028: women have minds / dog on the moon
Nins is dumbstruck by the eternal relevance of the 2019 film Little Women. Arns finds magic in childlike dreams through The Good Trade reader essay "Special Mission to the Moon" by Maria T. D’hyver.
Content warning: pet loss, grief
referenced in this episode:
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Little Women film directed by Greta Gerwig
"Little Women" episode of Next Best Picture Podcast
~"Special Mission to the Moon" by Maria T. D'hyver on The Good Trade
The Good Trade newsletter: The Daily Good
AmyAnn Cadwell's website
~& a special shoutout to our podcast friends Messy Liberation!
0:00 - Intro
6:07 - Nins: Little Women
36:36 - Arns: The Good Trade reader essay
56:01 - Outro0:00 - Introducing: our new hosts!
5:25 - Our *actual* intro
7:52 - Nins: Jerry & Tally
22:01 - Arns: The Law of Attraction
43:32 - Outro: see you next season!
summary
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(00:00) hi I'm Angela Non I'm Ariana Kempis and this is brb [Music] crying. hello everyone welcome back to brb crying I'm Ariana also known as Arns and I'm Angela also known as Nins and we are here today to get into the thick of it once more we cry a lot surprise and we talk a lot so let's combine both our Hobbies our only Hobbies our only Hobbies yeah uh if you're new here welcome if you're old here also welcome uh that's it that's it uh see you next week um have have you been well listeners sick again you know I think this is this is a season that
(01:01) either nins or ARS was sick like every episode mhm it's winter what are you going to do yeah I think I was sick for one episode I was sick for five you were sick for this whole season yeah and it was so funny when I was editing that episode cuz I was like babe get a tissue you sound congested as hell like I was like oh my God this made me cry so bad let me [ __ ] tell you something first of all when you're sick like that like sometimes there's nothing to blow out it's just like it's up here true this time though it's my voice is a little
(01:40) raspy sexy let's Rebrand it sexy yeah well you know what appreciate you showing up today don't get me sick ooh no promises we are we're setting the worst example this is like really like what are we preaching here six feet who um how are you um I am good I've actually picked up Animal Crossing again oh okay I just decided that I really wanted like a cozy game or like cozy thing to do mhm [ __ ] that shit's not cozy I got a farm I got a shop for furniture items you know what I mean you're doing it to yourself it
(02:30) could be cozy but you guys like my island is so [ ] cute it's crazy it's crazy but it's it's kind of nice to like have something that like I'm excited to do again yeah you know not this podcast cuz [ ] this right I don't do this to decompress I do this to press press compress yeah yeah exactly exactly so I've been doing a lot of that um but I did want to share today before we get started on our stories this really cute thing that happened to me over the last couple of weeks so for those that have been listening to our
(03:14) episodes here earlier this season I shared a story about our [ __ ] favorite literary Masterpiece of all time Draco Malfoy and the mortifying ordeal of being in love mhm impeccable piece of writing and one of of our listeners reached out to us and said oh my gosh like I'm going to check this out and it was so funny because she was like oh it's kind of long I'll see like how how well I can keep up with this and this is someone that I've never met in person she actually left a comment on one of our episodes from season 2 and
(03:53) from there kind of like followed us on socials and we followed her back turns out she also has her own podcast this is is our listener tyena she is the co-host of messy Liberation really good podcast check her out but anyway so she started messaging us as she was diving into this fanfiction and I was so excited for her because as one is as one is because it's the best [ __ ] thing I've ever read in my life same and I was like gidy because every you know couple days she would message me like oh my God I just got to
(04:24) this part I love when people do that oh my God and so it was just it was just this incredible thing where like I had never met this person in my life and yet here we are building these Bridges and connecting on something that is so lovely and it was like wow this is this is so [ __ ] cool like this would have never happened I am really not one to just like find friends on the internet and like put myself out there but yeah this podcast has really like changed me in that way and I'm seeing how beautiful it is to do that so TAA thank you so
(05:03) much for listening to us and then also like like actually like immersing yourself in something that we recommend I'm so happy that you enjoyed it and she was like I'm not a crier but like this [ __ ] got me and I was like yeah yeah she was like brilliant impeccable you know like just like yes exactly exactly so yeah that was really cool that was really cool Community dude Community who would have thought incredible yeah I love that that's so cool I love those synchronicities and those little points of connection cuz
(05:41) why the [ __ ] else are we here yeah to stress ourselves out compress yeah that's it that's what I got for today okay I have nothing well that's fine because we can just get right on to it okay well here I go here you [Music] go all right well starting it off with a question oh and I already know that your answer is probably going to be different than what it was 2 years ago now that you have a toddler but my question for you is how do you like to spend time on airplanes thank you phrasing it that way reading reading yeah you know what put
(06:36) [ ] 40 movies on there I don't give a [ ] I'm going to read my [ ] book that's literally what I put here really yeah cuz that's exactly what I do too I put as we all know I'm like super edgy and different so I actually get so much reading done on flights and I have this playlist on my Spotify that's lovingly entitled instrumentals go hard and I just put like my noise cancelling earphones on I listen to that I block out all the babies and [ ] the babies dude and just dive into my little book about fairies
(07:11) you know I rarely watch movies on planes it's too hard it's too hard well I rarely watch movies period yeah and if I do it's usually one that I've seen 20 times before which I realize now is because of my anxiety like I don't like knowing that I'm about to immerse myself in an emotional roller coaster in like a compressed amount of time M so that's usually why I tend to avoid movies especially ones that I know are like going to be heavy yeah interesting like I saw the trailer for a Stars Bor i'm like [ ] I'm not [ ] watching that
(07:53) dude like have not watched it to this day I'm not de yeah yeah yeah [ __ ] dude too antsy no I just knew I was like one of them's going to die don't need to see it don't need to see it don't need to see it you know what I mean okay but for whatever reason whatever reason two years ago I was on a long haul flight and I decided that I was going to watch a movie because it was one that I actually wanted to see I had heard a lot about it I was seeing a lot of scenes of it on my Tik Tok and I was like okay that looks pretty good and it was
(08:32) getting a lot of awards Buzz upon its release too and so me who's snoody and who only consumes highbrow art EG fairy books yeah I was like okay fine let's watch this film so I watch it on this [ ] crowded flight economy and I'm like loser I'm like oh my God like this is why you [ ] watch me movies it was so good I watched this movie and I was like um this was so good I actually need to go back and rewatch certain scenes again which I've never I never do that MH and I've since watched it in less chaotic settings again and it hit even harder so
(09:23) we are going to be talking about this movie today and that movie is the 2019 film Little Women oh have you seen it I have not have you read it no I haven't read it oh yeah it's you know it's on that list of should slash want okay so sources for today aside from the film is a 2019 podcast episode on the little woman movie from next best picture a behind the scenes featurette on the film from film is now press agency and a 2018 podcast episode on Louisa May Alcott from the history chicks a women's History Podcast so this
(10:14) movie is directed by Greta Gerwig and is starring a [ ] Elite cast cersa Ronin Florence Pew p sorry Emma Watson Eliza scandin Laura D Timothy shalamay Merill stre [ ] incredible incredible now of course we cannot talk about this movie without first diving into the book on which it's based which was written by Louisa May Alcott in 1868 so forsome Louisa May Al context no please she's rolling she she 100% just slapped the [ __ ] out of me in this spirit world okay so Louisa May alott was born in the
(11:17) 1830s but I swear to God this [ ] Queen is truly truly a feminist icon who was literally millennia ahead of her time M I hear the phrase 1800s my eyes like glaze over but let me just get through this so she grew up in this really Progressive household her parents were transcendentalists so they were like very intellectual and her dad would like rub elbows with Ralph Waldo Emerson and like Henry David thorough like imagine you just [ ] like roll out of bed and [ __ ] Ralph Waldo Emerson's in your kitchen yeah like shooting the
(12:00) [ ] mhm Uncle Ralph so you can imagine how that type of upbringing really instilled in her the intelligence and the confidence to rise above the gendered stereotypes of the time and through her writing she really fought to expand the idea of what women could be in this world and it's chilling to me to know that this book was written one and a half centuries ago but is still so so [ ] relevant today 1800's my ass okay this this [ __ ] story is modern as hell so of course blanket spoiler warning for a story that is 157 years
(12:51) old don't tell me but you haven't read it so I'll do my best I was I was kind of hoping you had read yeah of course but I'll do my best I'll do my best to to paint this [ ] picture but I also just want to give a huge [ ] disclaimer that this book and this film are Transcendent works of art and I am so dumb okay that's a blanket disclaimer that we need to like we need to put that in our descript [Applause] I am so dumb and I am so incapable of capturing all of its magic all of its genius and whatever [ __ ] little
(13:41) segment I put together today okay so please yes we will not crucify you okay thank you just do not take my word for it and just see for yourself why this book is one of the greatest in history and how this film flawlessly brought it to life okay so do you know anything about this story no cuz you know I don't like to know anything about anything okay well no choice all right so Little Women follows the story of Four Sisters Joe Meg Beth and Amy all of whom are part of the March family living in Massachusetts during and after the Civil
(14:28) War it is Loosely based on Louisa May alcat life who also grew up with three sisters and it's basically widely accepted that Louisa based the main character Joe after herself Joe is Louisa Louisa is Joe but the book Chronicles both the sisters idealic childhoods but then follows each of them into a adulthood as they each choose different paths in life so while the book is told in chronological order the film is actually nonlinear it weaves together the past and present jumps back and forth between this 7-year period in the film Joe is played by
(15:24) cersa Ronin and I just need to take a second for Miss Ronin cuz she she's so [ __ ] good in this movie brilliant brilliant and Joe her character is this incredible heroine she is the second oldest sister and she is fiercely independent wildly outspoken ambitious and creative and she wants to earn a living by being a writer which was is very uncommon for the time and she's also adamantly against the idea of marriage and really Rebels against a lot of social norms and Customs expected from women at the time again just like
(16:16) Louisa mayal caught herself her older sister Meg played by Emma Watson is definitely more complicit in the societal structure structures surrounding women she's soft and feminine and yearns for romance and desires a life filled with beautiful things Beth thei youngest sister played by Eliza scandin just a pure little sweetheart you know she's kind of the glue holding her sisters together everyone loves her and just adores her for being this really gentle soul she's also a really gifted pianist and lastly Amy the youngest sister played by
(17:03) Florence Pew p as the child and as the youngest she's definitely very spoiled and bratty and selfish in the way that all children are but then you see her grow up and she turns out to be this refined mature intelligent realist and this artist she's a painter so again this story and this film is so rich and complex and there's a reason that you have Scholars dedicating their entire careers analyzing this original work and then again when you throw in how Greta Gerwig was able to adapt the story to the screen with such
(17:50) authenticity while still making it modern and relevant no words and if there were I am most certainly not the one qualified to say them okay I am so dumb mhm but fortunately on this pod we have a very specific thesis which is what made us cry so although I could ramble on about this forever I do just have a few subplots and scenes that I want to highlight today and to provide some background for those scenes I want to First hone in on this cenal difference between Joe and Meg as I mentioned Joe is this ambitious writer who really
(18:40) wants to lead her own life whereas Meg the oldest sister is a romantic Meg ends up catching the eye of her neighbor's tutor a man named John Brooke and my guy John Brooke he's hurting a little financially okay he's not he's not balling out M loser ew sorry but Meg falls in love with him anyway and they decide to get married so this first scene that I want to share with you is of Joe and Meg right before the wedding just showed arens that scene and in it you have Meg getting ready for her wedding and she sees Joe kind of
(19:36) pensively looking at the window and she's like what what is it and Joe basically is like listen dude you don't have to do this you don't have to get married we can run away it'll be just us to we'll figure it out as sisters which TBH like when I watched was a little taken AB mhm was like what like why wouldn't you be happy for your sister on her wedding day like John Brook's a good dude you know he's I mean he's poor as [ ] but you know it's solid but it makes sense for Joe as this character because Joe's not [ ]
(20:16) around she genuinely hates the idea of marriage and the way that it almost erases a woman's identity belonging to a man and she also hates that she feels like she's going to lose her sister but Meg sits her down and says but I want to get married and Joe's like why and Meg's like because I love him just because my dreams are different than yours doesn't mean they're unimportant I want a home and a family and I'm willing willing to work and struggle but I want to do it with JN and then Joe kind of accepts this
(21:07) truth and just laments again that she's just sad that she's losing her sister and Meg is like I'm not going anywhere and like you know don't worry you'll understand when it's your turn to get married and Joe's like I'm not [ __ ] getting married you know okay so now that we have that as some the context we now have to talk about Joe and Lori Lori whose full name is Theodore Lawrence and played by my current Crush Timothy shalamay is Joe's neighbor and childhood best friend it was his tutor that Meg ended up falling in love with so Joe and
(21:59) Lori are kind of like two peas in a pod and Joe who is often described as a tomboy definitely displays this kind of Brotherly affection towards Lori you know this boyish kind of Knucklehead shoving punching teasing type of relationship and because we're so conditioned to think that any story involving a friendship between a boy and a girl only has one possible ending you're led to believe that something will eventually happen between Joe and Lori and it's no surprise that Lori develops feelings for Joe so I am going
(22:49) to play this next scene for you for those that love this movie you already [ ] know like this is one that I would see constantly on my for page because let me just say againa Ronin in Tim shal [ ] master class in acting in the scene I so excited to show you this right now so okay I'm going to show Orange that scene wasn't that incredible oh my God I'm curious to know like what your thoughts are since you don't really have a lot of context about the story well after watching just that scene I feel like yelling like I don't know I just
(23:34) feel so like energetically charged because that was so like that was so intense wasn't that just brilliant acting though yeah I literally was like bopping on my flight and I was like sorry like what okay so let me lay out this scene just in case you like ARS have not seen this yet so in this scene Lori finally professes his love for Joe and he proposes to her it's no use Joe we've got to have it out I've loved you ever since I've known you was my acting like just as good incredible OS worthy um so in any other
(24:22) romcom this would be the moment right and you even have you know the romantic music playing in the background and you're kind of led to believe that this will be some beautiful magical scene but that is not what ends up happening here Joe sees where this is going and immediately starts to panic and she starts adamantly refusing and pushes back and she rejects him outright not because she doesn't care for him but because she doesn't love him in the way that he wants her to I can't change how I feel and it would be a lie to say I do when I don't
(25:16) I don't believe I will ever marry I'm happy as I am and I love my Liberty too well to be in any hurry to give it up she [ __ ] standing on business dude she told you already she's not getting married mhm but in all seriousness this scene is so heartbreaking to watch because you know it devastates Joe to have to turn Lori down this is this is her best friend this is her childhood friend but it's also so brave because how many women have had to endure a life they didn't want because of one moment where they didn't want to
(26:01) be mean I think this is the last flashback scene again the movie is nonlinear so kind of after this we fast forward to 7 years later where we kind of jump back and forth but Joe has spent some time in New York giving it an honest shot as a writer and then she comes back home to tend to her family and she's kind of in this she's kind of out of Crossroads she's not quite sure what to do next she's still trying to figure out what she wants to do with her life what she wants to make of her life and it's been years since
(26:47) this exchange between her and Lori and it's obviously been weighing on her and so I will play you one more Scene which is a conversation between her and her mother and this is kind of this is the scene that I really wanted to dwell on today mhm so in the scene Joe is talking to her mom and she is expressing regret over rejecting lri and she says Perhaps Perhaps I was too quick and turning him down Lori and her mom asks do you love him and Joe says if he asked me again I think I would say yes do you think he'll ask me
(27:44) again and her mom's like but do you love him and Joe says I care more to be loved I want to be loved and her mom says that's not the same as loving and um then we get to the reason why sersa Ronan was [ __ ] nominated for best actress for this movie so please don't insult the way I read this monologue but this is how Joe responds I just feel I just feel like women they they have Minds and they have souls as well as just hearts and they've got ambition and they've got talent as well as just Beauty and I'm so sick I'm so sick of
(28:42) people saying that love is all a woman is fit for I'm so sick of it but I'm I'm so lonely what could I even say to follow that I know that we joke all the time about how every story we share on this pod is about love and to be honest I love that I I love that there is so much love in this world but 157 years ago one woman dared to question whether women could be more than just that women are so many things we're artists we're dreamers we bring forth Beauty in this world not just from our physicality but through our
(29:39) minds through our hearts through our big feelings and as inspiring as this monologue from Joe is I noticed that we often Overlook her last line too but I'm so lonely yes women are so many incredible things but we don't have to be one or the other one day we can want this the next we can change our minds but that's what it is to be a woman soft and strong all at once constantly trying to find that balance and while Joe March is a revolutionary Eternal character that will forever represent powerful women everywhere this film also shows us that
(30:44) there's more than one way to be strong and that's why I wanted to highlight that scene with Meg March because yes Meg took took the typical route Meg married and became a mother and had her family but again that's the whole point of the story women have so many choices of what to make with their life and there are no wrong ones women can also choose love because that too requires bravery and wanting a quiet life with a partner by your side is also a dream worth pursuing the story of these four sisters will live forever so long as women
(31:42) around the world continue to live forever every time someone reads it or watches it or experiences it in some way there will always be a new takeaway that is how rich and compelling this story is a woman's life has always been and always will be so many things poignant beautiful painful and wonderful and watch in awe as she balances it all when her face crumples and she's like but I'm so lonely like like [ __ ] like we really do feel the need to be one or the other I feel like it's taken so long for me to understand Duality and being able to
(32:31) hold identities multiple identities or like desires seemingly opposing ones and so to watch her have to choose because that was the reality of her life back then it's de it's devastating her life back then sure but that is still what we experience today nothing has changed yeah you know you know joar and I joke often half joke like maybe we shouldn't have gotten married like you know like maybe if we could do it all again do away with the like the norm and you know all everything that she's she's talking about here right like why do we need to
(33:13) like confine ourselves all this but but there's still exactly like what she say there was still like this poll to like of course who who doesn't want to not be lonely like who doesn't want to be loved like MH [ ] yeah there's so much to say and like this is just two of the Four Sisters you know I I didn't even [ ] mention Amy more than once and she has her whole oh my God yeah there's a whole we'll do a followup I honestly think you would really like this movie I'm sure it's been on my list yeah it's really really
(33:50) good there's just so many things to there's so many things to process about the female experience sorry I'm like so dumb you know like no but you know what I think also it is as mere humans we literally do not have words to encapsulate the bigness of it all it is overwhelming and us on our silly little paw just like try to condense it into like 57 minutes m in like a girly pop way yeah like being funny yeah it really is just something to to be felt mhm I don't think the smartest person in the world could capture yeah yeah and I
(34:37) guess my whole takeaway from this story and like what Louisa May Alcott did and what Greta Gro did it's just like it gives me chills to know how old the story is and yet how relevant so many pieces of it is still there's just so many layers and feelings and choices and paths that women have to constantly sort through every second that they're alive and it was just so beautifully represented in this story and in this film adaptation my girls Louisa Greta y'all [ ] did it they [ ] did it I I need to watch this and read it as
(35:32) you were saying it uh explaining the story I was like oh wait I definitely tried to read this when I was like 10 you know what I think I tried to read this in my 20s and I'm I was still so dumb like I literally the [ ] and you know what so funny one of the sources for my story today was this podcast next best picture and there was like a woman who was speaking to like her Lifelong Love for this novel and she's like I first read it when I was like eight and I was like what the [ ] I was reading Amelia Bedelia you know what I mean like I was
(36:10) not jumping into [ __ ] Little Women okay she takes the sticks she's hitting the road again just wanted to highlight specifically the parts that that wrecked me and that's why we're here that's why we're here women they have Minds turns out that's going to be the title of this segment for [Music] sure okay it's your turn all right let's do this I got a actually a pretty short and sweet one today okay little we always I feel like we always say short and sweet and it never is I've doomed Myself by saying that so for the past
(36:56) seven years I've been getting a a daily newsletter in my inbox called the good trade and it is the one newsletter that I have never unsubscribed from I used to get so many daily newsletters about like politics and news and like startups and you know all all of this one about like a podcast about crying too right yeah yeah yeah unsubscription that one so quick um but I realized that like I would just when I would get to the point where I would just delete all of them without opening them for like a year then I'd be
(37:38) like okay okay I think it's time to unsubscribe and I realized that engaging in news cycles and like trying to W my head around everything that was going on and breaking technology and news in the startup world it was so it was too much yeah can I just say yeah Aaron parnis I [ __ ] love you but babe sometimes I can't do it what what is do you know who that is no he is like our Millennial media savior he actually does a lot of like breaking news that is unbiased and not part of a big conglomerate Network that's bought and owned by
(38:18) billionaires but like every day he's like breaking news and I'm like Aon I can't do this right now no exactly exactly and I think that it put me in state of existential dread and I was like this isn't helping anybody so delete delete delete um but I also realized that whatever information I needed to know would somehow find its way to me weirdly through social media because I especially in the past couple of years have found it to be so much more reliable in terms of like on the ground reporting and like what was
(38:54) happening in like Gaza and like Palestine people firstand counts but anyway this newsletter it's a good one I've held on to it and it's called the good trade again and it is Catered towards women Little Women Little Women and it focuses on themes like self-care and slow living and thoughtfulness intentionality and was founded by Amy an Cadwell in 2014 and this is from her website amwell.
(39:27) com they built the brand and they now reach over a 100 million readers annually I think they have like 250,000 actual subscribers to that daily newsletter so I mean it's been featured all over the place but yeah I'll kind of talk through what what a newsletter looks like it's like it opens up with a quote or some other affirming sentiment and then there's a listening recommendation like a podcast could be us one day and like playlist or like a song and then there's the featured article which is like the meat of it all and usually the subject
(40:07) line of the email sometimes it's about mental health or fertility or other you know weigher topics but other times it's like 10 organic cotton underwear Brands so it it ranges because women are complex is what is what I'm saying No Ex exactly this and that is why I love this newsletter because it does all of it like I want to be a dumb [ __ ] you know I want to bake a little bread uh and then I also want to dive into spirituality and really complex things so dude Louisa May would have absolutely subscribed oh yeah um she just hit me
(40:47) again shut the [ ] up [ ] stop stop saying what I would do because I wouldn't okay um but anyway yeah there's a recipe usually it's plant-based then there's a list of shorter links like videos or like things on social media or book recommendations crafts sometimes there's job boards journaling prompts and lately it's been ending with a quote from a reader but it has just been consistently such a source of goodness and light and all of that without also banishing the heavy all of it because women are complex
(41:28) and one thing they do periodically is they feature reader essays so they put out a call to their readers and encourage them to submit an essay based on different themes and while most of the readers are women because it's geared towards women they span all walks of life all different ages and ethnic backgrounds and so their life experiences are vastly different so you can imagine the range of these essays it is definitely one of my favorite parts of this newsletter when I see that annual call I've always wanted to smoon
(42:08) but I've always been like I don't know like what would I write about and so instead I started this podcast where I write an essay every week and then read it um and then Market it and then edit it and then make reals yeah so much more work I just don't have time to submit like what would I write about uh but today I just wanted to talk to you about one of those essays so it is called the secret mission to the Moon by Maria T D I don't know if that's how you pronounce it it's D apostrophe h y v r okay French maybe again lost all of France so Louisa
(42:52) just punched me again Jesus Christ uh but it was published in December 2023 and in her author bio at the end of the essay it reads Maria T D was born and raised in Mexico City and now lives in New Jersey with her husband and two sons she studied design but has been a high school English and literature teacher for the past 10 years and has a passion for reading and writing we don't know anything else about I have tried to look of course I try you know uh because she didn't link her socials you know she's not in it for the clout mhm she's
(43:33) just this person who's gifting us with this little slice of her life I I would totally link like be C Ariana is the you kidding me believe this a review here's our hat I would do it all my God but yeah so I'm just going to read the essay I've condensed it a little bit just for the purposes of this pod there is this belief that as adults we have to see the world through more serious eyes than when we were kids but must we lose the little Joy or happiness certain things can bring us just by changing our perspective aren't we allowed to find
(44:14) silver linings that will help us cope with the severity of what surrounds us in our adult lives recently we lost our beloved Dog Kia to cancer and while it has been very difficult on my husband and me I had to think of a way to explain to my kid that his dog would not be around anymore if by the time he came back from school he didn't see Kia to say hi what could we ever say to explain her absence I couldn't help but look at the situation through my kid's eyes he loves a good story he loves rocket ships he loves the moon he counts the stars in
(44:53) the sky and he Ador Kia my imagin and creativity's Cog Wheels started turning with the stories I could create and he would enjoy many parents suggest you should tell your kids the truth so that would be talking to a three-year-old about death and hoping he will understand the concept forgive me if I have no mind to be able to even process the conversation in which I explain what death is to a toddler we decided that giving him something to wonder and be excited about would be a better way to deal with the it so our dog went to the moon on a
(45:31) rocket ship on a secret mission what that statement has done in my kid's imagination has created space for Joy he looks at the sky and tries to find the rocket he sometimes finds it and we cheer on other times he tells us that the World Trade Center building is the rocket ship that KIA is going to drive and he starts the countdown for liftoff he wonders about what she's doing on the moon mainly peeing where she shouldn't but he wants to send her things in a box through the mail because she might be missing her favorite toy or
(46:05) her blanket he would tell us about all the things Kia is doing in space and that she can see the stars just like he can every time he talks about her there's a smile on his face a spark in his eyes as he goes into another liftoff countdown and my heart feels lighter I wonder if if the reason why we don't create these stories for ourselves might have to do with the process of growing up we are told that we need to stop fantasizing and be more realistic to take life more seriously but what is life without some Wonder it's not about
(46:43) losing all sense of reality or falling in denial but about being able to cope with the pain it doesn't take an author or a creative writer to come up with a story that will bring a smile to our face and a moment of happiness I know my dog died I held her paw as she took her last breath but thinking about her being dressed up in an astronaut suit makes me smile and I'd rather smile so yes every time I look at the sky I look for a rocket ship every time I see the moon I find myself imagining my dog happily napping on its
(47:20) surface every time I have to explain to my kid why our dog is not with us my imagination runs wide with all these stories about what she's doing in the secret mission on the moon so this essay was published about a month before Cosmo my dog passed away and his health had already been in Decline for well over a year so you can imagine how much this hurt just purely based on what I was going through at the time knowing that you know the end was coming for him but I honestly I'm not really going to focus on that today in
(48:00) part because I talked about it at length during episode 10 and that was my Sacred Space for dedicating it to him and talking about him but also because I don't actually think that that's what this essay is about like the author said when we grow up we suddenly feel the need to see the world as adults and we tell ourselves that this is just how the world Works ghosts aren't real Spirits aren't real extraterrestrials aren't real our dogs pass away we hope maybe they're in some sort of doggy heaven and we operate Within
(48:40) These confines because that's what we were taught and anything that defies basic logic is impossible and it's not just impossible but it's foolish the world tells us to look at these people who dream and dismiss them as crazy but there is so much magic in believing that there's more to life than what we can see with the naked eye you know when we let our imaginations roam we become children again anything seems possible because everything is possible if we just stepped outside of our stuffy little logical adult Minds even for a
(49:26) second and we let our imaginations roam like how could life not be magical we talked about this a few episodes ago about hoping and dreaming and how it might seem unrealistic or delusional or irresponsible but like the author of this essay says why do we always have to be so serious like do we really think the point of it all is to like keep our heads down and pay our bills and like about like being stuck in traffic and like being late to a doctor's appointment you know like we all have adult responsibilities as a parent of a
(50:05) toddler like I am not immune to this I [ __ ] know what it's like have to like wake up and like do all the things and check all the boxes but I refuse to believe that growing up means we just stop dreaming you and I both grew up in a religion that staunchly opposed things like reincarnation and there was like such a huge emphasis on heaven and hell and I would say that like for most of my even like going into adulthood like I still kind of held on to that it wasn't until I on actually it was when I read um oh
(50:48) my God what is that [ ] book you know the one by Liz Gilbert where she [ ] goes to like different countries oh my God yes did you ever read this I didn't okay so in that book she goes to it's like she goes to three countries that start with an i Italy India Indonesia yeah so you did so did you read it I didn't read it but but you know the whole I I think my sister read it and she was like telling me as she was reading it but when she's in India her focus is on meditation and that is when she comes across this concept of like there is no
(51:22) heaven in hell that's not real there's only one afterlife and we all go to the same place and when I first heard I was like in my early 20s it's like over a decade ago and I was like wait what like that was kind of like a little seed like planted anyway you know from that seed I have read and been exposed to like all these different ways of thinking and like imagining and now my own reality is that like I refuse to accept the idea that the afterlife is so black and white and there is a heaven and hell and like all
(51:57) that [ __ ] but I just I want to indulge in this idea that there's a world Between Worlds like when we talked about journey of souls as soon as you know you sent that to me and I read that it was like my heart just like expanded with possibility like oh my God like there is so much that could be and so you know like I want to believe that there's a world Between Worlds and that we reincarnate over and over again and we have soulmates that we travel through multiple lifetimes with and you know maybe maybe Cosmo you know is like one
(52:31) of those soul mates that I have and in my mind the mystical and the spiritual and the intuitive and the energetic like all of that is just as real as this [ __ ] couch that we're sitting on so when we're surrounded by chaos believing in the things that other people deem a silly is what actually just grounds me and keeps me in awe so why wouldn't why wouldn't I choose to believe that and who is anyone else to tell us that we're wrong when we do believe that as the author of this essay says I know my dog died I held her paw as she
(53:12) took her last breath but thinking about her dressed up in an astronaut suit makes me smile and I'd rather smile that is such a good reminder that we are in control over how we choose to experience this reality and we can give in to the physicality and take things that face value or we can add our own magic and color to it yeah I think we lose some of that skill as we get older but it's always there for us to come back to if we choose to mhm yeah I think it's one thing to recognize if you're ready to do that mhm you
(54:10) know find what it is that you think would bring meaning to your life that is one journey and then another journey is letting people do that yeah without having to insert your own opinions on it if it's not hurting you let it be exactly you know mm because yeah why would we want to deprive someone of adding Dimension to their life yeah I think about your story and how we feel so confined to make decisions because that's what the world tells us we must do but we do have agency you know mhm like even if we're bound physically by
(55:04) something we still have that agency like in our minds right mhm I think you and I are like realizing what our minds can do mhm oh it doesn't need to just be consumed by the present I can open this up a little bit more M oo exactly like doesn't life just become so much more interesting yeah uh but I will also say that it has been so wonderful to do that and then feel safe to share that with you mhm without feeling judged or feeling weird you know and I hope that if you're someone who is like I don't know I have reservations at
(55:50) least at the minimum just let people explore that mhm without being yeah truly let them be mhm all right folks uh thanks for listening thanks for listening to our comedy podcast where we laugh really really hard and spend the whole hour telling jokes uhhuh and like just being really smart and like super knowledgeable you know can pick up on all of these different literary devices cinematic devices nuances yes and can really D them in such an easy understandable way within 25 minutes each yeah thank you I mean no
(56:35) you're welcome sorry you're welcome U but truly truly thank you for Lending us your ears as always you can leave us a review if you feel so compelled on Apple podcast or Spotify give us a shout give us a follow on social media where at beb crying. podcast you can submit a s story or a cry recommendation on our website BRB crying podcast.
(57:04) com you can DM us you can email us hello beb crying podcast.com uh we're here for you and don't be shy to tell a friend either we're here for them too we beg you to share it with a friend out of everything I said don't [ __ ] listen to any of that if you could just share it with a friend like that's literally like all we ask yeah or share it to Florence p p yeah we'll go head out yeah come up with more stuff to think about mhm and then we'll be back next week yep but until then beer be crying [Music] I [Music]
Until next time…brb crying :’)