Intro

Megan Willome: All right, so here we are. It is still season one. It is episode three. And we are still reading Marilyn McIntyre's Caring for Words and A Culture of Lies. ⁓ last week was Tell the Truth. This week she turns it up a little bit, and it's Don't Tolerate Lies. So a lot of this is about the The media we consume, the news that we consume and how we interact with that is writers. ⁓ but before we get to that, Tresta has some news. Boom. I don't want to forget you.
Tresta: just boom, right out of the gate. Yeah, so yeah, my book that has been seven years in the making is releasing this fall, Lord willing. Yeah. And you you guys have both been instrumental in this little book. So appropriate to announce it here, I suppose.
Callie: you Yay! ⁓ that's so exciting. I think this is wonderful, congratulations. Do you have a title I can't remember if it's?
Tresta: Yeah, thank you.
Megan Willome: Yeah.
Tresta: Yeah, so the title is More Beautiful Than Necessary and then the subtitle is Finding God's Goodness in a Life Beyond My Control. So it's kind of a mouthful, kind of a lot, but ⁓ yeah, that that sums things up. ⁓ it's just just a story, stories from my life of ⁓ from
Callie: ⁓ that's right. Mmm. Amen. Yeah.
Tresta: Raising young kids and trying to have some kind of control to realizing I really can't control life because it just keeps changing and and then seasons of grief and what that taught me about. Trusting God. trusting God with doubts and and fears and questions and making plans and have making plans that seemed good.
Callie: you Yeah. Okay.
Tresta: And then having them not turn out the way that I thought that they should. God and I had a lot of discussions about that. So
Callie: Yeah. Yeah, trusting God with doubts. I love that.
Megan Willome: Yes. And it seems like a book that is very particular to this stage of life, to midlife. You know, that if you had I know you said it's been seven years in the making, but if you had tried to write it closer to thirty, ⁓ age thirty, it probably would have been been a very different book.
Callie: Hmm.
Tresta: Yeah, it would have been different. I think I would have tried to give more solid answers. Yeah, for sure.
Callie: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Megan Willome: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think you're more at home with the questions and with the process.
Tresta: Yeah. Yeah. And some of what Marilyn talks about in the chapter this week. just reminded me of of things I had to work through in writing this book. Yeah, so she I'll I'll read my I'll read my quote that I chose. So this is from page sixty-three in chapter three. She says
Megan Willome: Mm. Mm, say more. Okay. Yeah, excellent.
Tresta: Our goal is to be, together, wise as serpents and harmless as doves. The first requires healthy suspicion, understanding of process, historical perspective, and more to our point, attentiveness to uses and abuses of language. The second requires mutual support in the arduous business of seeking peace as well as truth, focusing lovingly on the health of the community rather than obsessively on the corruptions of public leaders.
Callie: Mm-hmm.
Tresta: The dangers to be avoided are cynicism and naivete, two aspects I think of the same problem. Both are strategies of avoidance, and neither contributes to healthy common life or conversation. And I I wrote in the margin, I she's calling me out here because I I mean when it comes to the news, current events, I have always tended to be
Megan Willome: No.
Tresta: a little more head in the sand and I I can spiritualize that and say, you know, I'm just I'm I'm taking care of the things that are close to me, you know, my family, my community and those things are taking up all my time. ⁓
Callie: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Tresta: But she really, ⁓ you know, don't tolerate lies, the title of this chapter. That's more than just telling the truth, and that's more than just Living a Quiet Life and Working with Your Hands. ⁓ those are those are all good things, but
Callie: Hmm.
Megan Willome: Yeah.
Tresta: For me at least, the cynicism and the naivete are two ends of the spectrum that I fall towards because I'm avoiding the hard work of making an opinion that I'm will have to change when I have more information.
Callie: Mm-hmm. Turn. Hmm.
Megan Willome: And I wonder if maybe that's part of it is realizing that ⁓ that opinions are going to change as we get more information or as the situation changes and we tend to like or certainly are, ⁓ our society likes ⁓ rigidness and dogma. This is right, this is wrong.
Tresta: Yes. That makes it hard too to to write publicly. So this week I wrote just a little a rant basically about AI. And it got long and I I kept cutting it and cutting it because there's just so many things I want to try to explain because I can hear.
Callie: Mm-hmm. Hmm. I'm going to
Tresta: I can hear the opposition or I can hear the yeah, but what about? And so I tend to ⁓ I tend to be all or nothing. So actually actually writing that piece was a an act of growth for me, just to find, you know, this is where I'm at and and yes, I'm not covering everything. And yes, there are caveats, but I have to say something.
Callie: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. You have to say something. Yeah. Yeah.
Megan Willome: Yeah, and it was it was your way of not tolerating lies.
Tresta: Yeah. I hope so.
Callie: All right. Yeah. ⁓ it's beautiful. I thought I thought it was great. ⁓ And very important. I think that these ⁓ extremes that we're in right now, I think they're just safe for people. And and it's, I was just on a walk yesterday with a friend who so I'm in Ann Arbor, Michigan, we are a very, very liberal progressive town.
Megan Willome: No, yeah.
Callie: And ⁓ to what I think, my friend and I are kind of thinking like to a point where like, if you're welcome here as long as you think just like us. And so it's just as bad as the other side in my opinion. I'm also very, very aware that, ⁓ you you have certain words that trigger people and you're done. So ⁓ at any rate.
Tresta: Mm-hmm.
Megan Willome: Which would be where I live.
Callie: She and her son went shooting with a good friend of a colleague of hers. And she was very conflicted about it because ⁓ that's just not what happens around here. You just don't do that. And it was ⁓ like clay pigeons, ⁓ even if it wasn't anyway.
Tresta: Ha ha
Callie: She said it was so fun, the way the guy was talking about it was he said she said it was almost like a form of witnessing. Not like I mean, not like Jesus witnessing, but like she felt like she was bearing something very special to him. And it opened up the doors for conversation that probably she would not have been able to. or wouldn't have even been willing to go down that path because she sees a fact about what he is interested in and that's that and then he probably sees her and what she's interested in and what she stands for and that's the end of it. So I just found it really interesting ⁓ that this happened and I was saying, I think that's the harder thing to do for us to cross. a boundary that we've set and sit down and do something communal. Now, I mean, I know people are gonna probably hear me say this and be like, what are you talking about? But I do think that like she did the harder work. She sees him differently. And I think he sees her and they found out what they had in common too. And I don't know, I think that's scary, but I also think it's ⁓ probably the better. better thing to do.
Megan Willome: tell you I had an experience a little bit like this. ⁓ where in the time of year, of course, where it's more light. I I like to walk my dog in the dark, but now sometimes I'm walking in the light. ⁓ my goodness. So I'm walking down my favorite deserted road and a pickup truck pulls up next to me to ask me something. Doesn't happen very often, but whatever. And I will just say this person had a bumper sticker that I really, really didn't like.
Callie: Yeah.
Megan Willome: Okay. So I didn't know what what is this guy pulling over for? Who knows? And he says, Have you seen a Picanese? And I said, No, I haven't seen a Picanese because I'm walking my dog. And he says, Well, ⁓ that's what I'm looking for. Would you let me know? My dog got out. ⁓ it's got the tag has my wife's phone number and she died six months ago.
Callie: Yeah. ⁓ ⁓ my gosh.
Megan Willome: And at that moment, I just wanted to climb in the truck and give that man a hug, despite the ⁓ bumper sticker that I found so offensive. But he was just like, here's a woman with a dog. Maybe she'll find my dog. And at that moment, I didn't care that we vote differently.
Callie: Yes.
Tresta: Yeah.
Callie: Yeah, I mean, and that's, that's the stuff we need. We need to read that. That's what we need to read. ⁓ Because I don't I think if I said this is where I put my head in the sand when I'm listening to somebody on Facebook or whatever, even a blog post, even an op ed in a newspaper, and it's so aggressively right.
Tresta: Mm-hmm.
Callie: that I, mean, correct, you know, right or left. You're so, I'm so right about this. It just feels, I don't care. I don't care that you're right. I don't want to listen to you anymore. Cause it's not a dialogue. It's not a dialogue.
Tresta: Yeah.
Megan Willome: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Tresta: Yes.
Megan Willome: Yeah, we need to we need to learn how to do that again.
Callie: You know, when my, I don't know what it is when your cousin's son, is that second cousin? I don't like saying once removed, because that feels horrible. Because like, he wasn't removed. I know, like why? What's the story with that? But so he,
Tresta: Dialogue. Yeah.
Megan Willome: I have no clue.
Tresta: Yeah. Who removed them and why?
Megan Willome: Yeah. Yeah. You can just say cousin, you're forgiven.
Callie: ⁓ He died and was right around 2023, I think, and ⁓ grew up in Chicago. And my other cousin and I were driving down together to pay our respects. We were at the funeral. This was, you know, it must have been 2022. We were, this was just when everybody was kind of entering back into the world after COVID, but there were definite like rules to what you can and cannot do. And obviously we know that there were some people who are saying, can't, you know, I'm not wearing a mask, I hate that. And then there were other people who were saying, okay, fine, I'll wear the mask or whatever. So we're in Chicago, pretty liberal town, and the cousin that I'm with happens to be not liberal, rather conservative. And ⁓ we're in line, and we're all outside. It's kind of a spring day, kind of a cool spring day. And I thought that was kind of strange that we're all inside ⁓ until ⁓ my oldest cousin, the father of ⁓ the boy who died, ⁓ told us he had COVID and that they couldn't be in the church and ⁓ we all had to like file in with masks on and go and pay our respects. And I was really sad about that, but you know, I wasn't gonna say anything. I'm not gonna say this is stupid or whatever. My cousin was pretty agitated. She thought that was just horrifying. ⁓ And especially because her, you know, this boy's poor mother couldn't even stand next to him while everybody was paying their respects. So we get to a point where, you know, we're in line. She says, I'm not wearing a mask. I'm not gonna wear a mask. I'm like, whatever, I'm not here to start a fight, know, whatever. But then, one, another cousin comes in and sees us standing there. And we've known her since, I don't know, we were, she was really young. She's the daughter of the mother. And she saw us and just started.
Tresta: Right.
Callie: bawling and had the mask on and said, you know, she was, she just wanted to hug us. my cousin, she goes, F this and just starts, she just gives her a big hug. And I thought, I don't feel sorry about that at all. Like it was, if we got COVID, it was worth it. And also it's family. So I don't know. I really would prefer to be in those kinds of stories than I would in the
Megan Willome: Yeah. ⁓ Yeah.
Callie: I'm going to follow all the rules ⁓ situation. I don't know. I think I would regret if I had said, Hey, no, don't, don't do that. That's not okay. ⁓ Anyway.
Megan Willome: Yeah, especially at a funeral. Well ⁓ tell us what in the chapter stood out to you, Callie.
Callie: It just... ⁓ I really liked on page 59 ⁓ She writes we must listen with all our might with all our will to discern Laying aside our very human desire to be right with a prayer that we may be faithful I don't know if you guys have ever been in this situation, but ⁓ I Find that the more somebody is talking the more true things get. ⁓ And sometimes that can be really aggravating because it start, I'm like, I don't want to engage with this person, but like I felt convicted to hearing, listening with all our might and nodding and going, whatever it takes to ⁓
Megan Willome: Yes.
Tresta: Mm-hmm.
Callie: not tell this person they're wrong, even if you feel it in every fiber of your being. Sometimes they just have to get that story out. ⁓ It also reminded me of, I don't know if you've read Jean Murray Walker's Geography of Memory, but she, ⁓ it's about her and her mother. Her mother, I can't remember if, her mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's or if it was just to a point where they all knew that that's what she had, but somehow she was a real, ⁓ like a spitfire of a woman and somehow, you know, was able to not get that diagnosis. I can't remember what it was, but she definitely had some problems with memory to the point where she ended up, ⁓ hospitalized and, and, ⁓ I think Jean had to take care of her at one point at any rate. Jean learned how to, instead of telling her that she's wrong when her mother would say, start talking to her as if she were the daughter or her husband or something along those lines, or just when she was five or six years old, instead of saying, you're 86 and we're in, I don't know where they were, let's say Illinois and it's Tuesday, instead of that, she said she would enter the metaphor and she would say, so let's say her mom woke up one day and said, we're in this storm and she's scared. Instead of saying you're not in a storm, she would say, you're safe, you're okay. I'm gonna put this blanket on you and I'm gonna, and so she found truth to tell in within that story. And I thought that was so good.
Megan Willome: Mm-hmm.
Tresta: That's beautiful. ⁓
Callie: I don't remember much about that book, but I remember speaking through metaphor. It's like your own language. And I think that's what we do as writers too, when we can't say like the big emotion with the big event, we have to speak through metaphor. I think of Megan, the cardinal poem, like what was that? Six years ago when you read that out loud. And I thought, I don't know.
Megan Willome: Yes. Mm. Yeah.
Callie: who the cardinal is, but I feel her. ⁓ I can relate to that bird for sure. And you didn't, I almost wonder if you had given the actual specifics, if I would have been taken out of it. You know, I could enter into your story with, with my own self. And so in that way, maybe the truth even got stronger. I don't know. But at any rate, ⁓ I really liked the idea of
Megan Willome: Yes. Yeah.
Callie: listening with all our might, trying to lay aside ⁓ our desire to be right. I mean, that felt very physical to lay aside something, especially desire.
Megan Willome: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, and I think making space for metaphor, one thing I I'm learning from both of y'all is I can be guilty of trying to explain too much. That was a case where I didn't with the cardinal because it was a it was a high coup, so I didn't feel the need to explain it. But sometimes when I'm using a metaphor in a paragraph, I don't trust my reader enough. And
Callie: Sure.
Tresta: Yeah.
Callie: Right.
Megan Willome: And Callie, you're so good at trusting the reader and it's something I'm trying to learn, you know.
Callie: ⁓ thank you. Sure. Sure.
Megan Willome: 'Cause I trust them. It is. It is. And good writers, you know, it the trail is there for you to follow, right? And I don't feel that need at all in poetry. I I love having my poetry have nuance, but it's when I switch to prose that sometimes I don't trust enough.
Callie: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sure, sure. Well, yeah, there is something about the wiring of our brains when you make a sentence. With a poem, you can leave out a word and every word counts, whereas when you've got a sentence, you're like, this complete? And so maybe that you end up doing the more word. That's why I think it's so cool to study both ⁓ creative nonfiction, fiction, poetry, because I think they all teach us something about whatever it is we're specifically trying to write. If it's a poem, if it's a short story, whatever. Yeah.
Megan Willome: Mm-hmm. ⁓ yeah. Y'all inspire me all the time. I'll read a post and go, ooh, I need to write about that or some aspect of it. So y'all write very differently than me, but because you're both good writers, you inspire me.
Callie: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, same, same. And trust that I love that ⁓ Caitlin inspired you, you know, was like, she gave something you pounced off of it and did your own thing. And I think I remember hearing in grad school, all books talk to each other. And I think you could say that with essays or poems too, that they all kind of talk to each other in some way. And I think that and I think that's the communal way to, you know, it brings us it brings us together. So
Tresta: Mm-hmm.
Megan Willome: Yeah. Right.
Tresta: Yeah, and I think it helps t it helps me too to realize that I don't like you were saying, Megan, you you want to explain everything and my essay got long because I wanted to cover every avenue, which it's not possible, but it's it can give me some peace that okay, there's others out there talking and ⁓ writing about this too. So I don't have to say it all. I'm just saying my little bit.
Callie: Hmm.
Megan Willome: Sure.
Callie: Right here. Yeah.
Megan Willome: You're part of the conversation in a way that's authentic to you, that's telling the truth, that's not tolerating lies. And I think one lie is that we need to be like everyone else, or we need to be the very best.
Callie: Yeah, absolutely. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Megan Willome: And we just need to be us, which that's the part that really stuck out to me ⁓ in the chapter. It's the very last paragraph on page 64. Finally, an appropriate response to the competing claims of public voices is to take these obligations quite personally. We have been called by name, not every one of us to public speaking. political organizing or investigative journalism, but all of us to seek truth and follow after it, to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God, caring for the words we speak and testing the words we hear serves those ends directly. And this whole idea of being called by name, I feel like is something I am walking in more and more in my middle age now, being north of fifty. ⁓
Callie: Mm. Hmm.
Megan Willome: Getting more comfortable with that, it makes it much easier for me to know what to say yes to and what to say no to in terms of when people ask me to do things. I'm very clear on what I'm called by name to do and what I have no business being a part of, you know.
Callie: Hmm. Hmm. Do you feel that way? Or do you know that? Does it start with a lack of interest in what you're in what you're being asked to do?
Megan Willome: Think maybe that's part of it. And for me, there's a difference in a one off. Like, I am I am not a great behind the scenes detail person. But if someone needs it on a one off, you know, ⁓ I remember I had a friend giving a concert and she said, Can you set up the food for the reception? I was happy to do that because this is one of my best friends, and she had
Callie: Mm-hmm. Mm. Sure. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Megan Willome: no one else to help her do it. But I don't need to be on the church committee that does that regularly because they're people and that floats their boat and they are called by name to be behind the scenes and do that. And it just sort of destroyeth my soul. So
Callie: Sure. Yeah. Yeah.
Tresta: Mm-hmm.
Callie: Yeah, yeah. I have never ever served on any sort of PTA committee, anything. Like I do not volunteer for anything. And I'm like, I'm kind of the parent who's like, can I just pay out? Like when my kid enters kindergarten, can you tell me how much money I need to give until they're 18 and out of this district? ⁓ And or ⁓ you know, can you just make one giant permission slip and I just sign it once and like they're free to do all the things. And it's not that I'm not hands on and I don't care. It's just, I really don't care about that. And I really get upset when people...
Megan Willome: Yeah.
Callie: stand there and are like, look, this isn't going to be, we can't have this without you, know, small, lots of hands make light work or whatever. And I'm like, I don't, I don't want to do any of that. I just don't. And so I don't know if it's just because I'm a jerk or if I'm actually called by name and God's like, you are not supposed to be doing this.
Tresta: Okay.
Megan Willome: Well. Well yeah, because you're probably some of these people who sometimes bug you are not spending a lot of time writing. That's not their gift.
Callie: Right, right. But see, I don't tell them that they have to write. That's the thing that bugs me is like, if I volunteer for all this stuff, that takes away from my writing or like, you know, I want to do my job so I can do my writing. You know, I want to, that kind of stuff. And so I'm very, ⁓ I have all these.
Tresta: I read something.
Megan Willome: Exactly, exactly.
Callie: ⁓ boundaries and I'm sure people think I'm just a crashy old lady and I probably am but yeah, I don't have to tell them like Nothing will ever get done if you don't sit down and write Because it's simply not true ⁓
Megan Willome: Yeah.
Tresta: Ha ha ha.
Megan Willome: What were you gonna say, Tristan?
Tresta: ⁓ I d I was reading something this morning about a woman who she and her family moved to France. She was just talking about life in France and just the fact that French people just say no without a bunch of explanations. They have the freedom just to say no. I I'm not doing that. And it's not considered rude or snobbish. It's just no. Yeah.
Callie: I love it. Yeah, just say no. Yeah. Just say no to the PTA.
Megan Willome: Just say no, people.
Tresta: Which is yeah, which is hard. But like you said, Megan, I think women of a certain age we just learned, you know, there's certain yeses that are going to take so much out of us. That's how I that's how I feel. 'Cause I I used to always feel bad. I remember when I was I was a newlywed.
Callie: Yeah.
Megan Willome: Yeah.
Tresta: ⁓ and I'd only been a Christian for, you know, six months or so. And the church, the same church that we're in now, essentially, but we were meeting like in a garage. It was a very small, small beginnings. And but we needed Sunday school teachers. ⁓ no, so this was after the garage. We'd moved into the Methodist church, let us use their building after their service Sunday morning. So we met after after them.
Callie: Mm-hmm. ⁓
Tresta: Anyways, they needed Sunday school teachers. I've been a Christian for six months. I'm 20 years old. So these two women come to my door and say, you know, we really need we really need people to teach Sunday school. And I said, Well, I just I just really feel like I need to be out listening to the message. And their response was we all do, honey. We would all like that. I'm like, okay.
Megan Willome: Well.
Callie: If
Tresta: I guess I'll teach Sunday school. Which what an what an awful way to find your Sunday school teachers out of sheer desperation.
Callie: So what?
Megan Willome: ⁓ chapter.
Callie: Right? Yeah. ⁓ yeah. That's how every experience in my church has any church I've been in. It's been the same. Maybe not that directly, but you know, it's God's will, God's calling. You never know when God's calling. I can remember telling a woman like, he's not calling me because at the time I was teaching full-time and I'm like, I cannot teach full-time and then.
Tresta: Yeah.
Callie: teach on a volunteer where kids there's no discipline plan there's no nothing I can't do that that's that's recess yeah
Tresta: Kitchen.
Megan Willome: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Tresta: Yeah, yeah. That's babysitting. No thank you.
Megan Willome: Yeah, and I think when you know, then it also makes the hard parts of what you're doing better. Like, you know, I know my yes is to the music ministry. I know I'm gonna be completely shredded during and after Holy Week, but I want it. I don't wanna miss it, you know, and that's just part of it. So I don't complain. Just
Callie: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Right. Yeah, yeah, I like that.
Megan Willome: I know how to approach it.
Tresta: So in in in light of the chapter, Don't Tolerate Lies, do you think that we as women over fifty who sometimes get a bad rap for being crotchety and saying no, are we just refusing to live the lie anymore of trying to be somebody that we're not? Is that is that what she's saying in that last paragraph about being called by name?
Callie: Yes.
Megan Willome: Mm-hmm.
Callie: Cool.
Megan Willome: Mm. You know, I I certainly think that once we get to a certain age, we're a little less tolerant of we we don't want to lie to ourselves anymore. You know. ⁓ I I would love for this for someone to be able to do this better at twenty and twenty five, but I wasn't that person.
Callie: Mm. Yeah.
Megan Willome: Yeah.
Callie: Yeah, I think, you know, almost six months into my fifties, I and I and towards the end of 49, I felt like I was just starting to get to know myself again. And there's like a can remember right around 45. I kept telling Jesse, I'm like, feel like I'm turning into a monster, like I'm just turning into some kind of monster. And I was telling a friend that she's like, yeah, isn't it great?
Megan Willome: Yeah.
Callie: And that really shifted the way that I started to think and feel about myself. And I think Monster maybe was, well, Megan, I remember once you told me about my writing, like, we need more dragon. We gotta have dragons. And I kind of thought of that as, you know, a good dragon, maybe not a safe one, but a good dragon. And ⁓ to borrow that phrase from C.S. Lewis, ⁓ I think...
Megan Willome: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Callie: Yeah, so I think I'm getting to know myself, but I think there's also a part of me that, which you probably saw in my writing, like there needs to be some, I'm still, I can't let go of part of myself or who I was or what I think I can do, or I don't accept what I am now and all of that. So there's definitely that tension for me. ⁓ And probably that comes out in a lie of some sort, you know.
Megan Willome: Well let's let's take the opportunity then and look at your piece. So Callie is in the trouble seat this week. And yeah, your essay is called April Fool.
Callie: Okay. Oof. April Fool. Okay. ⁓
Megan Willome: And ⁓ so we'll let you read it and then we'll we'll give some feedback.
Callie: Okay, let me pull it up here. Okay. I should have printed it out. Sorry guys.
Megan Willome: 'Cause yeah, you're wrestling with the exact things that you're speaking about now, you're wrestling with in this piece of writing.
Callie: Yes, for sure. Okay. I did two stupid things in April. Took a teaching job and gave $100 to a program that promised me flat abs at 50 years old. I should have known the teaching position was fake. The school is in a plaza smack dab in the middle of a tobacco store and a Pilates studio. There's no playground, no flag outside, no school bell. The place is the size of a nail salon. I was told I teach English and history. One on one is the ratio. Part of these statements is true. The one on one part. But there is no teaching. I sit aside a student and both of us face a computer. I sit quietly while the student types in fill in the blank questions. No paper, no textbook. Nothing to write with because there's nothing to write on. We're green is the reason I've been told we only use computers. We are saving trees. The problem is I wanted to believe this was actually teaching. I wanted to believe I'd make Shakespeare or any other story come alive for reluctant readers. I had the arrogance that I could do this. that this is how education works. The problem is I'm too scared to go back to a classroom. The problem is I don't know what I want. Flat abs, that's what I want. Of course they're not going to fix anything. And of course I believe if I have my abs back, if I can get flat abs, I can do anything. So really, and hence, flat abs will, in fact, fix everything. I'm a grown woman with a graduate degree. I've written books and those books have been published. I sort of understand Jane Austen and Emily Dickinson. I should know better. I do know better. But on this particular morning, all rationality went out the window when I picked up my phone and checked Instagram. Here is a woman pushing 60,
Tresta: Well.
Callie: sitting on a shabby couch wearing shabby khakis and a shabby gray shirt. All of it accentuates her flab. Her hair is gray and mousy. She's eating chips. Even her skin looks gray. I thought my life was over after menopause, after the divorce, the caption read. Soft, sad music played. But then, ⁓ happy, unbelievable day. Here she is thin and taut and wearing lululemon leggings and holding a smoothie. Her eyes are bright, her cheeks She's rosy, her hair is still gray, but she knows how to style it now and she kept her gray hair. So obviously all of this is true. Her abs, dear Lord in heaven, the woman's abs. Do you remember Britney Spears in the Oh Baby Baby video? Or how about the one where she's holding the boa constrictor? This is what I was looking at with my gray mousy hair, my bifocals, and my soggy, floppy, flabby abs. Never once did I think this can't be true because, like I mentioned, her hair stayed the same color. This has to be true.
Megan Willome: Yeah.
Tresta: Okay.
Callie: I've never said goodbye to $100 so fast and of course it was a scam and of course I know better. There is no should have about it. And let me just tell you, AI has been programmed brilliantly to do everything but give money back. Even when the woman with the flat abs and gray hair pronounced a money-back guarantee, I am sick that I fell for it. And that's not even the truth. I'm sick that I wanted to believe, desperately, the lie. A few weeks ago, I heard Amy Grant talk about struggling with comparing herself with the younger version of who she was. This led to criticizing herself for not being able to be that younger version. She needed to work harder, eat better, exercise more. Her therapist suggested she read a eulogy to that younger version of Amy. She suggested she give herself an opportunity to say a bunch of kind things about the person she was who is no longer. It's a change to honor chance, sorry, to honor who Amy was and all that Amy did. But then there's this other type of therapy called internal family systems. The idea is we are made up of different parts and some of those parts have been silenced while others have been working overtime to protect or manage or just get through life. I'm no expert, I think therapists try to encourage all the parts need to be working together for us to be at our healthiest, which means those louder parts need to listen to the parts that have been silenced and the silenced parts need to step up and speak. So which is it? Is it flat Then of course I have some other notes on what I need to do with this piece.
Megan Willome: Well, thank you. As you can tell, I laughed out loud, and this is probably the third time that I've read it. So I still find it funny.
Callie: I'm glad.
Tresta: ⁓ the targeted ads just kill me.
Callie: I'm still, mean, you know, my dare when I sit down to write is, you know, write the thing that really you don't want to write and that I am so ashamed. Like, I can't even believe I fell for it. Like I do know better, but I could not. I was like, she's gorgeous. I can't believe it. ⁓ Yeah, so.
Tresta: ⁓ my god. And the gray hair gives her credibility. I love that.
Callie: Right, right. was like, she never changed her hair. She just learned how to take what she had and made something with it, which is like my manifest, right? Like that's what I always say is, know, what do you have? What can you make with what you have? And yeah, so it was really bad. ⁓
Megan Willome: This is that one up to me.
Tresta: Yeah.
Megan Willome: Well, I think one of the things you did really well is just that quick transition from the first paragraph to the second, you know, the two stupid things, took a teaching job and gave a hundred dollars to a program that promised me flat abs at fifty years old. I should have known the teaching position was fake, that you go back to the teaching. Cause I would have expected you to go into the flat abs part and you save that. So I think that was really smart.
Callie: Hmm. Woohoo. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate that. That was a deliberate choice. And really what I need to, really what I'm trying to work on here is the more serious thing is that, you know, this teaching position, like I knew when I pulled up into the parking lot that this was not what I really wanted it to be. And I did not listen to myself. So I also feel really bad about that as well.
Tresta: Mm yeah.
Megan Willome: And that that comes through very clearly without you having to explain it, as we were talking about earlier. You're showing without having to tell.
Callie: Okay, good. Good, thank you.
Tresta: Again, I think you're in your Flannery O'Connor era because the way you have it's just like whiplash, like a teaching job and the hundred dollar abs. It's the teaching position that was fake. I mean, I mean, yeah, the abs too, but just the the unexpected and the your description of the quote unquote school that you're teaching in.
Callie: Hahaha! Yeah.
Megan Willome: Yeah.
Callie: Right, Yeah. Thank you.
Megan Willome: ⁓ yeah.
Callie: ⁓ my gosh.
Tresta: Is so depressing.
Callie: It's so depressing. Like I've, I've been like journaling every day, just trying to, know, cause I don't have anything to do with this job. Like there's no, there's, just sit there and we're all in our little quote unquote classrooms. That's the size of an office essentially. And, ⁓ I'm like, we're all, we all look like animals in the zoo. Like we're just like waiting. We are not supposed to, this is not what we're supposed to be doing. And it's just. Yeah, ⁓ it's a trap. But I think they meant well, you know, it's one of those things. I just have to figure out a way to get out of it. Anyway.
Megan Willome: Yeah yeah.
Tresta: Yeah.
Megan Willome: Well, ⁓ I have something to share on the Amy Grant front. ⁓ and ⁓ I don't know if any of this will be of use to you in your writing, but it was a year ago ⁓ I took John for his birthday to see Amy Grant in concert here. She came to San Antonio. ⁓ so she's about we fig John looked it up. She's about 10 years older than we are. So she's in her mid-sixties. And
Callie: Yeah! Okay.
Megan Willome: I don't think I've ever told y'all this, but John's first job when we got married was with word music, because it started in Waco. And so we went to a lot of concerts before we had kids. Had seen I had seen her more than him. But anyway, what was fascinating, because we we watch concerts with this very critical eye, not like like critiquing eye. One thing she did so well.
Callie: ⁓ wow. Thank Sure.
Megan Willome: She knew her limitations. I tell you, she knew when to rely on those backup singers. And ⁓ she knew when to step back. she didn't try to belt out every song. She moved around the stage, but she was under no illusion that she was going to learn how to dance at 65 ish, right? She's just gonna move with the rhythm. ⁓ she had
Callie: Mm-hmm. Sure. Yeah.
Megan Willome: She had really perfected what she was good at and what she couldn't do anymore at the same level. She's in her mid sixties, she's not in her mid thirties.
Callie: I love that. Mm-hmm. Right, right, I love that.
Megan Willome: So I want to offer that because I do think that's kind of what you're wrestling with here, but I don't know when the last time you may have seen her in concert was.
Callie: Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's a really good image too, of showing what she probably was working on at that point as well. I don't know when that therapy session was. But it's one thing to say write a eulogy, but then maybe writing that eulogy moved her forward to what it is she can do now.
Megan Willome: Mm-hmm.
Callie: Yeah, yeah, I think maybe that would be a good idea. But yeah, that's very helpful to have an image of somebody thriving, even when within those limits. And I actually like those boundaries. I love having boundaries because I think that's a chance to kind of transcend them too. You're still within them. But you know, what can you do within those boundaries? So.
Megan Willome: Yeah, which is what your essay is about, you know, that with this woman and the flat abs and the gray hair and the smoothie. The smoothie is just oof. That's just perfect. Of course it was a green smoothie.
Callie: Of course it was green. Of course it's a green smoothie. Yeah.
Tresta: It was a mint milkshake. Come on.
Megan Willome: But come on, that's right. Full fat. We know the truth.
Callie: Yeah, full fat. ⁓
Megan Willome: Ellie, do you think you would consider writing the eulogy, whether you share it or not?
Callie: Yeah, yeah, I actually thought this was a really good idea to do that. think the thing that I'm struggling with is I don't know if that part is actually dead slash dying. It feels like there's still something, but maybe it's not the flat abs specifically. It's like there's... ⁓
Megan Willome: Right, right.
Callie: there does need to be something that needs to be laid to rest. it's, yeah, and then I'm aware of that. I think I've become most aware of it. And Tristan, you're right. Tristan made a comment about like, don't mean to get all therapy speak on you or whatever, but I was like, this is gonna be a therapy session. But I think part of ⁓ that, the reason that this is kind of front and center is to watch my girls growing up and they are.
Tresta: Yeah.
Callie: like definitely in the prime of their lives. And I just feel like, ugh, you know, like my hair is all stringy and theirs is like thick and beautiful and, you know, the makeup actually enhances, it like does what it's supposed to do. Whereas I'm like, ⁓ yeah, this is not working out for me. So I think to watch them grow up in that area. And then of course, on a more even serious note or less superficial is the fact that
Megan Willome: Yeah.
Callie: I am not needed in the way that I was for several years. ⁓ that has, that's something that I'm coming to terms with too. Like I don't necessarily have to be home when they get home. They can let themselves in. They can make themselves a snack. They can drive that, you know, I'm not picking them up from school. So there's just a lot of stuff that has been let go of. So maybe that's the eulogy I need to write.
Megan Willome: Maybe so.
Callie: which would make space for whatever else needs to happen. So I do feel like I'm still going to be a teacher, but ⁓ maybe it's just, it looks different than what I'm trying to go for.
Megan Willome: For sure. Tresta, what did you see or any thoughts you had reading Callie's essay?
Tresta: Well, I definitely had questions about the teaching part of it. I and I think I think this line is key. The problem is I wanted to believe this was actually teaching. because you also wanted to believe that for a hundred dollars and following these steps you could get the flat abs. So I think there's we know what we want and then we want somebody to show us the steps to get there.
Callie: Mm-hmm. Thank Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Tresta: so that we can have what we want. But I I wanted to hear more about why you're scared to go back to a classroom and why why you think the problem is that you don't know what you want, because I I feel like you do know what you want, you just don't don't know where to find it yet.
Callie: Yeah. Yeah, well, that's probably the case is I don't know where to find it is that I'm like, ⁓ you know, I don't want to go back to like the public school teaching, at least in the way that I'm seeing it right now, or that I experienced it the last time I was ⁓ teaching and it's and that is ⁓ all of these standards and all of the screens, there's no writing anymore, there's no manipulatives, it's all getting the right answer and it's just overwhelming to me. And so I don't want to do what it takes to go back to that type of classroom. But yeah, yeah, you're right. It's one of those things where I'm like, okay, I know what I would love to teach. I would love to teach English. I would love to continue at the community college that I'm at, ⁓ with adjuncts, you get like one or two classes and that's just not sustainable. anyway, yeah, I have to do more.
Tresta: I wonder if you're gonna rewrite or edit make edits, I wonder if you could use the flat abs as just kind of an intro into exploring these are things that I want, these are things that I'm missing and and there isn't an easy way to get them. And I know that, but I want it anyways.
Callie: Mmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I almost maybe this could be some kind of a braided essay because I think there's three strands. I think there is this like teaching and then physical and then this whatever has sort of been left behind since my girls have gotten older. ⁓
Megan Willome: Mm-hmm. Well, and I think also there may even be a fourth part in line with the chapter, Don't Tolerate Lies. You're confronting a lie about education in this. You know, where it's this line where it says, ⁓ we're green is the reason I've been told we only use computers. We are saving trees. It just ⁓ there's a degree to which that is literally true.
Callie: Mm-hmm. Mmm. I know.
Tresta: My gosh.
Megan Willome: And there's a degree to which there's a lie within that that they are getting a good education. What you're pointing out is they're not getting a good education. You're not able to give them that. So there is something about this essay that is very confrontational. And for exactly the reasons you're describing, because it's not just this place, this particular educational environment that is moving toward more screens, less.
Callie: Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Megan Willome: Manipulatives, you know, the word you just used. Less pencils.
Callie: Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, I don't, ⁓ I don't know why we're doing that. But yeah, that's it's definitely difficult to ⁓ pay attention pay, pay witness to and also be a part of too. So ⁓ But yeah, there's definitely like, that's what the chapter did for me was thinking about the lie that I told myself because I wanted to believe that this was going to be a teaching situation. ⁓ And so that, yeah, I'm definitely exploring that too.
Tresta: And there's there's also the parallel between you don't feel useful as a teacher in this setting that you're in and you don't you know, you didn't put it in the essay, but you talked about it here about your girls that transition of them growing and needing you less and less. So much good life stuff happening here.
Callie: Hmm. Right. Mm-hmm. Yes. Yes. There's so much. Like darn it, 50 years old. But yeah, it's been definitely something that's been like, you know, floating around in my head for a while. So I'm grateful that I read this chapter and thought, okay, this might be my way in is to think about some of the lies that I have been living or telling or have been confronting. ⁓
Megan Willome: Yeah.
Tresta: Mm-hmm.
Callie: and then what I can make from that. So yeah, I would definitely like to re-look at this and see what I can make from it, for sure. Well, thank you. Thanks for reading it.
Megan Willome: Yeah. Well you have a great start. Just I think there's just more more fleshing out to do, more exploring, but you've got really good bones.
Callie: Mm-hmm. Felt good to just get it out. ⁓ then to be in a situation where you guys can kind of talk back to it. That felt good too. Put some energy in it.
Megan Willome: I bet. I bet. Well we we care about each other. We all want to help each other get better. That's what this is about. So this is the point where we give a tip, our our trouble tip. And ⁓ today that is you, Trista.
Callie: That's right. Amen.
Tresta: Well, to beat the midlife drama a little bit more, I guess. I'm just in a season of life where my schedule is even more wide open. I mean, I have definite responsibilities and and I have, you know, a few days a week that are not my own. But I do have one or two days a week where I'm just home and for the most part I'm home alone. And this is something I mean, ever since I've been a mom. I've been a stay at home, you know, homeschool mom for twenty-three years. So I've always I feel like I've always been in charge of organizing my time. And, you know, so back to that control thing that I write about in my book, I've I've always been very like, you know, at two o'clock we do this, at two thirty we do that. But but then when I when I s ⁓ you know, graduated from homeschooling my kids
Callie: Hmm Easy.
Tresta: I don't know, there's just been this period of weird transition where okay, well, I actually have all this time, you know, that I can actually use how I want. And just having those wide open spaces can be paralyzing to me. So my my writing tip is setting a timer. and we've talked about this before. The the way I the way I've been doing it lately, ⁓
Callie: Mm-hmm. in the Hmm.
Tresta: Because finishing up book edits and whatnot. I I need a longer period of time to work on that. So I am set a timer for 45 minutes, right without any distractions around me, and then set a timer for fifteen minutes and get up and leave my desk and just walk around, go to the bathroom, get a drink, get another snack, breathe.
Callie: Hmm. Nice. Yeah.
Tresta: ⁓ clean something, you know, and then come back and then do it again forty five minutes. so it just it just weirdly helps me focus knowing that I have have time constraints, you know you know. We we want we want freedom but we also need structure within that. So
Callie: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ absolutely. I think that's so important. I don't know why it's so comforting to know that time is being taken care of, that I don't have to control it, that it's being counted down and when it goes off, I can get up and move around a little bit. I don't know why that's such a bomb, but it helps me too.
Tresta: Yeah.
Megan Willome: Yeah. And I like I I've never heard it ⁓ broken up into this forty-five and fifteen where your fifteen minutes is when you do get up, right? And you do all those things and you clear your head. I think that's ⁓ too often neglected. You know, I I certainly can't sit without moving for three straight hours. I can do three hours of work in a day, but
Callie: Right.
Tresta: Yeah. Right.
Callie: Mm-hmm.
Megan Willome: ⁓ I drink too much tea and I need to use the restroom for the new time. That's just not gonna happen.
Tresta: Ha ha ha.
Callie: Right. Yeah, for sure. Yeah.
Tresta: Yeah.
Megan Willome: And I'm sure it helps reset your brain as well, doing those little tasks.
Tresta: Yeah, and it just you know, it when I used to be a runner and I was, you know, out on a long run, the first couple of miles all I can think about is, ⁓ I'm running, I'm running, I'm running. And then I you know, then I look down at my watch, I'm like, ⁓ it's been fifteen minutes, you know, I'm halfway or a quarter of the way.
Callie: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Tresta: through my time. So that the whole time that I'm thinking about it, time is progressing. So when I set the timer for writing, for me it's more about I'm I have a definite start. And I I know that I can go for 45 minutes and be done. Cause sometimes for me just the hardest part is is getting started. and it's I think it was Ernest Hemingway that talked about
Megan Willome: Yeah.
Tresta: ending his writing sessions each day, like mid thought or mid sentence, so that when he comes back to it, he's got somewhere to pick up. So I try to be faithful to stop at the forty five minutes, no matter where I'm at, you know, and it's you know how it is when things come to you when you're not thinking about them so hard, you know. Just take a break.
Callie: Yeah. Yeah.
Megan Willome: Yes. That's usually where the good ideas come.
Callie: Yeah.
Tresta: Yeah.
Callie: Yeah, I agree.
Megan Willome: But I like that discipline of making yourself stop because I have been guilty of the timer goes off and I'm just now getting in the zone. ⁓ and there can be a good side to that. And then sometimes it I have ⁓ worked past the point of anything being very useful.
Tresta: ⁓ Yeah.
Callie: Yeah. Mm-hmm. There's I think there's a faith component to that. I don't know about you guys, but ⁓ I also get my really good ideas when I'm running or doing something else, cleaning, whatever. And ⁓ I was saying that to somebody once and he said, ⁓ well, you should carry an index card with you all the time. And I thought that that's a good idea, except
Tresta: Mm.
Callie: It makes me very anxious. it almost feels like, ⁓ I don't know. I just, can remember when the very first line of ⁓ the teacher diaries came to me. I was on a run and, and I thought, ⁓ man, I wish I had something. And then I thought, no, you know what? It feels good to just. that feeling felt really good. And I'm like, well, I'm just gonna finish my run and see what happens. And I don't know, I think that was in some ways ⁓ an offering. to God in some way. don't know. I really do. I really think that it was like, this is what I got. This is what came to me. It feels good. I think I'm going to hold on to it if I can and see what happens from it. And ever since then, I've just been at peace by not having an index card. Like I really like having, if I mean if I come up with something, sure, maybe I'll write it down if I have paper, but I'm also very much
Tresta: Hm.
Callie: I very much believe that writing has to rest and I have to do something else. And so if that means dancing or running or, you know, learning something else or cleaning or whatever, I think that that's all being taken care of. I do think it's a part of faith, at least for me.
Tresta: Yeah, it lets everything w weave in together. Kind of.
Megan Willome: Mm-hmm.
Callie: Yeah, well I think what I don't know how you guys feel but I think writing is so all-encompassing too. So it's ⁓ when we're not writing. agreed. That's a great tip.
Megan Willome: Yeah. We're writing even when we're not writing. Well that's yeah, thank you. Thank you. Well this has been good as always. ⁓ we always end with a blessing that is pulled from the text. So there's a moment in here where she quotes from Herman Hesse's Steppenwolf. So our blessing is blessed are those who listen through the noise to the music. And that's what we're trying to do. And sometimes that noise is out there on our Instagram feeds. And sometimes that noise is inside our own heads to listen for the music to where we are personally called by name.
Callie: ⁓ Amen.
Megan Willome: So at next week we are on chapter four, read well, which is something that we all care a lot about. And I know we want to start talking more regularly about what we are reading. So I think this chapter will ⁓ give us a little impetus to do that. So thank you all.
Tresta: Yeah. All right, thanks guys.
Callie: Thank you. Bye bye.