all my own bills are paid and, and, and that's that.
(17:00):
I don't want to discuss it with anybody.
I don't want to ask permission from anybody.
Sure.
So I started seeing these behaviors.
I quit going to church.
I quit picking up my phone.
That wasn't, they kept trying to call.
They had a guy at church trying to date me even.
I don't know if he was saying he was friends with the pastor and his wife.
(17:22):
But I was just not interested.
What year was this?
So this would have been last June.
Oh, okay.
So this is pretty recent.
Wow.
Well, I left Christianity behind for a while just because the fact the idea of that particular
(17:42):
religion was giving me anxiety and I'm a firm believer that the thing that you're looking
to give you peace shouldn't give you anxiety.
So that was my own internal perspective of it.
But it took me, it took me a while.
Like I was stepping down and I was like, okay, I'm Christian, but I'm not going to church.
(18:02):
Okay.
I still believe in God, but I don't know if I necessarily believe in anything.
Okay.
Some of the stories make sense, but not really.
I might be considered a Buddhist.
How about a Christian Buddhist?
Oh, there are other Christian Buddhists online I found out as I was Googling.
And then, which basically for me seems like it's a marriage of karma and the golden rule.
(18:23):
And they kind of like just realized that there was like a similarity between the two.
And then I just, it took me about a year, I think.
And eventually I just let go of the Christian side of things and I became what I consider
to be Buddhist.
And the fact that you seem pretty firm on your platform and this is only happening in
June, do you have like any lingering, like where do you consider yourself now?
(18:46):
I'm an alien ontologist.
You want to go into depth in that or do you want people to, to go dig around for them
theirself?
What does that mean to you?
What does alien ontology mean?
Yeah.
It means that I love the unknown.
That's what it means to me.
I absolutely adore it.
(19:07):
And if it's unknown to me, it doesn't mean that it's wrong, right?
I mean, I'm having fun talking with people now that I'm in this space and I'm not codependent.
I'm not sitting across from the table and I'm not looking at them like, well, you're
just a jackass.
Everything coming out of your mouth is bullshit.
I don't feel that way.
(19:28):
I literally do not feel that way.
I have such a respect for people and just their journeys and I'm in a good spot.
When I sit back and I get to hear all the great stories and talk to them first kind
of thing.
Where do aliens fit in with that?
That's where I'm trying to figure it out.
Okay.
(19:49):
So when I went to New Mexico, I stopped in Roswell.
I felt like Roswell would have been part of the story.
I was right.
All right.
Keep going.
Keep going.
I stopped in Roswell and I did speak with a lot of people there and there's a guy there.
I can't remember his name off the top of my head.
I'll have to email it to you, but he has a small podcast that I think his name is also
(20:12):
Michael.
A popular name.
Yeah.
He actually interviewed his grandfather and his grandfather's friends.
Okay.
All right.
So there is proof that there are aliens.
I also went to a museum there that has an archive of all the copies of letters sent to
(20:35):
the government about aliens.
They also, they have, I wish I could give you specific names, but there are so many
people.
Even in Maine, there's been aliens there that have landed there that have physically landed
there.
But if you listen to a lot of the stories, it's like, you know, the thing where they
(20:59):
say that if dragons didn't exist, then how did so many cultures who are so far away have
like very similar depiction of dragons, you know, and it's kind of like the same thing
when it comes to Bigfoot sightings aliens.
And I throw a big foot in there because I firmly believe that Bigfoot was probably something
that did exist and went extinct before we had a chance to actually do anything about
(21:23):
it. And because of all that corroboration, I mean, who am I?
I've never experienced anything.
But then again, I've also never experienced holding a million dollars in my hand, but
I guarantee you somebody out there has.
Few have ever held a million dollars in your hand.
Let me know.
But in the meantime, I want to let you know that this podcast is brought to you by Dink,
(21:44):
D-I-N-Q, D-N-D in the coffin hold of the USS Enterprise.
It's not just a tale of adventures.
It's a journey through the losses, triumphs and the magic of tabletop role playing games
that helped me heal and kept me alive.
Get your copy on Amazon and paperback or on Kindle.
Your support keeps my quest alive.
Now let's get back to the story unfolding with Edith.
(22:09):
Right.
Or think about, think about, there are people that have some that we would miss moment at
this time, be able to fathom how much they literally dispose of their China that they've
spent thousands of dots on.
(22:30):
Some of these people are throwing this China away.
Right.
Monthly.
You know, and it's got, it's, it's got gold on it.
I mean, you'll, I've got a couple of friends on TikTok that clean houses for some of these
people and you wouldn't believe the things they throw away.
I've seen some of those TikToks.
It is, it's a variable.
(22:51):
Like the trash look like somebody emptied out a nice thrift shop.
Like the thrift shop you wanted to go to, but you never got a chance to.
Like that's what the trash cans are looking like.
Exactly.
Look, I want, I'm really quick.
I wanted to tell you that Mel, the podcaster, her husband works for NASA.
Yeah.
And when I said, yes, and I went to the pod gals experience in Houston and they took
(23:17):
me to NASA.
It's awesome.
Which was, man, you have no idea what that meant.
Closest, closest experience I had as I went to space camp in Huntsville, Alabama for two
nights.
That was pretty cool.
But not to the big place itself.
I don't get jealous so much, but I'll tell you, I really, really would like to, I would,
(23:40):
space camp would be great.
I mean, if I could get, if I could go to space, that would be even better.
I'm sure.
I get sick on the way out, but I'll tell you what, I'd be fine on the way in.
The closest thing I think that I would want to do when it comes to like space exploration
would be to do that really deep simulation pool that gives them like the buoyancy effect.
(24:04):
So it makes them feel like they're weightless and that thing.
I think that would be really cool.
I mean, you're still in the suit and everything like that.
I just, I think that would be awesome.
The things, the things we want to do, you know?
Right.
I would like to be, I would like to grow plants in space.
I grow them here on earth, which is the fine, whatever, but I'd like to be in space.
(24:28):
Hydroponics, hydroponics for long-term space travel from what we understand, you know,
that's going to be pretty important.
So, you know, if they're not having rope, you know, Matt Damon was growing potatoes
on Mars, according to that movie.
That's the only thing I've seen of them.
Is it good?
Because I haven't seen it yet.
It's so good.
You have to see that.
I need to see that.
(24:48):
All right.
So let's see.
It's amazing what you're doing.
You're almost kind of like going down the list of the things that I had because the last
thing we had was talking about, you know, relationships with the people that you've had while you've
been traveling and whatnot.
And it's just kind of gone down from there.
You know, it's almost like I'm talking to somebody who's run a podcast before.
(25:11):
That's, it's amazing.
So, so let's talk about the big loss of 2018 where your mom passed away and also the loss
of your family.
I mean, let's be honest because it sounds like it sounds like she was very much a hub,
a matriarchal hub, right?
(25:31):
For everybody, for everybody in our family.
That loss, like I said, mind loss generated a lot of change for me.
How do you feel like the biggest change past that point was?
I mean, it sounds like a lot has happened, but what would you consider to be your biggest
change?
Well, after she died, I became very codependent.
(25:54):
Like I mean, very aware my codependency, right?
And codependency at work.
Like I'd be somewhere constantly getting criticism by my boss and I would stay because it was
something I was used to.
My mom, my mom did that.
It felt comfortable to me.
(26:15):
And then finally, I'm like, dude, this is not normal.
She should not be coming for me like this every single day, you know, as a nurse, you
either trust your nurses that work for you or you don't.
Sure.
Especially after COVID.
I could tell you, I before COVID even happened, I caught COVID at work.
(26:38):
And my boss, I stayed home.
I was like, I am not whatever this is.
I am not bringing this into the office.
I went to my doctor.
They didn't have a tech for it.
It was October.
Was that 2018?
I think.
Uh, 2020 is when it hit.
2020 was when, oh, okay.
(27:00):
So it would have been October of 2020.
Okay.
And I went home that day and every single day she had with a nurse that I went, contact
me at home, asking me when I was coming back into work every single day.
And it was so bad that even me not knowing what it was, I didn't leave my house.
(27:23):
I wouldn't leave my house.
I didn't come back into work until nine days later.
Makes sense.
And she was so angry at me and she thought, yeah, she thought I was faking.
And then she got it.
I've, I've heard similar stories, uh, similar stories like that, especially when it comes
(27:43):
to the medical field.
So that's when the real, yeah, to work at a restaurant, he was a manager at a restaurant
where elderly people, Bob Evans, where elderly people come in and his boss called and I picked
up the phone and she was like, we need Sean to come in.
(28:08):
And I said, absolutely not.
He's not coming in.
You're going to have to deal with it.
That's what I said.
That's the point I had gotten to people.
Then being aware of my codependency, I started, it was almost like lopping people out that
I'd never even noticed that they were dragging me into this vortex of BS.
(28:32):
I did, I cleaned out my entire closet of human beings and, you know, the universe filled
my closet.
That's the way I look at it.
That's good.
That's, that's important.
Um, I guess it's important, I guess, to find something that's going to, to fill a void
(28:53):
after a loss that is going to be beneficial for you.
Not a lot of people see it like that.
They kind of think of just grabbing whatever's comfort.
And you know, I mean, here's the thing for each, for each person their own.
I mean, some people, they want to, to surround themselves with as many people as possible
(29:13):
and get those comfort items and kind of just like, soothe the hurt until they don't think
it's going to be as bad later or some people tend to wallow.
I mean, it's, it's all things, but I'll be honest with you, finding good people to be
around to fill that void, that can't be a bad one.
I don't think so.
No, that's, that's after my mom died, that's pretty much it up happening.
(29:36):
I quit filling my closet with people that were like her that were take, take, take,
take, take, take, take.
My mom needed me to live the life, I guess, that she didn't live when she was younger.
So going to nursing school and, and medicine and all of these things were quite the accomplishment
(29:59):
in her book.
And now presently I, you know, came out as queer to my dad and my brother.
And my brother was like, Oh, okay.
I already knew, he already knew, he already knew.
And then my dad was like, Oh, Edie, everybody makes mistakes.
(30:20):
And I said, Oh no, this is not a mistake.
This is who I am.
And he goes, this is who you, who you are.
And I said, yeah, dad.
And he goes, okay.
Wow.
Okay.
And he talks to me every single day.
And my brother talks to me like three or four times a week.
(30:42):
But I think it was better for them when I came out.
That's good.
I was not going to lie, I'm a little envious, but that's, I think that's because we got
different dads.
I mean, there, there was no way I was going to be able to tell my dad I was bi.
Like he almost lost his, his shit when, when he found out that I had a crush on somebody
(31:07):
that wasn't white.
And I was like, well, this is, this didn't know at the time, but there was a little voice
that told me, it's like, this is the moment you're not going to tell him much anymore.
But no, that's, I'm so glad you have that.
And I'll be honest with you, when it comes to like a person who has, who has lost a parent
(31:29):
and lost connections on purpose, like it's not like they ripped from you of the things
that you knew and believed to just start new ones.
It sounds like it's been a wild ride, but it sounds like it's been relatively smooth.
Like, but smooth in the way is like you're being tied to a rocket, but at least the rocket's
(31:50):
going in like a good upward secretion.
Well, I, I have to be honest with you.
I, I had to meditate through all my old beers.
And when I was in New Mexico, Powell's bad calf really put me this place of no fear.
It was as close to being on another planet.
(32:12):
Honestly, if you ever go there, I would love to be there.
I would love to be your guide.
I know everything about it.
I was there for three or four days.
I walked the entire cave all by myself.
And when I say the entrance is just mind blowing, mind blowing.
(32:34):
It's hundreds of feet.
The entrance is hundreds of feet.
The entire cavern is as tall as the Empire State Building.
That's what I've heard.
And that's, that mind boggles me.
It's hard, it's hard for me to fit that in my brain.
It's when I, my whole body was a tangle.
(32:55):
I was sweating from pure joy.
I was like, because when you walk inside and you can smell the bat down, which was like
home to me, it really was.
It was like, oh, that's a sentence I didn't think I was going to hear.
And I'd be honest with you, that might turn into a title.
We'll see.
But I, when I walked into that entrance and you look and you're losing the light from
(33:22):
outside, the deeper you walk in, the darker it is.
The only light that you have is the illumination that the part gives you.
And it's small amounts of light because you can't, because light is so destructive to
the cavern.
Right.
You know, even human breath, the oil from your skin and your hair.
(33:45):
And I never touched a thing, your voice raising it over a certain octave, which there are
people, there were people there.
And I will have to say it did get annoying.
You know, when you hear these voices raised because I had such a respect for it going in
there.
And so I went down the first time down the elevator because I was too much of a chicken
(34:10):
shit to watch, to walk through the natural entrance.
So, and that was 750 feet down.
It's crazy.
I imagine that you would probably have less problem with pressure differential if you
walked rather than taking the elevator.
I bet your ears were freaking out.
(34:31):
They did a really, really good job.
They did that's good job of that elevator and they're still working on the elevator.
And back in 1923, when they first started, when they first opened the cavern, you had
to go down a wooden ladder.
Wow.
(34:52):
Okay.
No, I'm not doing 750 foot.
Well, I'm sure I'm sure there were there are landings like you probably had ladder landing.
Yep.
Like, look, he calling almost.
That's still wild to me.
Like leg and arm day for days.
Like wouldn't do anything for two weeks after I would just lay there on the floor.
Just hope somebody comes and finds me later.
(35:14):
We went, we went to the cave system and I can't remember where it was.
It was in Kentucky.
And the name of it escapes me right now, but it's the first cave I've ever been into.
And I mean, the same thing.
Don't touch anything.
It's just from your skin.
You could tell where people had touched things because it was like a different color, like
(35:35):
a different color black or something like that.
Yeah, I told myself I'd have a Google machine up too, but I totally damn it.
Hey, that's it.
That's it.
Okay.
Which is my book of caves.
It was, it was great.
We went during the summer.
So it's like natural air conditioning on the way there and also in there.
(35:55):
It was just, it was lovely.
I had some wonderful photography using the lights that they had in there as accent points.
That way I didn't bring my own flash.
It was just, it was fantastic.
Good cave is awesome.
And now I just want to see one that's 750 feet deep.
That's my next thing I got to do.
It's for you.
It is absolutely for you.
And then they have the bottomless lakes in New Mexico.
(36:19):
Oh yeah.
They have a few of those heading further down south where they, you know, they were testing
them, right?
Somebody got lost in it and they're like, Oh no.
So they threw a rope down in there and the rope just went on forever.
And they were thinking, Oh, it's just forever deep.
And then like finally, like somebody from MIT came through with, with a couple of sensors
(36:40):
and whatnot.
I was like, no, this thing just takes a really sharp turn.
It just keeps going guys.
Like it's, oh, yep.
There's that dead guy.
Yeah.
Well,
But the world is flat.
Don't you know?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Totally.
We have no idea what's beneath all the surfaces.
We have no clue.
(37:01):
That's, that's a different feeling in itself is when you start to realize that you, the,
the world around you is, is much deeper and stranger than you will ever probably get a
chance to see the unknowns that we keep thinking of tend to be pale in comparison to the knowns
that we actually find.
(37:21):
And so it just keeps compounding the world.
It's just a little bit wild.
It was wild.
It was too wild.
So are you, are you still doing nursing things or is podcasting your job now?
Or what is so good?
So I left this up to the universe and I'm in a really good spot.
(37:47):
Eventually say at the end of 2024, I'm going to be completely done with nursing, completely
done.
And at this moment, I am not, I, I love it.
And what I do for the people that I take care of, I love that too.
And you know, we have such a great elderly population and they have so many beautiful
(38:11):
stories to tell.
I don't know how you feel about that, but yeah, I'm still doing that.
And I believe the end of 2024, that's when I'm going to retire and be a podcast.
So how are you, how are you feeling about that?
Like, is there any, any, any regrets that the time is coming towards that?
(38:32):
Or like, like, how, how is that making you feel that, you know, that the, that you're
making yourself turn this page on that chapter?
I'm loving it.
Okay.
So ready for it.
I have stopped all extemporaneous spending.
Yeah.
Every penny.
I need to do that.
Yeah.
I'm telling you, no more Starbucks.
(38:55):
I'm like, I, look, I love you, but I'm no longer a fan because every dollar that I make
is going towards the podcast.
Okay.
So I don't have time for subscriptions.
I don't have time for Team U. I don't have time for TikTok shop.
I'm not going to have time for these things because I know, and I told you, I just bought
(39:16):
a $400 mic.
Yeah.
So these are the kind of commitments I am making to myself and I believe I'm completely worth
it.
And I have met enough amazing people that, you know, I am also writing a book, you know,
these are things that I told myself for years, you're a piece of shit, but no one's going
(39:40):
to read it.
No one cares.
No one cares.
No one this.
No one.
I'm telling ugly stories I used to tell myself.
I quit doing that.
I quit.
Were they stories based off of your fears?
Fears that are implanted into my mind by my mother, by my grandmother, by every woman
(40:02):
that prefaced me back to the Barbie scenario.
The whole women just don't do those things.
Okay.
They don't believe in aliens.
They don't write a book about themselves and what they've gone through.
They don't, you know, sure you voted, but you voted for who your mother told you to
(40:23):
vote for.
I don't want to live my life like that anymore where someone else is dictating to me my successes.
That seems to resonate with everything that you said so far.
That's definitely a, yeah, feel the conviction.
I feel the conviction in that.
This leads me to ask what people may consider kind of a harsh question, but both of my parents
(40:50):
have passed and I know the answer to this one for myself.
Is there any part of you that no one wants, no one wants to see, no one wants to have
their parents pass.
Is there any part of you that goes, I miss her, but I'm glad that she's gone because
I'm where I'm at right now.
(41:11):
Yes, I do miss her.
I do.
Isn't that the weirdest scam feeling?
Like you, you spend like your entire, you know, childhood up to whenever your parents
actually passionate.
You're like, I'm glad I have my parents.
Everybody says you should be glad you have your parents.
You're going to totally miss your parents when they're gone.
You're right.
You're totally right.
But would I be the person I am now if it wasn't for that?
(41:34):
No, no, I wouldn't.
I'll be honest with you.
I wouldn't be here and not just speaking, not just doing a podcast about loss.
I probably wouldn't be as creative as I am right now.
And there's a, there's a freedom in it that almost makes you feel guilty.
Would you agree?
Yeah.
Oh my God.
Yeah.
Because I don't know about you.
(41:55):
So my mom is your dad.
Okay.
You know, I mean, my mom was a complete racist and, and she was a misogynistic female.
She hated other women.
Every time I see one of those in like film or in real life, or if I read about them,
(42:18):
I'm not going to lie.
That always kind of gives me like a little bit of, a little bit of shutter because that
it's, it's like a oraboris man.
It's like they're eating their own tail.
Like where does it end?
It ends when there's nothing left.
Oh, that's rough.
Yeah.
She did not age well.
My mom did not age well.
She was a smoker and she took a lot of pills.
(42:39):
Wow.
You know?
Yeah.
And I mean, I, here I am a vegetarian and I mean, drink juice.
I have a juicer.
My partner bought me a juicer and I do my own juices and I drink water all day and it's
all about having, being kind to my liver.
(43:00):
You know, it's not about looks.
It's not, am I sexy to this person?
Do I have abs?
I don't give a fuck about it.
No.
Yeah.
It's not about, it's not about, you know, looking good.
It's about how many more years do I have to keep putting out stuff?
How can I make myself live longer to keep experiencing life the way that I want it?
(43:21):
I, good for you.
I need to have more of that because I got myself the diabetes type two just after years
of not taking care of my body right and everything and I've learned, you know, what's eat whatnot,
but I still hard to tell the kick cards.
I'm just saying it's, I'm working on it, but it's hard because the last thing I want
(43:42):
to do is to put my, to put the people I love through premature loss before I know that
I've left this place better than when I found it.
And that's, that's life for me.
That, that, when everybody, anybody asks me what the meaning of life is, that's what
I tell them.
I want everybody should leave this place a little bit better than we found it for the
(44:02):
people who are coming after us.
Cause it's not about us and it's not, and when it gets to them, it's not about them.
It's the chain.
It's going to keep going until eventually the earth has her fill of us and she doesn't
want to support us anymore.
And she just, you know, worldwide extinction event.
Right.
We all, we all just get thrown down to the sleast acts.
Tell, tell me, you know what a sleast act is, don't you?
(44:24):
Come on.
Do you know what a sleast act is?
I don't.
It is the lizard people from the land of the lost.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
Did I, did I just unlock a memory that you'd never thought you forgot?
Oh my God.
I can even see them.
I can even picture them.
Yep.
In my, why does that live in my head as a word that I could just pull out on a vocabulary
(44:49):
night?
I don't know, but sleast acts live in my brain.
You know what?
That couldn't be more perfect.
Well, man.
Okay.
Um, we eat if you can enjoy to talk to, and I don't know how long this episode is actually
going to be because I forgot to say any timers except for what zoom told me I had no time
(45:09):
for.
Also, while we were recording, yeah, this is just good first episode stuff to know.
I ran out of room on my laptop and I had to buy more space on my cloud thing while we
were talking.
So what, hopefully we have all the audio here.
If not, I'll patch something together again.
(45:30):
This is episode zero.
People may not even hear this, but you know what, you know what though?
I have to tell you the universe edits what she wants out.
Hey, this is, this is how I look at everything.
I don't look at law.
There's no loss for me anymore.
If that means anything to you.
Oh, keep talking.
(45:50):
That's perfect for this podcast.
Keep talking about that.
Yeah, this is how, so if you want to change your loss, you change your perspective and
your beliefs and your ideologies.
And I, what I've done is I used to get so upset, you know, like the shit show that
would happen at Word where I'd have my boss behind me beep, beep, beep, beep, beep.
(46:14):
Right?
Right.
It's bitching at me and I now I just turn around and say, look, unless you have something
of value that you are adding to my life, you are taking away from my life.
I can't be in an environment like this.
(46:34):
If you want me to be here, you have the control.
You can walk away right now.
However, if, you know, of course, if she's tuning me out and being the complete narcissist
that I know she is.
Sounds like you have someone specific in mind when you're saying this, but I feel you.
(46:55):
So I have an idea for how to kind of end off my podcast for right now, which is to ask
the person, given the choice to go back.
You don't have to take the choice.
But if you do, would you go back and prevent yourself from losing?
I have a daughter.
I was pregnant at 19 years old and I didn't know my mom sent me away because that's what
(47:22):
you did.
You were pregnant.
No one's supposed to know.
Oh my God, my daughter's pregnant.
Right.
So she sent me away to lifesavers ministries where I had my daughter and she had to get
a lawyer to place my daughter with the family that I chose before I even went up there.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
(47:42):
So if I could do it all over again, I would keep my kid.
That is my child, my daughter.
I would have found a way for us both to eat.
I would have left my mom and I look at it like that.
I love her.
She is tremendous, by the way.
She is the vice president at a college.
(48:03):
She is a journalist.
That's awesome.
I'm glad that you got you know her.
I mean, that's amazing.
It's a gift.
You know, your podcast is aptly named, you know, naked onion because right, the layers,
the layers you have, lady.
(48:25):
I know.
Excuse me.
All right.
We'll eat if.
Yeah.
Thank you so much.
I mean, two minutes if you want to plug anything else other than your podcast, if you want
to tell people, tell you talk, you got two minutes to plug yourself.
All right.
My name is Edith Ivy Rosenblatt.
I am the host, producer and writer, writer of the naked onion mystery tours podcast.
(48:47):
I have a Tik Tok.
I also have a YouTube channel.
Please check me out on YouTube and Mel the podcaster is my co-host.
So thank you, Michael LeBlanc for having me on your podcast.
I'm truly grateful and I am touched by you, my beautiful friend.
Well, thank you.
(49:08):
This has just been a surprisingly bright and shiny moment talking about the things that
have changed us in this life.
Thank you so much for that.
So that's it for this episode.
Tune in next time where I don't tell you about what happened during this episode because
again, this is your loss.
(49:30):
I'll talk to you next time.
Bye bye.
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