Transcript // everyday magic // 12.1.21
Episode description: What if the most important thing we do isn’t doing at all, but noticing?
In each life stage, we’re asked what we do, or what we’re going to be—but what if the question became not what we do, but who we hope to become and how we bring everyday magic to life’s everyday pain?
From the Musee D’Orsay in Paris to wartime Baghdad to a flower farm in South Carolina, today’s episode is an exploration of how beauty can save us when we need it most. Complete show notes and transcript at www.shelterinplacepodcast.org
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Transcript:
Laura: This is Shelter in Place, a podcast about embracing the journey in a world forever changed. Coming to you from Oakland California, I’m Laura Joyce Davis.
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Laura: What do you want to be when you grow up?
This is the question that every kid in our preschool answers in their final costumed performance before they head off to kindergarten. It’s a question that used to excite me when I was their age because the answers were easy: Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz! A queen with a real castle! A singer in some Broadway production that involved unicorns!
As a teenager, I learned to get more practical with my dreams: I’d be a journalist or a psychologist. Maybe a teacher or a coach. By then I understood that the question was not who I wanted to be, but what. It was less about character and more about what I could contribute.
But what if the question we asked young children and teenagers and even adults was not what you want to do for work, but instead the kind of person you hope to become.
So today, we’re talking about vocation and direction. From a flower farm in South Carolina to an art museum in Paris to war-torn streets of Iraq, we’re going to hear from people who have learned to use their vocation to bring beauty and delight to others, even when everything around them was pulling them down.
Cathy: I've always liked the painting called “L’Angelus”. It's two peasants that are standing in a field and it's the end of the day. And they've got some potatoes in a cart that they had just finished digging up. Their heads are bowed and they’re saying a prayer. The light in that painting, the way they're holding their heads; it’s just a very humbling, beautiful scene.
Laura: This is Cathy Watters. Cathy lives in South Carolina and she’s newly retired. She’s always loved art—and this painting in particular—but she’s spent most of her life in a vocation that has nothing to do with it. Until recently, she worked in IT.
Cathy: I was good at using the logical side of my brain but really that did not give me much joy.
Laura: We found Cathy because her daughter Meridian is one of our Kasama Collective trainees.
Meridian: My mom has this zest for life that's contagious. She's probably the most creative person I know, but she didn't have the luxury of following her interests wherever they led. As a single mom, she had to provide for our family. So she spent most of her life in a career that wasn't really her.
Cathy: I think if I could have had any job in the world, it would have been something like costume design or interior design, or even coming up with my own product that I design and that would have given me I think a lot of satisfaction.
Laura: Kathy was good at her job. Over the years, she was promoted up through the ranks. Five years ago, she'd reached the pinnacle of her career, but she was miserable for the first time. She talked about quitting.
Meridian: I was living in Washington D.C. at the time, and every time we talked on the phone I could hear the exhaustion in her voice. She wanted out, but she had no idea how to start a new career at that stage in her life.
I also had my own career questions. I had a great job in a city I loved, but every time I talked to my mom I wondered if it was ultimately where I wanted to end up. I didn’t hate my job. But I also didn’t really feel content to stay. It was a confusing, hurried, stressful time of life for both of us.
Laura: And then, Meridian got an idea that she hoped would provide the breakthrough they both needed.
Meridian: I planned a trip to Paris. She’d always wanted to go there. We could explore a beautiful city together and my mom would finally have a few days where her only responsibility was to enjoy herself.
Laura: But when she told her mom about the idea, her mom just looked tired. Of course she wanted to go to Paris, but she didn't need to.
Cathy: Leading up to the trip, I was kind of nervous about going and maybe not that excited. My job was all consuming and it just felt like another task I needed to do at the moment.
Laura: But they went anyway, and as they crossed an ocean and left the old life further and further behind, Paris began to work its magic on them both.
Cathy: France felt like home. I guess that's the best way for me to say it. It just felt like home.
We stayed in a neighborhood called Le Marais, which is the historic district.
It was just a different way of life to be there as opposed to the United States where everyone is always in a hurry.
Laura: They spent the week wandering the city, enjoying delicious food and wine and visiting Paris’s wealth of art museums.
Cathy: One day we went to Musee d'Orsay. That museum had the Impressionists. I mean everybody was there. There was Renoir, Monet, Manet. It was a sight for sore eyes to see all those original paintings.
My mind wasn't completely filled with my job responsibilities, which had been a dialogue that had been running around in my head for years.
I was able to let that go because there was so much sensory input and beauty to look around that it really took my attention off myself in my everyday things. I was very happy. Didn't really want to leave.
Laura: And then just before they left the museum, Cathy saw a painting she hadn’t even known was there.
Cathy: From a distance, I looked and there it was. I yelled out, I said, “It's L’Angelus!” Seeing that painting really did kind of strike me when I had no defenses up. A bunch of emotions came to the surface that surprised me and that were really kind of uncontrollable. I think seeing that painting connected me to that side of myself that I had always suppressed for most of my life and it was just amazing but I was actually looking at the original.
I just ran over to it and it just made me cry. You think, “Wow! That person's gone, but yet this part of them survives”. It was four years ago and still it touches me.
Laura: After their trip to Paris, Meridian went back to her life in D.C. Cathy went back to her job in IT. On the surface, nothing had changed—but the trip had stirred up a longing for them both. For Cathy, it was the realization that where she was, wasn’t where she wanted to be.
The change didn't happen overnight, but two years after their trip to Paris, Kathy was visiting Meridian in DC. When she got a text saying that her company was downsizing and they were offering her a severance package to retire early.
Meridian: She said, “I’m free! I’m free!” It was an amazing moment that I’ll never forget.
But even when we were celebrating her, I was still feeling really confused.
It was a Sunday night and I finally had a moment to sit down—but I couldn't. I felt like a freight train was racing in my chest getting closer and closer. If I stayed still, I was going to explode. I finally got up and went for a walk around my neighborhood.
I'd been living on that same block for five years and I'd walked that same walk thousands of times.
I would jolt awake in the middle of the night, filled with dread, thoughts and questions. Just rushing into my mind. Why was I so anxious and discontent? What was my problem? And then shouting right back: Your family is far away. You're not living up to your potential. Isn't it time to make something of your own? It was, but I had no idea what that looked like.
Sometimes when I was really anxious, I would run as hard as I could pushing myself to exhaustion, just so I could sleep.
Two lefts past the underground cafe on the corner with the barista who knew my name. And then I was on East Capitol Street. Where the row houses towered above me with craftsmanship from another era.
Golden light shone from windows, framing pianos, and built-in bookcases. People sat in Adirondack chairs, drinking Rosé on their lawn.
Someone picked a guitar from a balcony so high above me, I had to crane my neck to see. This was the life I dreamed for myself since I was a teenager. Independence, community and a career - all in a beautiful place. I lived in a 1920s yellow row house that I shared with my friends.
Seven years of that life had given me deep friendships but a part of me still just didn't feel at home. It was like college part two and no one was telling me when to graduate. I wanted something I could build, shape, even mess up, but I didn't know what to change to get this elusive thing I was after.
I walked and walked and walked possessed by an energy I could not shake. I was a Slingshot pulled back, but never released. The sky was pink by the time I headed home.
Once again, I'd walked my city looking for answers. Once again, I was returning defeated.
And then as I trudged around the final block an explosion of delicate white blooms from dark winery branches spilled over a black metal fence I'd never noticed. Pedals cascading so slowly and delicately that they seemed suspended in air.
The shifting evening light made the white pedals look pink. It was as if a voice whispered in my ear, “Just be here. This is enough”. For a moment, my pulse wasn't racing. I wasn't thinking or worrying. I didn't have to decide anything. I could just be.
That experience started a new tradition for me. Every day on my walk home from work. I stopped by Trader Joe's and bought myself flowers.
In a season of over-analyzing and trying to decide what I wanted, that simple pleasure of buying myself flowers kept me going.
Baby's breath, lilies, carnations, hydrangeas. My favorite were the peonies. I'd find the ones that were still buds so I could watch them open up from tightly clenched fists to open handed blossoms
Laura: In March of 2020, Meridian went back home for a few weeks to be with her mom while she recovered from a scheduled surgery. While she was there, COVID-19 shut the world down and Meridian’s job went online. She could have gone back to D.C., but instead she decided to stay.
Meridian: Even before the pandemic, I think a part of me was looking for a reason to come home. All I wanted was a pause to reevaluate what was important to me. And now it was finally happening.
Laura: During those months, when Meridian was in South Carolina with her mom, she started visiting the local farmer's market. There was one stand in particular that she noticed. A place called Tiger Lily that sold beautiful cut flower bouquets. When Meridian saw that Tiger Lily had a flower subscription program, she went to their website which is how she met the owner.
Eddie: Hi, my name's Eddie Carter. I'm like the least likely flower farmer you can imagine. This is actually my third career. I started as an architect and then transitioned into a computer engineering career and now I'm a flower farmer.
Laura: Tiger Lily started not with Eddie, but with his wife Louie.
Eddie: She would come home and tell me, I'm stuck behind my desk all day, looking out the window at the beautiful weather. I want to be outside.
Laura: At the time, Louie was close to retirement, but she wasn’t ready to stop working. She just wanted to be doing a different kind of job.
Eddie: She came to me one day and she said, I want to be a flower farmer. And I didn't even know what a flower farmer was. In 2018, she started in our vegetable garden space, experimenting with flowers and kind of learning what to do. And her last day of work was the end of May. And the first day of June was honestly the happiest day of her life.
Laura: For three years, Eddie kept working his own corporate job, helping Louie build the business and create the farm that she’d envisioned.
Eddie: She loved what she did every hour of every day.
Laura: On the Tiger Lily website, there’s a picture of Louie cutting daffodils in the spring of 2020. Her face is radiant. It’s obvious how happy she is. Beside that photo, Eddie has written these words: “Those who knew Louie knew she was a beautiful soul. In late 2020, we lost Louie to a hard-fought battle with cancer, but the farm she envisioned lives on.”
Eddie: I kept going through the things that I could be doing. I have a long list of chores around the house I haven't had time to do and things on the property I needed to do. But those didn't seem like things that would bring me a lot of fulfillment. And I kept going back to this farm that she started and kind of left.
You know, I've got to do something with it. It's there, I can't just let the weeds grow. And the more I thought about it, the more I was sort of drawn to continuing what she started.
Laura: Eddie woke up every morning and did the things Louie used to do.
Eddie: I sort of picked up where she left off, not knowing where it was going to go or whether I would even like it. And it turns out I did enjoy it.
So I've kind of gotten to, I guess, walk in her footsteps.
A side effect of my decision to continue with it is that it sort of brought me closer to her during the year. You know, I'm out there doing what she was doing. I'm growing the flowers that she was growing; talking to her customers. So I think the farm kind of helps me stay a little closer to my wife.
One of the things she said all the time was “I love what I'm doing because I'm selling happy”.
I think when we're young, there's a lot of pressure to pick out your career, you know, what do you want to do with the rest of your life?
I'd say it's really important not to worry about figuring out what you're going to do the rest of your life. Figure out what you're going to do next year and go for it and let God sort of lead the way and you'll figure it out as you go. I decided I'm a flower farmer this year. I think I'll do it next year; after that, who knows?
Laura: Meridian didn't know this story when she was buying those flowers from Tiger Lily at the farmer's market. At the time, it was just a way to bring a little bit of joy home.
This was the winter of 2020, when it had become clear that the pandemic was far from over. As the months crept by, and she spent her days on Zoom, the anxiety about the future that she'd felt on those walks in DC, started to creep back in. Meridian started walking again this time around her childhood. She suddenly remembered another walk years ago in DC when she'd overheard the news on someone's radio. She realized that it may have been the first time she felt that anxious, unsettled feeling that had followed her all this time.
Meridian: It was a Friday night in 2015. And I had just seen on the news that there had been another terrorist attack in France. This was a time where they seem to be happening one after another. This one hit me differently. People at a concert and at bars and restaurants with their loved ones were callously gunned down. This felt like an attack on all of these life affirming things that we do to connect with one another.
I was completely heartbroken for the people who were killed and their families.
And I was also paralyzed with fear. I lived in a major city and I just couldn't help but think when will that happen here? I found myself just wanting to stay home. Even my long walks around Capitol Hill suddenly felt like a huge risk.
Laura: It was around that same time that Meridian heard a story on NPR’s Morning Edition about Karim Wasfi, a cellist who at the time was the conductor of the Iraqi National Symphony Orchestra.
Meridian: He was living in Baghdad at a time when there were bombings on a weekly or even daily basis. And he did something I could not believe. Every time something had just been bombed, he'd head to that spot and start playing his cello.
Laura: Videos of Karim Wasfi playing his cello on the streets of Baghdad went viral with more than 33 million views. We’ll include a link to Morning Edition’s coverage of that story in our show notes, and it’s well worth a listen. In that story, Wasfi says:
"The other side chose to turn every element, every aspect of life in Iraq into a battle and into a war zone. I chose to turn every corner of Iraq into a spot for civility, beauty and compassion. Unlike what people think, we have a choice of fighting back. We can't just surrender to the impending doom of uncertainty by not functioning. But I think it's an awakening for everybody to make a choice and to choose how they want to live, not how they want to die."
In 2015, Wasfi was named humanitarian of the year by the Arabian global business community; he eventually moved to New York and joined the New York Philharmonic. Today, he’s the president and founder of the Peace Through Arts Global Foundation.
Meridian: I've carried Karim's story with me for years as a wake-up call to be grateful for the life that I have and also as a reminder that the art we bring into the world and the ways that we shape the environment around us has an impact. Whether it's a garden, a painting, a meal with friends or a walk around the park - It connects us to one another.
This story found me at a time when I couldn't really see any good in the world. I had forgotten what it felt like to enjoy life. And here was this man who'd seen suffering that I could not fathom. And he chose to rewrite the narrative.
When I think of Karim's story, I remember that I have a choice in helping to bring healing and light to the people around me. It can connect us to those parts of ourselves that feel alive.
That sentiment reminds me of that painting my mom loves so much. It's this man and woman standing there in this completely barren field. Nothing new is growing . The man is hanging his head and his face is in the shadow. The woman's head is down too, but she's got her hands together like she's praying.
Millet wanted to capture a single moment of a difficult life. The idea for the painting came from his grandmother who would always say a prayer for the poor whenever she heard church bells ringing. The peasants look really discouraged. But still there's this gorgeous light. This all encompassing beauty breaking into an otherwise desolate scene.
Laura: Every day, Meridian walked, searching for her own way to bring light and beauty into the life she was in. She thought about Eddie tending the flower farm where his wife spent her last days selling happiness. About Karim Wasfi bringing music to a city full of death.
Meridian: I would just stand in the driveway staring at the weeds and all the dead leaves and my mind would start spinning. What could we turn this into?
Cathy: The yard did not look intentional. It just looked like a child that had been raised wild and left on their own to do whatever they please.
Meridian: I knew my mom wasn’t really interested in doing an overhaul of her yard, but I asked her anyway, “If you could plant anything, what would it be”?
Cathy: When I lived in upstate New York, one of the things I really loved was all the lilac bushes and every summer I would cut those lilacs and put them in every room. When we moved south, the same lilacs would not grow down here. It was just too hot.
Laura: Meridian went online and found a type of lilac that could grow in warmer climates.
Meridian: I ordered two bushes for my mom’s birthday and kept it as a surprise from her. And then, they showed up.
Cathy: I was so excited about that. They were very small, but it was a beginning. I realized how shabby and unkempt my whole yard looked and it made me want to do something with the rest of them. And so that was the beginning of a spark that started a whole project. Even the planting of things was fun. I mean we’re both two very petite females. Some of the plants we got were a little bit heavy and needed big holes to go in. So here we were out there sweating in the South Carolina heat, saying, we can do this. And we did. It was very rewarding.
Meridian: There's a million pictures on my phone of my hands and feet just covered in dirt. Bit by bit we totally transformed her yard.
Cathy: As much as we needed to be home-bound, we were making our little piece of God's garden look as beautiful as we could. And it became a joy to be able to be home-bound.
Meridian: Winter came and our mad rush of gardening was behind us.
I was walking up the driveway, looking at the ground in front of me and then I looked up and caught my breath, the entire driveway was lined with camellia blooms: white, pink, red! My parents had planted them 26 years before when they were just small shrubs.
I was brought back to that moment in DC, where I just stood there, staring at those white pedals, spilling out over the fence, feeling pure delight that something so simple could stop me long enough to feel free from all of my worrying.
I ran back inside, grabbed a stepladder and a basket from the garage. I snipped 40 blooms off, I pulled every vase in the house out and arranged them in every room. Those camellia trees made me think about my parents moving to South Carolina. I wondered what dreams they'd had as they planted those bushes along the driveway; imagining the tunnel of flowers where their children would play. Not knowing that I wouldn't even notice them until over 20 years later.
I see now that planting those flowers was such an act of love. Even though I'm receiving it 20 years later, it's exactly when I needed it.
I still didn't really know what was next for me, but what I wanted had finally crystallized in a way that made me feel grounded. No matter what work I was doing, I wanted to seek out moments of beauty that could break through the pain and pressure of daily life. I wanted to figure out how to inspire others to find that spark of joy and beauty for themselves.
It was like for the first time I could see myself clearly. I was the woman in that painting head bowed grateful for the potatoes, but most of all, grateful for the light. And in meeting that version of myself, I knew no matter where I went next, I was home.
Laura: Last month, Meridian moved into her own place for the first time and took a new job doing marketing for a company that does interior design. She doesn't know if it's what she'll do forever, but it's bringing her a lot of joy right now. She's in an apartment, so she doesn't have a yard, but she started finding window boxes and indoor potted plants so she can bring a little bit of everyday magic into her new home. She lives close enough to her mom that they still get to see a lot of each other. Life is different for Cathy to.
Cathy: One of the lessons I learned from going to Paris is that it is important to prioritize and enjoy life rather than just surviving it. When I was working, I used to say, I don't want any more money. I just want my life.
If you are overwhelmed with life and find yourself not taking time to go enjoy things, I would say, try to learn from someone like me that spent most of their life that way. Life is short. On your last day, you're not going to worry about whether your dishes are clean.
Laura: When I started Shelter In Place on March 17th, 2020, I wasn't thinking about making money or getting famous or even whether or not I keep making episodes beyond those first couple of weeks. I did it because it delighted me to do it.
It gave me something to show up for every day, a way to put to words all of the confusion and frustration and disappointment and loss and joy and grief that life suddenly felt overfull with. And then I started to hear from others who were listening; that it was giving them some of those things, too.
I've said many times that if I'd known what this would become, how it would push me harder and deeper than anything I've ever done before, how it would challenge me to step out in faith in a way that I don't think I'll ever get truly comfortable with: I never would have had the courage to even try. But I'm grateful because doing this work has shown me who I want to be.
Each time I create another episode or help one of our trainees realize what they're capable of, I'm getting to do my own version of selling happy. Even when the world feels dark and wintry. It gives me a way to let the beauty break in. And that everyday magic helps me feel a little more at home.
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Support Credits:
As always, if you listen to the very end of the episode, you’ll hear Shelter in Place outtakes, our little easter egg to thank you for sticking around.
But first we’d like to thank {some of/one of} our newest supporters . . .
End Credits:
Ad for Kasama Collective training program and curriculum in every episode.
The Shelter in Place music was created by Chase Horsman at Reaktor Productions. Additional music and sound effects for this episode come from Storyblocks. Meridian Watters was our lead writer and associate producer for this episode. Nikki Schaffer was our assistant audio editor, and Bethany Hawkins was our assistant producer. Nate Davis is our creative director, Sarah Edgell is our design director, and our amazing season 3 Kasama Collective trainees are Bethany Hawkins, Hannah Fowler, Meridian Watters, Nathan Wizard, Nikki Schaffer, and Zahra C.
Until next time, this is Shelter in Place. I’m Laura Joyce Davis.
And now if you’re still listening, here’s a little outtake.
Laura:
Hi Shelter in Place listeners. While we’ve been making episodes and running our Kasama Collective training program, we’ve also been having some big conversations behind the scenes.
We’re forming new partnerships that will make this work sustainable for the long haul—but we need your help. In our conversations with advertisers, sponsors, radio stations, and reviewers, downloads are everything. Thanks to you, we’re in the top 1% of podcasts globally, but we need to grow if we want to be able to make a living doing this work.
We’re setting the goal now of getting 10,000 downloads a month by the end of December, which would make us eligible to work with advertisers, form new sponsorships, and help us get paid. So we’re asking you to help us by sending our season 3 trailer to 10 people, and asking them to spend 2 minutes listening. If they like what they hear, ask them to subscribe to the podcast everywhere they listen. This is a completely free way to help us, but it makes a huge difference.