Wondermine
Wondermine
Bonus Episode: Books! (Part 2)
This is our second bonus episode on BOOKS! This time we talked about what makes us re-read a book, put a book down, or keep reading. And more!
As always, links to Bookshop are affiliate links.
Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita
NK Jemisin, Broken Earth Trilogy
Dante, Divine Comedy
Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Dr, Honorée Fannone Jeffers, The Love Songs of W.E.B. DuBois
Shirley Jackson, We Have Always Lived in The Castle
Stephen King, Eyes of the Dragon
James Joyce, Ulysses
James joyce, Finnegan’s Wake
Lauren Groff, Matrix
Toni Cade Bambara, These Bones Are Not my Child
G.R.R. Martin, Game of Thrones series
Robert Jones, Jr., The Prophets
Tayari Jones, Silver Sparrow
Colson Whitehead, The Nickel Boys
Stats on who is in juvenile detention centers (these are from 2017, and look at the trend from 1997-2017)
Colson Whitehead, The Underground Railroad
Percival Everett, The Trees
Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Water Dancer
Kiese Laymon, Heavy
The third rail (politics)
Music by ZakharValaha from Pixabay
Music by ZakharValaha from Pixabay
Follow us on Instagram @wonderminepodcast
Welcome to a bonus episode of Wondermine. I'm Larissa Parson. I'm a joy coach and movement teacher, a writer, a mom of twins, a bit of a hippie and an owner of many books I never actually read, and apparently I can't pronounce my own name this morning. Hi, Elizabeth.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Hi, Larissa. I'm Elizabeth M. Johnson. I'm a parent, a partner, a rape survivor and writer. And I talk about relationships and decision making and trauma and how all of those intersect. And I'm someone who has multiple books going at once.
Larissa Parson:And if you're new here, hello. We're the duo behind this feminist podcast that looks at the wow and the how of living a life rooted in curiosity, community and liberation. If you've ever felt like something was missing, or you were missing something, Wondermine is the podcast for you.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:If you would like to support our show, thank you. Thank you. You can do that by visiting patreon.com/wondermine. There are three tiers of support with which to help us out and in the interest of equity and community all offer the exact same perks which include things like bonus episodes, exclusive updates, and other behind the scenes content.
Larissa Parson:And today, we are talking about books. This is part two of our conversation on books. In our first bonus episode, we talked about what we read as kids, what we're reading now and who's on our shitlist. If you missed that, go back and listen. Today we're going to talk about rereading, what makes us put down a book, why do we keep going with a book, and maybe a little bit more?
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Let's go. Okay, wait, Larissa, before we start, how would you feel about a hypothetical right now something you were not expecting us to talk about?
Larissa Parson:So you know, I'm always up for something like that.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:I thought you might be. So just picture it. You're on a deserted island. You don't see anyone around you. It's really hot but not unpleasant. You feel kind of good in your body in that space. Just a few 100 yards away, you see something in the distance. It's a small structure. You start walking towards it and wait a second. It's an adorable little cabana. You walk closer and inside you see a stash of food and drinks. Plenty to sustain you for as long as you would like. And right on the small return table next to a gorgeous comfy lounge chair, are three of your cannot-live-without books, The Ride or Die books. What would those books be?
Larissa Parson:First of all, this question is too hard.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:And that's everything, folks. Thanks for joining us! (laughter)
Larissa Parson:(laughter). I'm like, I would like to go to that island. Since it is cold and rainy here, I would be really happy to be there. Okay, seriously, I do find it really hard to think of only three books that I would have to reread for the entire time I'm stuck on this island. Because I am notorious for not rereading books! I always want something fresh. If I had to choose, I think I would pick maybe something in Greek that I had to work at. And like, there's no dictionary, so I'd have to really wrack my brain for these little fragments of information from 20 years ago. So maybe Pindar or some of Plato's work, something like that. Or maybe I'd go with an old favorite like The Master and Margarita, which is one of my favorites from when I was in my 20s. And I still love it. I've...that one I have reread at least once. So maybe it'd be that. And then maybe I would pick. Gosh, this is really hard.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:It is hard. And I forgot you are not a re-reader and I am. So this is a hard question for me. But it is way harder for you since you do not reread.
Larissa Parson:Now I'm like, oh, I should become a re-reader so I can answer this question in the future. I'm thinking this is kind of cheating a little bit. Like, I have two of my very favorite authors on this list in my head. But actually, I think because they write these longer series, that would be really hard to just pick one. So I'm going to cheat here a little bit. And I'm going to pick this three books in one edition of the Broken Earth trilogy by NK Jemisin. Which, Oh, yeah, I bought it for my mom last year, I think for Christmas, and she had to put it on her dining table to read it because it was as thick as a dictionary.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Oh my gosh.
Larissa Parson:But this is a great use for that book, because then I could reread that story. And I love the whole trilogy. And I feel like it would be one that really rewards you rereading it because I now know the whole plot. But I could pick up some of the subtler details and hints that she's dropping throughout the first couple books in that trilogy. So that would be fun. What about you?
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Fabulous, those are great. I was thinking,'okay, how can I also bring in multiple books?' Who's got a collection that I want to bring with it? And I really waffled on that. Actually, that's funny that you said the Greek because I was like, maybe I should do the Divine Comedy. I'm like,"Oh,...it's been many, many years. Since you have read this in Italian. You will just be angry with yourself and feel like an idiot." So that one is not there. (laughter) The Divine Comedy stays at home. I'm going to bring A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith. It is one of my favorite books that I read as a child and it's one that reminds me of my mom. So it's very tender for me. I'm going to bring --everyone sick of hearing me talk about this-- butI'm going to bring The Love Songs of WEB DuBois by Dr. Honoree Fanonne Jeffers because I only read it once. And it was recently and it is a mega mammoth book. So I know, reading it another time--which is one of the joys for me in rereading is-- is I will notice different things that I didn't notice the first go round. So I will bring that with me. And I was thinking, Can I squeeze in some Shirley Jackson there? LIke a book of her essays or classics like We've Always Lived in The Castle. But I think I'm going to skip Shirley Jackson. I'm going to go with Eyes of the Dragon, which is my favorite Stephen King book. It's not one of his more well known ones. And it's not his earliest. It's early / mid career, and it is an original fairy tale. And there's a lot of magic in there and strong female characters also, that I love. So I think those three would sustain me.
Larissa Parson:Nice. That sounds like a nice variety of books. Yeah, yes. Mm hmm. I really like that. I feel like that rereading question is really hard for me. Because I do fall in love with characters. And I do fall in love with places when I read. And I can see wanting to go back to them periodically, which I think maybe is, you know, like part of why I love a good fantasy series, because they just keep going. And I get to spend more time with those characters. And I get to watch them develop and grow and change and all of that good stuff. Anyway, I mean, that's a lot about what we might reread. Is there any other, like, Do you have any other criteria for rereading something other than that, like, maybe it's complex and worth, like digging into again, to get more out of it?
Elizabeth M. Johnson:That's a great question. One of the reasons I reread is the escape piece that we've talked about. A need to breathe a little bit more easily, and not have to think too much about what's going on around me.
Larissa Parson:Uh huh.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:And have it be kind of mindless. So I can go back and reread things for those exact purposes because it is just a brief escape into something that's familiar. And not sure if 'beloved' is the right word, but certainly cherished. So that's another bit for me.
Larissa Parson:That makes a lot of sense to me. And I think...you reread; I go pick up a light romance.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:I think that's exactly right.
Larissa Parson:Exactly the same reasons. Like yes, I want something that's not going to make me work too hard. And it's going to have a nice payoff for the time I spend reading, an emotional payoff, usually, or just like this...You know, it's very soothing when, you know, there's a happy ending.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Yes. Yes.
Larissa Parson:So that's a lot about rereading. Part of the struggle for me sometimes, and it's not really like struggle is such a ridiculous word for this. It's not a struggle.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Well, I'm with you. That seems to be the word that comes to mind though, right?
Larissa Parson:It's a huge struggle. So part of the struggle for me as a reader is that so many of my reading habits got pretty solidly ingrained when I was in college and grad school and a little bit with teaching where I did have to reread, but it was always for analysis. And like, a lot of the stuff that I had to read was maybe stuff I didn't like stuff that was kind of boring 19th century German commentaries on Plato in German.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Do not recommend (laughter).
Larissa Parson:Yeah, there's a lot of slogging. And outside of class, I did read a lot of fiction. And there I was like, Okay, give me anything that's not what I'm studying. Basically, magical realism. Cool. Avant Garde fiction. Cool. I, what's the reading list of things in my head of things? I think I should read Ulysses, oh, I got a summer vacation where I'm taking a really intense summer course? Well, bring it on! That's the kind of reader I've been for much of my life, which means that I didn't feel like I could put books down. I did put down Finnegan's Wake, I did not I got two pages in I was like, uh uh. Nope! (laughter)
Elizabeth M. Johnson:That's interesting.
Larissa Parson:That was a big nope, did not need to try that. But, you know, so there was a lot of like, not being able to put down because I had to read things that I used, whether I liked them or not. And there was a lot of feeling like I needed to read a thing, because that would help me have access to a cultural reference, like reading Ulysses. There's a big payoff at the end of that book, once you slog all the way through it. And so it's super hard for me to break that habit. And I've been working on it. And this is where the struggle comes in. Because I will stick with a book that I don't really love, like, a lot longer than, say, you would Elizabeth, and you're so good at this. So good at it. And my husband to like, lots of people in my life will put down a book way before I will, like I'll stick with something a lot longer. And this is something I really admire about you, is when we have our conversations when we're out walking, and you're like, Yeah, I started that, and I just had to put it down. How do you do it?
Elizabeth M. Johnson:I wonder, too, if there's... Well, wait thank you for that. I want to acknowledge the compliment that I've given. So thank you. And I wonder if there's not a greater level of discernment on your end, perhaps, because you have a very clear sense as to what you want to pick up. Right? So every time you're reaching for the romance or the fantasy, it's the genre that you want, you know, that you're going to stick to, that you know. It's almost like a easy go for you.
Larissa Parson:Pretty much.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Because you know I don't have that that skill, or that piece nailed down like that for me. And maybe I wonder if that's a little bit of a difference? I'm not answering your question, but I'm just making more of an observation. Is there something with that level of like parsing, because you know these genres that are going to work a little bit better for you than others. And I don't have that.
Larissa Parson:yeah, and within my within the genres I really like I read a little summary so that I know what I'm getting into. And if it's like a sad white ladies on the beach in Connecticut, Wait, is there a beach? oh, whatever (laughter)
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Passing on that one too! (laughter). There are some but not many beaches.
Larissa Parson:is on the beach in Maine, and a handsome stranger walks up, I'm not going to read that book.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Neither am I. (laughter)
Larissa Parson:If there are white people, they need to be in like castles. (laughter) Okay, like moving on, I (laughter)
Elizabeth M. Johnson:I do think life is too short to read books that are not thrilling me and that I'm not in love with. I will say though, this is one of these ideas that I've been thinking about a lot. And much more than I would have thought is that I love when people give me permission to do something. And I was looking at Julia F Green's Instagram at one point, her post is "I'm reading this..but I'm just gonna put that down." And my comment was"Oh my gosh, I'm in Matrix, and I'm struggling, but everyone loves it!" And then like, "I think you've given me permission to put this down." And so I did. So someone giving me permission to put it down, whether it's in a caption or language that I see is really helpful for me. It also helps me --to be perfectly honest--when I don't own the book.
Larissa Parson:Yeah.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:I don't buy a ton of books and I use my library very, very heavily. I will often get the book from the library first. If I love it, then I will buy it so I can mark it up. Or buy it if I know in advance I'm going to love it and I want to mark generally like my nonfiction. I buy very little fiction. So it's also logistics, I don't have a ton of space. It's financial, I can't buy everything. So not owning the book actually helps me put down a book because I haven't put money into it or made an investment into the space. So that helps me but I do like to give myself plenty of space around reading including space to put the book down.
Larissa Parson:Mm hmm. Yeah. To go back just a second, I want to clarify. It's not just white white people, I'll read books about, like, I'm still on this, like, Wait a minute. Anyway, there's like a whole complicated layer of that to talk about some other time, I'm gonna go back to your space thing. So switching to almost only checking out books from the library onto my Kindle, especially fiction, especially popular fiction, I'm still like, there's an eight week wait, wait on the matrix. So I'm not going to be reading it anytime soon. That's made this physical space problem so much better for me to, I used to be like, I remember, in grad school, I would just like, buy books at the used bookstore, and then go sell back the ones that were just okay, and not amazing, so that I could buy more books from these bookstores. And then, like, it was this ridiculous cycle. And I would check out a lot of books at the library, too. But I'm curious, Elizabeth, can you say a little bit more about space to put the book down?
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Yeah, I don't have a Kindle. So I don't do any reading like that. But the way that you have been talking about this with me, and how long we've been talking about books has made me wonder if I should try one. Because would this help my space issue and also helped my like, now I"own the thing" challenge. So the idea of space to put down is related to permission, right? So some of its the emotional space involved with giving myself permission to put a book down. Some of its physical. I am actually temporarily putting this book aside. I'm in a rough part. Or maybe it's just really heavy. I'm just gonna put it down for an indefinite pause. And that's kind of how I'm feeling about which I'd mentioned in an earlier episode of last season, These Bones Are Not My Child by Toni Cade Bambara. I'm really having a hard time with that. I would like to finish it. It is a masterpiece. Everyone who knows Bambara has read this book, and I have not finished it. My usual practice with fiction is giving myself 20 to 30 pages, and that'd be enough to know. You know, depending on the length of the book, giving myself a certain percentage, my eighth grade English teacher, Mr. Tom West taught me that idea. I don't put down a lot of nonfiction. I have given myself permission--if it's not working, or if it's different than what I thought it would be-- to skim. To go through and find the bit that is actually useful for me. Because again, I'm often reading for research. I'm reading to learn more about a subject I'm interested in. So I will go and give myself permission to skim or scan.
Larissa Parson:Right? That makes a lot of sense. Yeah. So for me, like putting down a book when I do. It's like, it has to be I like it has to be kind of awful. I'll read mediocre, but good enough books for a lot longer than I should. And also, it doesn't. But that doesn't mean that it's not a good book for someone else to read. I think that one of the great things about books is that there's a book for everyone. But when I do when I do find myself going, I just cannot, I try to stick with it till we get to about that 30% mark. I will say that NK Jemisin, the Broken Earth trilogy that I mentioned earlier, that was one of those books, the first book in there, I had to get about halfway through before it clicked. And then I fell in love. And it was one of those things where I'd heard enough people say, no, no, no, you have to read it. And then ever since I've been recommending it to people I've been saying, You've got to get all the way through the first book, and then you're not gonna stop reading them, because it's just the narrative is is complex and kind of multi voiced. And so you don't know what's going on for a really long time. Once you get there, it's amazing. So you know, sometimes it depends. Where did I hear from? Who did I hear about this book from? Who recommended it? Where did I get this? Did I get it off the list of like books recommended by one of my favorite authors? I'll usually stick with it a little bit longer. And what else makes me drop it? So if the characters aren't compelling, or if it's too much in terms of everything, violence, trauma, trauma as drama, too dense if it's, like, too literary, honestly, sometimes when I am not really feeling well rested when I am not feeling like I have my all my intellectual cylinders firing fully, a dense piece of literary fiction is a no, I can't do it, I just like can't. And then Oh, this one more thing that I thought about is, if it's a book that's supposed to be sexy, but it's not turning me on for whatever reason I put that right down. Like, I've had friends recommend books, either pieces of romance or erotica. And they're like, Oh, this is so hot, you're gonna love it. And I read it. And I'm like, Yeah, that's not really my thing. And that's fine. You know, and that's a great time to put a book down. And that's, you know, like, that's definitely one of my criteria. Like, if it's, if it's a particular genre, it's not doing the genre in a way that I enjoy it, then I'm not gonna read it. And then I guess, finally, we've talked about this before, but if there's no joy in it, and that can be very broad. It can be overcoming adversity, etc. But if there's no joy in it, I'll probably put it down.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:This is reminding me of like, what you just said, "there's a book for everyone. " Right? So if that piece of erotica is not quite doing it, you know, even though it was from someone who you appreciate the recommendation, then we put it down. What's the opposite for you, I wonder? What keeps you going with a book? We've talked about--or I've heard you talk about before--escape, being in a better world and a world with more diversity, equity, less hate. All of these really beautiful things that we feel really strongly about here on Wondermine. So those are some themes I'd imagine kind of keep you in. But what else keeps you sucked into a book? What makes the book kind of irresistible to you?
Larissa Parson:Um, well, clearly, if it's supposed to be sexy, it should be sexy.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:There we go.
Larissa Parson:That goes without saying. Witty dialogue, just enough tension in the plot, like sexual, plotwise, whatever, just enough going on. Like, sometimes I get really, I like, I love an interior kind of thinky book, but not that much, actually, sometimes. Fantastic characters I went to hang out with. Game of Thrones kept me sucked in. Talk about white people in castles. Right?(crosstalk) I will read them! I will read them! Are there swords? Cool. I'm in, right. But it was one of those series that made my husband wonder, like, where's Larissa? Reading. The prose itself is not that snappy. It's not like the best prose, I'm gonna say, I'm fine being on the record, saying that the characters are tremendous. The characters in that book are amazing. And those books are amazing. And that kept me sucked in, even though Westeros, and the rest of that world, was not at all a better place.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Yes to the tension, I want it. I like that. And to totally feel that. And I want to experience a bit of the emotional stress or pull like I am in there, too. That's really an important piece for me. I want to feel like I'm really right there with that person.
Larissa Parson:Exactly. Yeah.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Beauty for me in fiction. I feel like this overlaps with what you said about joy, right? So like, it can be really broadly defined or subtle or not really like overt. You know, it could be this sort of like tormented beauty of the two enslaved men who were lovers in The Prophets. There's a lot of physical violence and hatred in the book, but the beauty is really just exquisite and luminous. And the trauma doesn't feel exploitive, which is what I've talked about before, like not a bonkers plot twist. The beauty of a flawed character who we can see is flawed. We've actually you and I talked about this a couple of nights ago, and not the character per se, but like David Sedaris, and how he uses itself in his essays.
Larissa Parson:Yeah,
Elizabeth M. Johnson:So someone being really nakedly vulnerable. That's important. Or a gorgeous setting. All those are really, really attractive to me and keep me keep me going in a book in fiction.
Larissa Parson:Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I'm like, thinking of a beautifully flawed character and nonfiction. I mean, I think maybe memoir has a space for that.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Yes, thank you. That exactly.
Larissa Parson:I mean, that's what we were talking about with David Sedaris. So memoir has a great place for the beauty of a flawed character. Or, yeah. So, I love beauty in a book as well. And I love that we can define it in so many different ways. I love prose that feels luminous is the word today, luminous, but not overwhelming.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Yes.
Larissa Parson:That's not like you're not picking apart the prose for what's happening.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Yep.
Larissa Parson:But it is beautiful.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Yes, yes. more elegant than flowery.
Larissa Parson:I, I like that.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:That's my very elementary description. You know, with fiction, I feel like I want to be grabbed a little bit roughly by the sleeve and not in a violent way. I really want to qualify this - I don't mean grabbed "violently" --just that I want to feel really strongly about what's going on with those characters. And I want that sooner rather than later. Otherwise, I need to get out. Yeah, there's just not much of a sliver of moon of patience, or my attention, left when it comes to not really feeling really strongly about the thing that I'm reading. I want to feel strongly. Whether that's tension or the deep love or this conflict, or whatever. I also want to read something I haven't before. So like a five year old who can start fires with her mind. A serial killer at the World's Fair. I used to read a ton of historical fiction. Tyree Jones's opening line of Silver Sparrow, "My father, James Witherspoon is a bigamist." This just begged me to continue and I was like,"Ooh, I gotta keep going here". Colson Whitehead's Pulitzer Prize winning book, The Nickel Boys, about boys in a juvenile detention center in Florida. It's based on a real place. It's an absolutely brutal read. And it's sad and horrifying in all the ways that you'd imagine. But his prose is so perfect and tight. And that's... so these things were haven't..something, a story that has not been told.
Larissa Parson:Yeah, for me. Yeah. Like, that's yeah. Yeah, I totally understand that. And I would say that a lot of the books that I really love are also stories that haven't been told, but there are types of stories that have been told, you know, what I mean? Like, they're, they're different. They're different. Yeah. But I think I think that this is kind of one of those places where our differences as individual readers, the two of us comes to light. Because sometimes I will find that no matter how beautiful the prose is, I can't always read something brutal. I don't always have the, the space, the emotional space for it really. Despite the fact that I hold plenty of privilege. I sometimes just cannot go to like a boys det- juvenile detention center, I cannot do that. And I love Colson Whitehead. There, I, I have read other books by Colson Whitehead that I have loved. But this is one where I looked at the looked at the subject matter and was like, Oh, that's a hard pass for me right now. Maybe I'll have emotional bandwidth for it. You know, like, when I have grown kids, maybe, then I'll be able to do that, but not right now.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:I totally get that. I totally, totally get that. And- I'm not you, but if I were you - I don't know if I'd read it either. There's a piece that it's just occurring to me now is I have a very hard time reading books where the child is ill or the child is sick, or mom is dying. I can't do it. I actually feel a little bit like emotional even thinking about it, because it's very, very painful for me. And it's very hard, especially if the kids are around my daughter's age. And I'm like, "No, I don't care what's going on." So, not to take away from what you're saying.
Larissa Parson:Oh no, yeah.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:The Nickel Boys is really hard. I read it because I felt like I could read it. And that I should read it. For many reasons. Like I've just listened to hundreds of survivor stories over the years. And we know more all the time #MeToo. But there's also this big massive piece about patriarchy and toxic masculinity and how we still don't understand or have any kind of appreciation or regard for how sexual abuse impacts people as adults, if they were abused as children.
Larissa Parson:Absolutely.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:We need more of these male survivor stories. That are millions of male survivors and we don'thave the stories. And The Nickel Boys is really an important read for that reason. I feel like I could listen to this. And I can hold space in a different sort of way than I had before. I also felt like I should read this, because I'm a pretty privileged white person. And I didn't grow up knowing any kids who went to a juvenile detention center. Like that was just not even on my radar. But we know that disproportionately, Black and Brown children are more likely to be sent to a detention center. They're more likely to be sent to detention in high school or in grade school.
Larissa Parson:Yes,
Elizabeth M. Johnson:All of these things. So I feel like there's a piece of me that read this book, because nice white parents like me need to read books like this. We need to read The Prophets. We need to read Heavy. We need to read The Underground Railroad. We need to read The Trees. We need to read all of these books, Water Dancer, all these books.
Larissa Parson:For sure.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Fom my own observation, I think there's also like these, a constant having to reckon with the ideas of systemic racism and intergenerational trauma, and how deep and exhausting that can be for BIPOC people. Also - and then I will stop talking about this, because I don't want to keep elevating my voice here-
Larissa Parson:You're fine.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:But it's also super important for white people to read about Black joy. You know, and we've talked, like I've talked about, like, everyman. And you and I both love this . . .
Larissa Parson:Yes.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Its just so good, and so brilliant. And so there's those kind of books that we need to read to so I'm not saying "read all the Black trauma stories" . I'm not saying that as a white person here. But I'm also sort of saying it is important for us to read those pieces, too. Both the trauma because we can and the Black joy too.
Larissa Parson:Yeah, yeah. I think that was really well put Elizabeth, because that's what I was going exactly what I would say is that it's really, it's really important for me to read a lot of black joy, brown joy, indigenous joy. Yes, queer joy of all kinds and flavors. I that's what I meant earlier. And like, if there's no joy, I'm probably not going to get all the way through it. And, and that doesn't mean that like, I won't pick up a hard emotionally, like brutal book, it just means I'll do it like, once a year. And I think when you were speaking about kind of like, what you can't read, I think that when we talk about putting down a book, it's fair, as a reader to say there are some third rail topics, where you just can't go there. And you can come back to the maybe in 10 years, yeah, five years, or after some more therapy or whatever, you know, like there are, but I think it's okay to have third rail topics in our lives, as long as we are aware that those things exist in the world.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Yeah.
Larissa Parson:And like, and I think this like, pulls us back to our big overarching theme and wonder mind, maybe a little bit, where we're not asking you to dive in, all the way all the time, take a little test, see if that works for you. Try a little bit, take a break, try a little bit more, take a break, read something hard, read something easy, like not that we're giving advice on what to read. But we are totally giving advice on what to read all the time, and and how to read. And I think that knowing what you can't read or what you can't watch is so important. And knowing that, like there may be other ways of looking at some of those stories that maybe are less immersive, if that's how you need to titrate your way in. So anyway, where was I gonna go with all of that? I think that that's basically all we had to say about picking up, putting down, all of that. Do you have anything else you wanted to add Elizabeth?
Elizabeth M. Johnson:No, just to lift up that last bit a little more. So in case people zoned out for a quick second--which I do sometimes when I'm listening to podcasts (laughter)- that it's awesome to have that-and I'm not familiar with that term? --Is it third rail?
Larissa Parson:Oh, so okay here, yeah. ere Yeah, a third rail...This is like...
Elizabeth M. Johnson:I mean, I can guess what you mean, but...
Larissa Parson:Hi! City person!
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Okay, thank you.
Larissa Parson:So for those of you who did not grow up riding subways all the time there is on most subway systems at least on DC Metro and definitely on BART in San Francisco and probably also in Yeah, definitely in New York, cuz I've heard stories about it. There is this third electrified rail and you don't want to sit on that rail because you'll get electrocuted.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Okay, good call. Yeah.
Larissa Parson:And those are that's what third rail means. Don't go there.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Yes. You will not get electrocuted if you have third rail topics that are ones you're not going to go to. And it's still awesome to know that you can give yourself permission to be "those are off limits for right now." It's this beautiful like yes/and right? Yes, this is something I can't take right now in this moment and I may want to go back to it later on. Thank you for bringing that up. I love that. Thank you. On that note..
Larissa Parson:thank you for asking me to clarify it because right, my experience is not universal, friends!
Elizabeth M. Johnson:And neither is mine. (laughter) Thank you so much for listening to us. And if you would like to support our work, this is a reminder that our patrons find out first when the new season drops and get awesome bonus content. You can find us at patreon.com/wondermine.
Larissa Parson:and we are so grateful every time you share Wondermine with friends. Writing us a review will help others find their wow and their how to live a life rooted in curiosity, community and liberation and...maybe just a little bit of awareness that sometimes not everybody lives the way you do.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:And in the interim, follow us @ wonderminepodcast on Instagram. Thanks everyone. Be well.
Larissa Parson:Thank you
