"Try slow." I love that. Also...the bit about rounding up on a pain scale. I always want to ask, "Is 10 the pain of having a baby?" Because if it is, my number would be lower...but men don't have babies, so is this magical 10 number a complete fallacy and how do we describe our pain at all? I do always go up a couple notches as well. Do I think it's a 3 if 10 is delivering a baby? In that case, I'd be at least a 7 if I were a man...right?
Try slow and round up. Holding both of those close in addition to the shouldn’t be but is radical notion that we as women shouldn’t have to feel pain. I’m going to be sitting with that one for awhile. Can’t wait to read this book.
Beautiful wisdom! I love it when someone widens my horizon with their perspective on life. Manjula's experience with rolling backward as she skates makes me go into my thinking journey of my own growth.
When I saw this in my Inbox today, my first thought was: I don’t have time to read this. Then I thought: What is my time for? For simply thinking about how little of it I have? So I opened up and read. I am so glad I did! “Five years ago.”! That made me laugh out loud. And “Try slow.” A great reminder! Thank you Cheryl & Manjula for taking the time to share this with us all.
Great interview! Love: “I was frustrated with narratives and punditry that seemed to frame every issue as a strict binary: fire is bad or good, a body is well or unwell, nature is pure or ravaged...”
I am glad Manjula wrote the book I wasn't able to. We lost our home and everything we owned in the 2020 California fires (Creek Fire, in the Sierra) and have been recovering since. It takes years, and is impossibly hard. Thank you, Manjula, and Cheryl, for this interview.
“I guess sometimes the only way to reckon with the unknown future is to roll backwards, very very slowly, until the music stops or you fall on your ass.”🤯👏🏻
There are so many layers here… the one I’m most drawn to is the story about the body. My uterus has been the dictator of my physical and emotional health for the past five years as I’ve navigated endometriosis, infertility, and five miscarriages. I love how a single thread can pull us into a narrative, and the next thing we know, we’re roller skating to heal our anxiety as well as our pelvic floor.
The book sounds like a rich read about grief and growth. Thank you, Manjula and Cheryl, for sharing!
Beautiful interview!! I studied gardening with her father, Orin. I didn’t realize the connection until the very end when I saw she was co-author of Fruit Trees for Every Garden. Orin did always used to say the best time to plant a fruit tree was five years ago. Looking forward to reading her book.
How wonderful to read this! My brother, a grower in California who knew Manjula’s father from his time at UC Santa Cruz, gave me the fruit trees book when I was starting a little orchard and I found it the best I’ve ever read. Pruning finally made sense. I resonated with her interrelationship between body and land, which I also experience as I garden. And to tie that together with the fire horror of many west coast people, including my brother who evacuated last year and almost lost his beautiful farm, is an amazing literary feat. I can’t wait to read this!
"Try slow." I love that. Also...the bit about rounding up on a pain scale. I always want to ask, "Is 10 the pain of having a baby?" Because if it is, my number would be lower...but men don't have babies, so is this magical 10 number a complete fallacy and how do we describe our pain at all? I do always go up a couple notches as well. Do I think it's a 3 if 10 is delivering a baby? In that case, I'd be at least a 7 if I were a man...right?
beautiful 😍
i LOVE this series, so profound, the questions, the answers, in their simplicity and in their complexity
thankyou for providing inspiration from human to human to human in these inhuman times 🌹
Try slow and round up. Holding both of those close in addition to the shouldn’t be but is radical notion that we as women shouldn’t have to feel pain. I’m going to be sitting with that one for awhile. Can’t wait to read this book.
Beautiful wisdom! I love it when someone widens my horizon with their perspective on life. Manjula's experience with rolling backward as she skates makes me go into my thinking journey of my own growth.
A very interesting (and encouraging) interview.
When I saw this in my Inbox today, my first thought was: I don’t have time to read this. Then I thought: What is my time for? For simply thinking about how little of it I have? So I opened up and read. I am so glad I did! “Five years ago.”! That made me laugh out loud. And “Try slow.” A great reminder! Thank you Cheryl & Manjula for taking the time to share this with us all.
Great interview! Love: “I was frustrated with narratives and punditry that seemed to frame every issue as a strict binary: fire is bad or good, a body is well or unwell, nature is pure or ravaged...”
Thank you for this interview. I loved the book, Scratch and I can't wait to read the new memoir.
Love this!
I am glad Manjula wrote the book I wasn't able to. We lost our home and everything we owned in the 2020 California fires (Creek Fire, in the Sierra) and have been recovering since. It takes years, and is impossibly hard. Thank you, Manjula, and Cheryl, for this interview.
“I guess sometimes the only way to reckon with the unknown future is to roll backwards, very very slowly, until the music stops or you fall on your ass.”🤯👏🏻
There are so many layers here… the one I’m most drawn to is the story about the body. My uterus has been the dictator of my physical and emotional health for the past five years as I’ve navigated endometriosis, infertility, and five miscarriages. I love how a single thread can pull us into a narrative, and the next thing we know, we’re roller skating to heal our anxiety as well as our pelvic floor.
The book sounds like a rich read about grief and growth. Thank you, Manjula and Cheryl, for sharing!
Beautiful interview!! I studied gardening with her father, Orin. I didn’t realize the connection until the very end when I saw she was co-author of Fruit Trees for Every Garden. Orin did always used to say the best time to plant a fruit tree was five years ago. Looking forward to reading her book.
How wonderful to read this! My brother, a grower in California who knew Manjula’s father from his time at UC Santa Cruz, gave me the fruit trees book when I was starting a little orchard and I found it the best I’ve ever read. Pruning finally made sense. I resonated with her interrelationship between body and land, which I also experience as I garden. And to tie that together with the fire horror of many west coast people, including my brother who evacuated last year and almost lost his beautiful farm, is an amazing literary feat. I can’t wait to read this!
Oh my gosh! The round-up advice is so perfect and so true! Took me until my 30s and almost dying when my appendix burst to realise that. 😬