Why Women Disappear from Culture (with Pamela Redmond)

Episode Transcript
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(00:04):
Hi, I'm Danielle Davey, and you're listening to Roar, a show
that amplifies the voices of women breaking barriers, leading
change and making real impact. Keep listening for bold ideas
and stories that inspire you to find your voice and make some
noise. Hi everybody, this is Danielle
Davies, the host of Roar. Today's guest is Pamela Redmond,

(00:27):
novelist, Substack writer and creator of Nameberry.
You may know her novel Younger, which inspired the TV series,
but Pamela has continued exploring what it really means
to age. Stay visible and keep redefining
yourself. Her latest project, the One
Woman Show Old Woman Naked, opens a new chapter.
At age 72, she's stepping on stage and exposing both the body

(00:50):
and the story of her life, not as a farewell act, but as a
reflection on 72 years of livingin a female body and refusing to
fade into the background. In a way, Old Woman Naked isn't
a departure. It's a culmination of everything
Pamela's been writing toward thetruth about women and age, told
without filters and this time, without clothes.

(01:10):
Welcome, Pamela. Thanks so much for being here.
They're great to be here. Well, that was a great
description. Can I borrow that to use for a?
100% I will send it to you when we're done talking.
Excellent job, really Well, I, Ilove what you're doing and I
love how I love how you've done so many things.
But for this in particular, you know, you've written novels,

(01:31):
you've run a global brand, but now you're moving into
performance with Old Woman Naked.
What pulled you in this direction?
Well. The main thing was that I wanted
to do something that AI couldn'tdo.
You know, I nice that was that was the first inspiration.
And you know, I, I own this website named Barry that's based
on 10 books of names that I wrote with Linda Rosencrantz

(01:54):
over 40 years. And it basically is a collection
of, of my life's work, our life's work with names, where we
really transform the whole culture.
And then AI tiptoed in accept everything out, you know, 40
years worth of content and then they put themselves first in the

(02:15):
search results, which means thatour traffic and our revenue is
cut in half in the past year. And we didn't even it happened
before we knew it was happening so.
Because you think like about you're a writer and and writers
are getting, you know, their content taken and their voices
taken and their approach taken. But I didn't think of something

(02:37):
like that. Wow, that's terrible.
And it's not just us, you know, it's, it's publishers of every
size, you know, big publishers that are publishing kind of
factual information. It's just all been taken.
And a company like News Corp or The New York Times or Harper
Collins, you know, they can get a deal, a licensing deal with

(02:59):
the AI companies, but we're too little.
You know, we're just 2 1/2 people basically.
We used to be 3. But.
And so, you know, I, I have found that actually creatively
inspiring this year because, youknow, we have just been forced
to reinvent yet again. But at the same time, it's like,

(03:24):
Oh my God, AI really is coming. You know, it's like you have to
be a writer too. Like, what about my dishwasher?
What about the laundry? You know, everybody wants to be
a writer. Why does AI need to be a writer
anyway? I just feel like everything I've
ever done in my life, AI is coming and trying to take away

(03:46):
from me. So it's like I I want to do
something that AI can't do. So what is that something live,
something personal? It's something real.
It's something human, right? I'm like, OK, so that means I
appear somewhere in person in some capacity.
So what could I do, you know, tomake people listen to me as

(04:09):
opposed to anyone else? And I kind of said jokingly to
myself like, well, you can take off your clothes.
And then I'm like, Oh my God, that is a great idea.
I love that. I love this.
I love that that's what you landed on and why, like you
could take up your because you're right, nobody's going to
look away. Right.

(04:31):
And, and it hasn't been done and, and there's really a lot to
say. You know, it's like a young
woman, you know, it's, it's, youknow, I, I, I guess I wrote this
once, you know, if you're a pinkpony girl, it's like I get naked
all the time. I mean, there are thousands of
naked young women, but there aren't any naked old women
anywhere or very few, you know, the few that there are, everyone

(04:54):
says, oh, did you see the Emma Thompson movie Leo Grand?
Yes, you know, there have been afew.
But I actually actually now thisis part of the show, but I after
I did the show, I went to the Metropolitan Museum in New York
and I'm like, all right, I am going to see if I can find any
art depiction from any era of anold woman naked.

(05:18):
OK so I spent like 3 hours walking through the mat and I
did not find a single one and almost no old women at all.
And then I went searching on their database and you know,
they have a lot of results, but you come through them like what
is really an old woman naked 66 depictions from all of history

(05:41):
as opposed to, yes, all of history, including one, a Rodean
sculpture entitled The Gates of Hell.
That's great. That's great.
I'm going to have to find that and put that up with this, I
mean. I'll send it to you.
And so, you know, it's like if we're feeling invisible, it's

(06:04):
because we actually are invisible.
We're invisible in the culture. We're invisible in history.
You know, we're invisible to men, certainly.
And so that, you know, when I started to really think about
what it meant to be an old womannaked, what it meant to expose
my body and talk about my body, I thought this is something

(06:24):
really that nobody has ever done, you know, that I've
certainly never done. And I just felt super inspired
by the whole thing. It was just, you know it.
I knew it was a great, it was like younger.
It was like the baby name stuff.It's like, I know this is a
great idea and I just boom, did it very quickly.

(06:47):
And so, so far it's just been a it was a one night show and but
it rolled out. You know, I had never performed
at all. I've done speeches, but I've
never done anything resembling acting like not even in high
school. So, and certainly, you know,
have never taken my clothes off.So I thought I, I don't know how

(07:09):
I'm going to feel up there. You know, I don't know what this
experience is going to be like. Let's just do it once and see
what happens. So that's, that's what I did.
And then of course, I'm like, I love this.
Well, I love that. It's like you're telling your
personal story, but it's also, it's very political.

(07:30):
Can you talk a little bit about that too?
And not just, well, I feel like there's the invisibility, but
there's also like a defiance aspect of it.
Yes, yes, yes. It's sort of like, all right.
You think this is ugly. You think this is unacceptable.

(07:51):
You don't want to look at it, but maybe you haven't been
looking at it in the way it deserves to be looked at.
You know, and, and I'm saying that in a very thinking way.
I didn't start out with that, you know, formulation.
But after I wrote it, I thought,you know, you can't, if you're

(08:12):
somebody who's 72 or 62 or whatever, you can't look at your
body the way you do when you're 24.
I actually have a picture of myself naked at 22.
Oh, that was a smart move. Well.
What was some like bullshit artist took this picture and you
know, and I let him and I never told anybody.

(08:35):
I never told anybody, not even my husband of 33 years, not my
best friends ever. It ended up in a book.
I don't even know how I figured that out.
And I had to order this book from Germany to get picture,
which I, I, you know, put up behind me when I did the show.
And it's like, I thought I was hideous.

(08:58):
You know, I thought I was so fat.
I thought, you know, whatever, you know, I, I have this like
gorgeous body, which of course you can see now, right?
I always say if I could go back,I would just cartwheel.
I would just cartwheel naked allover the place because I'm like,
what? I didn't know, you know, I mean,
just just even just your skin, like the firmness of your.

(09:23):
I keep going. I'm so sorry.
Oh, no, absolutely. That's the whole point, you
know, And then to be actually faced with this is what you
looked like and and this is how you felt.
And on the other hand, you know,I look at myself now and I'm
inviting, you know, 100 people to look at me too.

(09:43):
And it's like now I'm like, I look amazing.
I actually think, you know, it has nothing to do with the, the
reality, you know, is that reality.
The reality inside is like, wow,I'm like, wow, I stand upright.
I can walk, you know, I'm still here.

(10:05):
I'm like, I can swim, I can talkto, you know, this body allows
me to do so many things that arecentral to my life, which I
don't think I ever saw my body and myself as merged in that way
until I did this. So, you know, if that is

(10:27):
personal more than political, but I think, you know, there's
some inverse relationship between how I feel and how most
women feel about themselves and how society feels about you.
And so once you're past menopause, you know, you're
free. I would call it free from the

(10:49):
constant threat is not it's really a pejorative, but it's
more like the possibility. Am I going to have another baby?
Oh my God, am I You know, once that's all over and it's just
you and your body is not going to, you know, give birth to
another human or you know, your body is just yours and the world
is like we don't want to we don't want to know.

(11:11):
We don't want to see it. There's.
An. Incredible liberation in that
which is like you're just not. I mean, I and, and a lot of
women, you get over this hump of50 and it's like I'm not
comparing myself to any idealized images.
I don't open a magazine or or goonline and see tons of beautiful

(11:33):
bodies that I compare, you know,mine unfavorably to.
Right. I didn't even think of that.
Yeah, you don't. I mean, when you're young, it's
a it's like a barrage of flipping through magazines and
you worked at Glamour, right? So it's like all, I mean, my
goodness, you're like so bombarded with these beauty
standards and all. I mean, you're right.

(11:54):
Who do we see? I.
Mean there's nobody I I got AARPand I was all excited because I
would saw Jude Law on the cover of I was like, OK, these are my
people. Even that you don't see a lot of
women and they're and we're not displayed the same way, you
know, in AARP as as we are in like a fashion magazine.

(12:19):
Exactly, exactly. So, you know, I think that that
is a really interesting, you know, doing this show, of
course, I've started talking to a lot of women about their
bodies, which has been super interesting for me.
And everybody has their own way into the show.
You know, a lot of young women have seen it and really relate

(12:41):
to it or are really interested to see how things unfold.
You know, older women often feelthe same way I do.
You know, it's I have at least three women I've talked to who
are around my age. I will start the sentence with,
well, you know, after menopause you feel, and they've all ended
that sentence in the same way. Free, free.

(13:06):
I love that and I feel I I read your Oprah article too, where
you talk about this and and how like you finally own it like
it's your body. Nobody's even I mean, you know,
there's birthing and if you breastfed like you are a literal
food machine, it's just AII almost just said it's a

(13:28):
nightmare. It's great, but it's also like
you're not your own. You have you're not your own
until I think you get to a certain age.
And then the fact that you can own it by lack of comparison too
makes it, I think, even better. Yes, yes.
You know, and one of the things you mentioned about
invisibility, I, there's a, there's another author I've

(13:49):
interviewed and her name is Kirsten Miller.
She wrote a book called The change.
I don't know if you heard of it or Lula Dean's library, little
library of banned books. And in the Change, it's about
three women, and they're like going through this period of
time where you would think of the change, but she has them
kind of transform in this sort of in a different way, in a way

(14:09):
that's powerful. But one of the things she said
when we talked is she was like, there's power in the
invisibility. She's like, if they don't see
you coming, like you, you don't know what's going to happen.
Like you've got that. It's almost like an invisibility
cloak in some ways. Yes, I, I love that.
That is the perfect way to put that.

(14:30):
Yeah, it's people, don't, you know, especially if you're, if
you're working, if you're running a business, you know, I,
I remember going into some meeting with another website,
right? And they're all guys and they're
all younger than me. And they're looking at me like,
OK, I don't want to fuck her. She doesn't remind me of my

(14:51):
wife. And I'm, I'm seeing like the
wheels turn. Like, what do I make of her?
And it's like mom, like where? Does she fit in my viewpoint?
What do you think? Like what do?
You wear. Where do you get what do you get
as feedback when people just hear the title Old woman naked

(15:13):
for the first time? Well.
Mostly for the first time, it's like, you mean you're going to
be, you know, why would you wantto do that?
What, you know, somebody said, like, why do you have to take
off your clothes to tell this story of your body?
And I think how could I tell thestory of my body without taking

(15:33):
off my clothes? Because it's what happens at the
end of the show. You know, I'm only naked at the
end of the show. And what people have said is, is
what I wanted to happen, which is like now that I've heard this
whole lifetime's worth of stories, you know, and the story
of your body, it's almost like you actually being naked is the
least interesting thing, you know?

(15:55):
And I can't see your body without seeing it in the context
of this whole history and all these experiences, you know,
And, and that's how the show ends.
You know, that it's rather than an idealized image that, you
know, I am all these different people and I am all these
different things made manifest. And I love this.

(16:19):
I love this. I want to come if it, if it goes
on the please tell me, please let us know because I want to.
I, I have to ask you though, forget, OK, first of all, you're
naked. So that's its own huge
vulnerability. But you also never performed
before. So was this like absolutely
terrifying or did it make you feel completely alive?

(16:39):
Or both? No, both actually.
I was really terrified that I was going to forget my lines.
Yeah, I and and I thought from the beginning, like there is no
way I can remember 40. At the time it was like 4550
minutes. Now it's longer because I've
been unpacking it. It's like there's, there's just
no way I can remember this. So I, you know, did what I do

(17:04):
when I do a speech, which is cards with like the topic and
then, but it was that part of itwas, was difficult for me.
I would say very difficult, muchmore difficult and probably was
good because it, you know, it's like it totally distracted me
from from the naked part, but. I the naked part didn't.
Really didn't bother me at all. So.

(17:26):
That is, that is so great. I mean, we, my sister and I joke
like I am so modest and I am, I could not like I when I joke
that if I, I wish I could go back in time and like have my
naked bodyguard rolling through the streets with confidence.
But still, I would still be like, but I have to put
something on just because I'm was grown up Irish Catholic,

(17:50):
still have to put. I would still be like feel
compelled to to cover myself up because that's just what I do,
but that would be such like a mental, I don't know if it would
be a mental distraction or an anchor like this is the thing
that's getting me through the rest of it.
That would that. I just think you did an amazing
thing by doing that. And simultaneously, it's not

(18:12):
like you're like, let me practice being naked first.
You did them together. So it's pretty awesome.
I, you know, honestly, I don't know when I was 50, I don't
think I would have done this. I I don't really, yeah.
I think I would have still been at that point seeing my body as
related in some way to my young body, you know, maybe a softer,

(18:34):
somewhat droopier version. But I didn't.
I, I think my body has become something completely different.
Even though it doesn't look completely different, it feels
completely different to me. I but I think that speaks to
women's place like we're all, you know, under the men's gaze

(18:56):
under, under the gaze of men and, and were described even
just last night, my daughter said that somebody said
something to her about somebody being chunky and she corrected
them and they were like, well, that's just a description.
And she was like, no, like thereare other ways.
Use your mind. There's other ways to do this.
And so I think the fact that thesad thing is it takes us so long

(19:21):
to kind of own our bodies. It takes us, you know, when we
are willing to do cartwheels naked or in that shape.
We don't, we are kind of subjected to that male gaze or
even our own inner, you know, looking at ourselves.
We we react to our bodies in theway that society does.
So I love that you're doing thisand I, and now I'm going to

(19:43):
aspire. Now my kids are going to be
like, no, mom, please put your clothes on.
But I, I do think it's so powerful and especially even as
you mentioned in the going into the museums and looking for old
women naked and you can't even find them at all, but you can
find old men naked everywhere. Oh yeah, yeah.

(20:05):
They love being naked statues inItaly.
They're everywhere. Yeah, but I, I go ahead.
I was just going to say I hope this will be bigger than the
show. That's that's my intention, for
it to be much bigger than me standing there doing this like
it's a conversation, you know, it's something that can and

(20:26):
should be approached from a lot of different angles.
Well, absolutely, but it also ties into what you started with
jubilarian I I feel like from from an outside perspective.
So you coined this term jubilarian, which you you
mentioned is actually like a Catholic terminology.
I guess it was used in churches,right?
Interesting to capture women celebrating this stage of life

(20:48):
rather than fading into the background.
How does that word reflect whereyou are now?
Well, you know, it's very much it, it connects exactly to what
I was talking about with old woman naked, which is that, you
know, after 50, suddenly you're like, wait a minute, I thought
this was going to be downhill. And I'm happier and freer and

(21:09):
more creative and more, you know, confident.
You know, I think all these positive things do happen to a
lot of women as they got get older.
I mean, that's certainly been myexperience.
So and and you know, Jubilarian and old women naked are kind of
very connected and in many ways,but one of the ways is just that

(21:32):
doing jubilarian, which was justan impulse.
You know, I write about that in the very first sub stack, which
is like, I was just standing in my kitchen right there.
And I suddenly it's like I need to do something like I need to,
I need to. Well, it was I was thinking
about Mrs. Dalloway, you know, and there is the beginning of

(21:54):
Mrs. Dalloway, which is all about, you know, an older woman
finding joy in the everyday, right.
And she there's a line at the very beginning, which is what a
lark, what a plunge, you know, as Mrs. Dalloway, which is was
Virginia Woolf's book, which wasthe basis for the hours as she
goes out to buy the flowers herself.

(22:16):
You know, she's somebody who just loves the world and loves
her everyday life. And I thought of, and it was a
beautiful day, you know, and I was looking outside and I just
those words, what a lark, what aplunge came into my head.
And it's like, I need a plunge. I need a lark.

(22:37):
I need something, you know, that's just fun and creative and
positive. And that's a risk, you know, but
in a not with a way that doesn'thave very high stakes Let's.
Say even even even that kind of joy is sort of resistance at at
this moment in time. You know, you're like, I will be
joyful. So there like, hey everyone,

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(23:21):
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say, it feels a little bit like,you know, I, I don't want it to

(23:44):
be, oh, the world sucks. So I'm just going to ignore all
that and go off and have fun. You know it it it.
It doesn't it, I don't get that.I don't get that impression.
It seems like you're you're trying to stay joyful despite
what's going on and like acknowledging that it's a little
bit harder and so like making itmore meaningful.

(24:07):
Yeah. And you know what, I think
that's that's a really good way to put it.
And I think that that's also central to the joy of getting
older is that you do have to, onsome, you do get pleasure from
knowing that the days of joy arelimited, you know, and that, you
know, that there's something in the show where I actually asked

(24:27):
AI, like, when am I going to die?
You know, here are my statistics.
Like when am I going to die? And AI said that I was going to
die on October 22nd, 2041. OK, I know.
Oh my gosh, seriously. I know.
So it's like, OK, I've got, whatis that 16 years, 17?

(24:49):
I can't even add it, but it feels like I've, I, and I think
because my mother died young, you know, my mother died at 61.
And that clock has always tickedreally loudly in my ear and, and
more loudly all the time. So I feel like, you know, this
is very precious. Today is very precious, right?

(25:10):
And this year is, you know, thismoment, it's all this body, you
know, that does function, that is healthy, that is happy, you
know, that can still be joyous. Like it almost seems like a sin
against the universe not to makethe most of that.
I love how you said that. And I feel like, you know, there

(25:32):
are, this is really simplifying things, but they're like 2 sets
of people. There are people who feel like
you do and are like, I'm going to make the most of all of this
and I'm going to find the joy. And I'm going to be purposeful
about finding the joy Because, you know, the reality is some
days are crappy days and there are some people in the world
that are crappy people. And so you have to make an

(25:52):
effort. But then there are other people
who are kind of just you get theimpression that they're sort of
just waiting it out like, well, you know, how long can this go
on? And so I love one of the things
that I feel like you have done so well is reinvention.
And you write about reinvention,but you're also reinventing
yourself. I mean, you just performed as an

(26:13):
as on stage as an actress for the first time ever at 72.
You've you've reinvented yourself as an entrepreneur, A
performer. What have you learned?
And and you've also got divorcedafter 33 years of marriage.
So that's that's part of reinvention.
What have you learned about starting over, especially later
in life, or really through all your phases?

(26:35):
Well, I think one big thing, especially as you get older, is
that you have to get really comfortable with being
uncomfortable and a lot of have your nails right.
I, I mean, I really, I think thefirst time I really puzzled this
through was when, you know, I always wanted to be a novelist.

(26:56):
I always that that was the thingI wanted to do and I was just
paralyzed because I didn't really know what I was doing.
I was very much like, am I good enough?
Can I be good enough? You know, I didn't even really
want to try because it was, it made me so uncomfortable.
And I took a, a writing class. This was in my late 40s.

(27:19):
We were living in San Francisco.And it was with the novelist Ann
Packer. And I was sitting in the parking
lot outside the first class. And I was so nervous.
I mean, I was physically, I'll, I, it seems crazy to me now, but
I had not put myself in a position of doing something

(27:40):
completely new that I didn't know how to do and that I really
wanted to know how to do. I just hadn't put myself to the
test in that way. And it was terrifying.
And of course, you know, you do it and then it's, it's fine.
But it's like I had after so many years of being a
professional writer, you know, having success on some level,

(28:03):
knowing what I was doing in terms of writing non fiction
books, I had to or, or even short stories.
But I had to go back to the beginning and sort of be a
beginning, be a beginning writeragain.
And and and let myself be vulnerable and that let myself
be bad at it, you know, leave myself open to judgement.

(28:24):
That was not going to be positive to correction to
learning. So I that was a huge lesson for
me at that time. That really kind of became
cumulative over time as I started other new things.
It's like, oh, if you're, you'regoing to do a new thing, you're
going to feel uncomfortable. You need to be OK with that, you

(28:44):
know, and that's what it is. It doesn't like, I think you can
interpret those feelings as like, oh, obviously I'm no good
at this, you know, obviously I shouldn't even try.
This is too painful. I can't stand it.
It's like that's what it feels like to be new.
You're supposed to be ignorant, you know, you're supposed to not
know, like you're a beginner. You're supposed to not know what

(29:06):
you're doing. So.
I think so. So many people don't put
themselves in that position after a while, you know, we kind
of get comfortable like, and actually really, I do see it at
this age. So I'm 51 and I see and I'm from
a small town in South Jersey andyou know, you see people have
been working. I know a lot of people who are
like, well, I can retire in thismany years.

(29:28):
And, and, and they're not talking about doing something
else. They're talking about wrapping
something up. So they're not, which maybe for
them, they've got a plan and they're, you know, they're going
to do something new and brave. But I feel like people can get
kind of stuck in that like uncomfortable things are
comfortable now we we can finally afford XYZ and the kids

(29:49):
are out of the house and less it's less.
It's more unusual to see people go for something new once we get
older. Well.
You know, I'm envious of those people.
I, I, yes, me too. You know, if I had that life

(30:09):
where I was just happy with everything as it was and I never
had to put myself out there. I mean, that sounds pretty nice.
Maybe I'm just constitutionally,you know, malcontent or I do see
those years of, you know, I always wanted kids.
I have 3 kids, I work through mykids, but at the same time I
work part time, you know, and I and the hours that I worked, I

(30:32):
felt like I had to make money because, you know, I was paying
a babysitter, right? And so when I finally it it, it
took me the years until my kids were older to feel like I
deserved to do something just because I wanted to do it, That
I could spend some time, you know, working on a novel that I
knew was not going to pay me anymoney for a long time or maybe

(30:56):
ever. So.
How old were you when you wrote your first novel?
50 You were 50 when you wrote your first novel. 55 Zero yes.
Thank you. Because that's just awesome.
Thank and that, but and that's so great.
I love it. I don't care if you're
perpetually not content. I love the results because

(31:16):
you're not, you're not defining what's over.
You're you're, you're not defined by what's done.
You know, I actually have a friend who has younger kids.
My kids are 20 and 16, almost 17and, and hers are little and
she's in the thick of it and she's exhausted.
And you know, every time she hasa conference call, they're
running in the room and, and shesaid something to me earlier

(31:37):
earlier this year. And I was like, I'm not sure if
I should do this or if I should take this chance or whatever.
And she was like, what are you crazy?
She's like, you got to the otherside.
She's like, you're like a middle-aged white man.
She was like, you're proof it can happen.
And I was like, it was like such, I was like, I am so sorry
that you're feeling like this, but now I feel great.

(31:59):
And I was like, I do feel like amiddle-aged white man.
And for lack of better terms, I'm like, you just suddenly have
that freedom to do what you wantto do.
So here we are on a podcast. That's exactly that.
And you know, actually in the book of younger, this this was
not really a theme of the show, but Darren Starr, you know, his

(32:21):
his theme was more love and romance and, you know, work and
self fulfillment. And it's not motherhood.
But the the book was a lot more about motherhood.
And the conceit of the book was that Liza and Maggie were best
friends from childhood and that they were born on the same day.
OK. This is not, you know, Debbie

(32:41):
Mays, our character is kind of in the show is older and Liza is
younger. Anyway, they're born on the same
day. Liza's got to the other side,
you know, and it's is OK, what now?
And Maggie is like, oh, wait a minute, maybe I do want to have
a baby after all. And so a lot of what happens is

(33:03):
the 2 of them kind of taught like, and, and Liza's like, why
would you, Oh my God, you have no idea.
Like you're going into this tunnel and it's going to be a
long time till you come out. And Maggie's like, I, I need to
do this, I want to do this. You did it.
You got, you know, having children, you got a lot of joy

(33:24):
and a lot of meaning out of that.
And I don't want to miss it. So I think, you know, 4 year old
women today are often at one endor the other and it's a very
different experience. It is, it is.
And I, Speaking of the book, I, I really appreciate it because
again, my kids are getting closer to the age of the

(33:45):
daughter whose name I'm now going to forget in the book.
And, and when she comes home from Africa and she's like, you
know, the mom makes this the lasagna and she's doing
everything she wants. And she's like, you know, she's
setting the time aside and she'sgoing to spend this time with
her daughter because her daughter must need her.
And she really wants to be there, even though she's got her

(34:05):
own hopes and dreams and wishes and boyfriends to go see.
And then she gets this, she setsthe table and the daughter's
like, I can't eat this. Like not only can she not eat
it, she's like disgusted by it. So I was like, oh, what a gut
punch. And it's, and it's so true

(34:25):
because even now my son's going to come home for Thanksgiving
and I'm all excited and I'm there's a new movie that I
wanted to watch with him. And I'm thinking we're going to
watch this movie and he is probably not going to do this
much as he misses me much as he loves me.
That's not, you know, he's got his own life.

(34:46):
And so therefore I, it's just a big, it's a big transition for
everybody. And I, I love that you mentioned
that. That's a big theme of the book
because that's, I got a lot of that out of the book too.
I was like, oh, this is really that motherhood piece is a big
part. Yes, and that.
And that guilt and like, they own me kind of kind of thing is

(35:07):
a big part too. Because they do.
They do. You are at their literal beck
and call. Yes, yes, it's, it's, it's an
awkward time because it's also kind of the end of your of being
a mother in that caretaking way,you know, so you don't want to
rush it too much, but. I know, I know if my son calls
me in like the middle of the night, he goes to school in

(35:29):
Hawaii. So if he calls me in the middle
of the night, I'm like, I have to take this call.
Like he wants to talk to me. This is a special time.
This will not happen forever. So there I am.
But it is. Yeah.
So you want to hold on. But also it's it is Women have a
different kind of transition, I think, than men.
But. But back to what you were saying
before about about putting yourself in these uncomfortable

(35:53):
positions. A lot of people are
uncomfortable and then they're uncomfortable that they're
uncomfortable and they're like, I think I'd just rather not.
And even if it's something really small from getting in the
pool in the summer and you're like, I just, I don't, I just
don't want to, it's uncomfortable.
I have to get wet, the water's cold, etcetera.
Then I got to dry off, take a shower.

(36:13):
It's a, it's a, there's a lot oftasks.
I'm a very lazy person. So I'm always like, I got to
look at the benefit to risk, Youknow, it has to outweigh.
But how do you keep the momentumgoing for yourself to continue
to be uncomfortable because you've been being uncomfortable
for a while? I have, I have been being

(36:34):
uncomfortable for a long time. Well, you realize, you know,
once you do it, it's like anything like that, that, that
there are rewards on the other side that are worth, you know,
the discomfort is temporary, that you move through it and you
get to another place that's really valuable, which is, you
know, a new kind of confidence, you know, all these new things

(36:56):
that you learn and become proficient at.
And it just, you know, it's funny what you said about
swimming, because I've become a swimmer in the past few years,
just in my first time in my life.
And every time I get in the pool, I feel that every time,
you know, every time I sit down and every single day when I

(37:18):
start to write, I feel the same thing, which is like, I can't do
this. Oh, it's horrible.
Oh my God, I and I, so I've started to do this thing where I
get into the pool in the first lap.
I say to myself, I'm swimming, I'm swimming, I'm swimming just
to, you know, get myself that you're in the thing that you're

(37:40):
uncomfortable with and you don'tneed to do any more than that,
but just let yourself feel uncomfortable.
That's if you can get the lengthof the pool feeling
uncomfortable, you'll feel less uncomfortable.
And then you can progress, you know, and you can let other
things in. So it's, it's, it's a passage.

(38:02):
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All right, let's get back to theepisode.
So it sounds like you still get uncomfortable.
That part doesn't really get easier, but you learned how to

(38:44):
get through the discomfort that the habit of being discomfort
has become easier. Right.
It's not a permanent state, I think is what I'm saying.
You know, it's like, I think when you, if you don't let it
stop you, you can get to the other side of it.
You still feel it, but there's something valuable on the other
side of it that you're not goingto discover unless you go

(39:07):
through it. How do you keep doing it now?
Like, are you? Are you planning other new
uncomfortable things besides continuing your one woman show
and Jubilarian? No, I I think that the one woman
show and is pretty much enough for right now.
Well, I was like, is there skydiving in your future?

(39:28):
I mean, honestly, being naked infront of a crowd is some
people's worst fear in the world.
Like people have dreams about being naked in front of a crowd.
They have nightmares about it. So it's technically you really
could do anything. Yeah, yeah.
I, you know, then as I said, thenaked part is not central to

(39:49):
this. For me.
It's more, you know, the emotional nakedness is scarier
to me. So I have never written about my
life in this. Intimate and honest way.
You know, I'm I've been a novelist, I've been cloaking
everything in character and story.

(40:09):
You know, I've been inventing a lot, but in the invention is the
reality. So it's much scarier to me to
write about myself. So honestly, can you?
Tell us actually a little bit about that because like what for
somebody who's coming and they're like, oh, I, you know, I

(40:31):
watched younger, I read the books, I love them.
And now they're coming to see your one woman show.
How does it differ? You're talking about your life.
What kind of stories are you including?
Yeah, I'm, I'm talking about my life.
But you know, and I mean, it's the whole thing is stories that
I I really have never told anybody.

(40:53):
I mean, it's really a lot of thestories that feel that have
always felt from different partsof my life so shameful that I
couldn't talk about them. There is, it's funny, the
Catholic thing, you know, there's something in the, the,
the section about childhood where I was, you know, my
friends and I pulled down our pants and just kind of looked at

(41:15):
each other, you know, and we would do this and I would be
like, Oh my God, this, you know,I was so consumed with shame
like this is. You're going straight to hell.
Oh, yeah, I know. I know this is wrong.
I know it's a sin. I don't know which sin, but
they're all those sins with words in them that I don't
really like adultery and covet. So it's like I, I have to

(41:39):
confess. And I actually went to
confession and I do this in the show.
I actually, Janice Maffei, who produced the New York shows, had
this idea that I should kneel down as I did it and, and do my
confession, which I remember in,you know, in vivid horror.
And I said to the priest, I did bad things with my friend.

(42:05):
The priest said, what kind of bad things?
And I'm like, what kind of like,what?
Like my head exploded because I never like imagined that there
was any other kind. And then he's like, and, and of
course the perspective that we have now in priests, right?

(42:26):
He's like touching and I'm like touching.
Not. Even to say.
It's so innocent. It's such an innocent like
memory of of that. It reminds me of being a little
kid and somebody saying I know what the F word is.
And I was like fat, like I, you know, you just, you just have no

(42:51):
idea what's going on. And then anything could be any
worse. Yes, yeah.
I mean, I remember seeing written on the sidewalk FUCK and
coming home and asking my fatherwhat that meant.
And he slapped me across the face.
And I was the only time that had, you know, my father was a

(43:12):
very gentle guy and it was the only time that happened.
But that that was the only response.
So it's like, OK, that's bad. I don't know why, but it was
like there was this whole misty world of bad things that I
didn't understand and I didn't know, like, why are they hiding

(43:35):
Anyway? I I always had the feeling that
there there was something big that the adults were hiding and
you and I was, I was right. You were right, but I love that
that's the kind of story that soand everything is about your
body and the things that have occurred in around into your
body in your 72 years. Yes, exactly, exactly, so very

(43:59):
you know, it's the vulnerabilityyou you did really say that very
well and the the the nakedness and the vulnerability
emotionally and literally. I think that's, that's what
happens and the emotional literal, I mean the emotional
psychic nakedness feels much riskier to me and you know, then

(44:23):
then the physical nakedness. Well, even in, you know, you're,
I'm just trying not to give everything away or anything
away. Not that I've seen it, but even
in the Oprah article, you wrote something about sexual partners
and talking, reminiscing with your friends and one of them
said something like, or a few ofthem said something like, I
don't even remember the date rapes.
And it's like, those are, first of all, that sentence alone.

(44:46):
They really should have just pulled that out as like the
thing to make you read talk thatyou don't have to be naked.
You could just say that that line would also get people's
attention. But that's so telling about
women and, and you know, our lived experience and where we
are in this universe and, and how the universe responds to us.
But I would imagine that hearingyou tell these kinds of stories,

(45:11):
not saying that that's your story, but anything in relation
to those. What was the what was the
audience reaction like? What did people say to you
afterwards? You know, I, I, I feel immodest
saying this, but but people wereblown away.
They really were, you know, it'slike everything that I hoped

(45:31):
would happen, happened. You know, I mean, people laughed
a lot because it's funny, but you know, people cried at the
end. I didn't cry at the end, but I
was afraid I was going to because the last line would
always make me burst into tears.I won't tell you what it is.
I. Have no.
Don't tell me, don't tell me. But it's, you know, I think that

(45:52):
people, it was a like a, I don'tknow, wormhole is, is sort of a
really ugly word, but it was, you know, it, it, it, I think
there must be some word in physics or something for like,
is it black hole or is it some portal?
It opens some portal for women, I think, to go through and think

(46:14):
about their own physical experience in a way that they
hadn't before. Because the things I was talking
about were particular to me, butthere was at least one thing for
everyone that it's like, Oh my God, that happened to me too.
And I've never, I also have never told anybody.
And now I'm feeling this commonality.

(46:36):
You know, one of my fantasies of, of what could happen with
the show, I was imagining, I think in practical terms, this
would be hard, but I was imagining like this audience and
the when I did the show, there were 100 people there, OK.
And you know, the things I talk about, like the date rapes, you
know, I was imagining like little flags in front of

(46:58):
everybody or hair ties or hats or whatever.
It's like, OK, if you've been date raped, put up a red flag.
You know, if you, if you were a kid and didn't when you were a
kid, if you didn't know you had a vagina, which I didn't know, I
just thought it was a crack, youknow, nothing underneath.
Like put up a white flag, you know, put up.

(47:19):
And, and I, I mean, everybody would have a flag.
And I would guess that many people would have many flags
because these are these are things that have not been spoken
or revealed or discussed, but they're really universal.
Yes and I think the flags are a great idea.
Can you do that? And, and I think I think that's

(47:42):
a great idea because it also would make everybody in the
audience feel so comforted, likenot just for you, but you know,
it's not just two people in isolation who have had these
experiences. It's.
Yeah. Women, it reminds me a little
bit of the me too movement and how you know you'd be reading
these stories and you're like, you read some horrible story and

(48:03):
then there's a million people like me too me too, me too.
It happened to me too or and that was specifically about
sexual assault. But all of these stories that
you're mentioning, especially inif you were raised with families
who are like a little bit more closed lipped about about your
body or about your body's place in the world, I think it would

(48:29):
get so much, so much universal appreciation from all the people
watching it. I think that would be great.
I love the flag idea. And you know, you talked about
someplace, one of the things that you wrote talked about the
idea that this could be a revolution, almost a
revolutionary. And I, I know you just said
you're being immodest and, and this is a really big goal, but

(48:52):
but why not? What would that look like to you
if that kind of revolution gathered momentum?
Yeah, You know, I, I've been thinking about that a lot.
You know, how do you unpack thisand what else can it be?
As I, I, I'm writing a new draft, It needed to be longer
anyway. It was like 4550 minutes and and

(49:12):
I knew it needed to be 60 to 70 minutes to be a commercial play.
And and I have a new framing story.
And you know, I mean, in terms of reinvention, I'm much more
comfortable with rewriting and re envisioning now than I used
to be and expanding. But it's kind of like it, it
always feels to me like, yes, it's a piece.

(49:35):
It's it's a piece that's meant to be spoken and it can also be
something written, But what elseis it?
You know, I went to this amaze. I've been, you know, educating
myself and seeing a lot of one person shows, which is, you
know, not something that I ever focused on before I saw what the
Constitution means to me. Did you see that?
Oh well, it's amazing hiding I'm.

(49:57):
Here in South Jersey, I don't get out much, but I really I'm.
From HBO or Netflix or something.
There was a video version of it made and it's really great.
Oh, good. There's another one called Down
on Your Knees about blowjobs. That was a sensation which I saw
with my daughter in the city a couple years ago.

(50:17):
And that one was very popular. And I've been watching Mike
Birbiglia, who's really great at, you know, telling Catholic
boy, really great at telling these stories that kind of
unfold in this elliptical way. I really admire him.
I love David Sedaris. You know, I'm like.
And I do, absolutely. I love him.

(50:40):
I love him. Yes, so all these things feel
like more like new models for me, you know, like like like
that's my role model. Not like I think I'm going to be
that good, but that's that's where what I'm aspiring to.
But anyway, I saw a one person show in LA by a writer named Ed

(51:00):
Schmidt and he lives in Brooklynand he does these performances
in people's homes. So you buy a ticket.
Yes, he's that young. He's like 60 ish.
You buy a ticket and they don't tell you where it is.
And you just, you know, a few days before they give you the
address and you show up and there are 12 people sitting
around a table and the table is full of objects.

(51:22):
And he comes out and he is a character named Edward.
So it's kind of like an alter ego, but from a different era.
I don't it's that part is, you know, for a name person, a
little bit confusing, but and then each audience member hands
him an object 1 by 1 and that's determines how in what order he

(51:46):
tells the story, if that. Anyway, I love that.
I I love to think, isn't it great?
I mean, I love to see if it broke the paradox, you know, And
it felt like, I don't think, I think I would be less
comfortable getting naked in a room with 12 women, you know,
just 12 people sitting around a table.

(52:06):
But I, it made me have this fantasy of 12 women sitting
around a table each. There's something called a
Jeffersonian dinner. Have you ever heard of that?
Are you exposing? Me to all kinds of new things.
Tell me about that. One, you have to have one.
So a Jeffersonian dinner is whenyou, if this is something Thomas

(52:27):
Jefferson really did, and I think he did it with like
political events of the day. So he would invite people to
dinner and there would be a topic like, you know, the
economy or something. I'm picking something really
boring. But I did this once on my
birthday and the topic was birthdays.
And everybody had to come prepared with a 10 minute story,
10 minutes tops, about anything to do with birthdays.

(52:51):
And you go around the table and each person tells their story.
And then we all discussed and, and everybody, everybody showed
up grumbling about this, this isstupid.
I don't want to do this. And it was like the best dinner
I have ever had. You know, each person came at it
in a very individual direction. Everybody got to know each other

(53:13):
in this really intimate way. Anyway, so I was imagining A
Jeffersonian dinner like this, where each woman would tell an
intimate story about their lives, you know, their bodies
over their lives, and they wouldhave to take off one thing.
So it doesn't, you know, you have to take off your bra.
You could take off your bra or you know, but I thought that

(53:38):
sounds interesting. I don't know.
I. That does sound interesting.
I love that idea. I love I well, I almost like you
could, you could almost have it up there with you see, now I'm
going to just start brainstorming like you can have
that as you know, another portion like a they're sitting
there and they can plug in. Do you know what I mean?

(54:01):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Theater minor.
So you know, these ideas have tocome out somewhere.
I I I am so glad I met you. I.
Think I'm a wealth of information.
You, you know, all these things you did, even the names like
Nameberry. I feel like there's just a
through line for you. Do you feel like there's a
through line for you in your work?

(54:23):
You know, for a long time I didn't, I I was like, what, you
know, how do all these things connect?
I would actually meet a lot of people who would think that I
was two different people, especially when my name was
Pamela Redmond Satrin, which is a much more just, you know, a
singular name. People would be like, oh, I
thought there were two Pamela Redmond Satrans.

(54:45):
That seems incredibly unlikely to me, but I think less unlikely
than that one person would do two such different things as,
you know, names and and novels. But my friend Kate here in LA
who was going to produce the show in LA, it's like, oh, I

(55:06):
know what the through line is. It's identity.
And I'm like, that is brilliant.You know, that is yes, that's
it. The through line is identity.
The through line is reinvention and the through line for me as a
creator is doing something in a different way than it's ever

(55:30):
been done before, but in the waythat it should be done, you
know, and in something that I think the goal is like something
that's both original and natural.
Original and natural. That's like the holy that's.
You have a Holy Grail of creativity.
Yeah, yeah, Yeah. Well.
I think you're I think you're doing it.

(55:52):
I have I have one last question for you, but I could talk to you
all day. You're going to be like you're.
So great at this, Oh my God. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
I have to tell my mom you now you wrote your first novel at 50
and and I I don't mean to keep Hemming and hawing on this or I
don't mean to keep coming back to it, but you also were

(56:13):
divorced after 33 years and I'm imagining is it around the same
time? No, no, I was 61 when I got
divorced, and that was not coincidentally the age my mother
was when she died. So yeah.
We could have had a whole episode on that.
Yeah, so I broke my first novel 55.

(56:34):
We launched Nameberry, which, you know, was going from writing
books to creating a website. I mean, we had no idea what
we're doing. And.
And 60 is when Younger got sold to TV, so yeah.
OK, so it actually is even better.
So if you could go back to before you ever wrote a novel,

(56:56):
if you could talk to this personthat you were before you even
wrote a novel when it was just adream and you know, you were
like, am I going to is it going to be any good or do I do it
anyway? Even accepting the fact that it
might, I mean, many people writenovels and there are many
drawers across America and and that's it.
And you've actually had a not only a successful novel, but it

(57:16):
was turned into ATV show. If you could look back and talk
to that woman who was at the time raising kids, married, not
doing the dream that you had, what would you say to her?
I think the thing I would say isdon't give your power to other
people. You know, I was so fixated on

(57:40):
when you say, is it any good, right?
I was so fixated on other peoplejudging whether my work was good
or not that I couldn't even, I couldn't judge it for myself.
And it, you know, it very much relates to the old woman naked
sex relationships. You know, I was always fixated
on, oh, does he like me? Is he having a good time?

(58:00):
You know, I wasn't, I wasn't able to judge it from the inside
out. And I would say that's something
that only recently I've really understand in a really deep way.
It's like, how do you like, whatdo you have to do to get that
feeling in yourself? That certainty is like, I know

(58:21):
this is good and I don't need anybody to tell me anything and
that takes a long time to get to, but I feel that way now.
I work a lot harder on my writing now than I ever have in
my life, you know, rewriting theagain and again and again and
really like just looking for that feeling of excitement and

(58:43):
certainty that this is this is it.
And, and you don't need anybody else to tell you, you know, it's
like you don't need anybody to confirm that feeling.
And I wish I'd been able to get to that when I was young in all
kinds of ways, in my writing and, you know, in my life, in
all kinds of ways. Well, I love it and I love that

(59:06):
you did it now. And I and you, you know, the,
the last thing I'll say is in the jubilarian also, you wrote,
which everybody's obviously going to have to read, because
I've read Lego because I keep talking about it.
But you wrote how to be, I thinkit's how to be 90 or, and, and
how you have a model, like a model for it.
And, and I think everybody needsthat, right.
We all need to see how other people are doing it and how it

(59:29):
can look and it it doesn't have to necessarily look like, you
know, packing up your bags and heading for the hills.
It can look like reinvention anddaring and creativity and
confidence in doing something new.
So I thank you for, you know, how to be 72 because you are

(59:51):
knocking it out of the park. So thank you.
I appreciate. It so much, Danielle, thank you.
Thank you. Really good for my ego.
Thank you. Why don't we hang up?
No, Thank you so much for being here.
I appreciate it. Thank you for having me, it's
been great. That's it for today's episode of
Roar. I hope you enjoyed Pamela's

(01:00:11):
honesty, humor and hard won wisdom as much as I did.
Next week we're heading somewhere totally different but
deeply needed. My second to last guest of the
season is Lisa Field, the founder of Lucky Star Art Camp.
If you've ever fantasized about running away to the woods with a
bunch of creative women, eating gorgeous food, making things
with your hands, and rememberingwho you are outside the chaos,

(01:00:33):
well, Lisa basically built that place.
Our conversation is all about what happens when women step out
of their everyday lives and intoa space that's actually designed
to refill them. Before you go an FYI, you can
grab a free copy of the Roar Rolodex.
It's a curated list of women centered resources worth knowing
right through the link in the show notes.
It's completely free. It's packed with the tools,

(01:00:55):
communities, and voices we talked about on the show.
And so it's also live and it'll be always added to.
If this episode resonated, please subscribe, leave a
rating, share it with a friend who loved Pamela's work.
It helps Roar reach more women who need these conversations.
Thanks again and we'll see you next week.

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