June Breakfast Den Guest List:
McKendree Key
Shaun Leonardo
Azucena Roma
Doreen DeLeon
Esperanza Mayohe
Ethan Lercher
Georgia Elrod
Ilk Yasha
Jasmine Sykes Kunk
Jeffrey Yablonka
Kendra Heisler
Leigh Davis
Rue Mahon
Steve Mack
Williamain Somma
[Start 6:15]
McKendree: Did everyone sign the guest book? Thank you so much for coming. Here we are. I am so glad that you could all make it. It’s supposed to be an intimate conversation so the smaller the better, but it’s really nice to have everybody, and I really want everyone at the table. Does everyone have everything they need? You can feel free to get up and get more coffee, more food.
[cross talk]
McKendree: …Feel free to get up whenever you need to. There’s no rules. It’s kind of nice to...It definitely won’t go past ten, but it’s nice if everyone can stay until then just because, you know…Or until the conversation is over. But, yeah, there’s no rules so feel free do what you need to do to make yourself comfortable. And I wanted to just start by everyone introducing themselves, and remembering that there’s a lot of people here so while sharing really important moments or important things, kind of remembering that there are a lot of people and we want to hear from everybody. But, yeah, I thought it would be a good idea to go around, and if you can remember the earliest memory that you have. And it doesn’t have to be something concrete. It could be a feeling or a moment or anything, but the earliest thing you can remember. And I can start if you want. My name’s McKendree, and I have a sort of feeling memory of when I was born in Vermont, in a farm house in Vermont, and I remember just the house and the animals and the land in that place, and it’s not a specific thing that happened, but I have a very vivid memory of that landscape and that house and summer time and bees and cows and a moose just a really fresh pasture and an old farm house. That’s my first thing I can remember.
Jeff: I’ll go. My name is Jeff. The first conscious memory I have was when I was three years old. I had my tonsils out, and I was in the hospital at the time, that’s when they did that sort of thing, and on the edge of the crib was an ice cream sandwich. And I remember reaching for the ice cream sandwich and not being able to get at it then I fell back asleep, and I remember the ice cream sandwich not being there [when I woke up]. That’s my earliest memory. What happened to it? I think I got to eat it, but I’m not totally sure.
[cross talk]
Ethan: I don’t think I have one. How about the youngest member?
McKendree: We don’t have to go in a circle.
Jeff: It should be fresher for you.
Rue: My name is Rue. My earliest memory is when I was a baby standing on this little wooden chair we have in our house with my stuffed animal. And I was supposed to jump off the chair with my stuffed animal, but I was too scared so I threw my stuffed animal down and then I just sat down and crawled off the chair, and I was like I did it.
Jeff: Who’s your...Are your parents at the table?
Rue: That’s my mom.
Jeff: Oh okay.
Rue: The end.
McKendree: Thank you.
Steve: I’m her great uncle.
McKendree: Yes, you have. You want to go next?
Steve: My name is Steve. My wife and I are here from Hawaii to go to McKendree’s great aunt’s 100th birthday. My mom’s big sister turned 100. That’s why we’re here. My earliest memory that I can really remember [is] disappointing my parents. I was three and McKendree’s aunt, my sister, had beautiful long blonde hair about like this…
Rue: I love this story.
Steve: ...curly, awfully curly, and I turned over the box of blocks, had her sit down, and with a little pair of plastic scissors—you know that had the little metal strip—I cut all her curls off.
Rue: That was you?
Steve: That was me. My parents never really liked me after that. That was sixty-seven years ago.
McKendree: How did she feel about that? Is that really your earliest memory?
Steve: I also remember three pieces of firewood falling out of a window down into the yard and almost getting my older brother, Eddie. This was when we lived in Evanston.
McKendree: So you remember…?
Steve: I was three when we moved from that house. I have a few memories from there. I don’t know if I could put one before the other.
McKendree: Interesting.
Steve: I remember mom and dad going to Disneyland and leaving us with this old battle axe of a babysitter for a week. We didn’t think much of our parents when they did that to us either. They sent us pictures of them in the teacup ride.
McKendree: Cool. Thank you.
Steve: That’s the earliest that I can remember at the moment.
Leigh: I’ll go. I have this really strange memory that’s very abstract. I don’t know how old I was. I must have been less than five, but I don’t remember a lot from my childhood. I just remember that I was sitting on a couch in the living room of our house before we moved when I was five, and there was just this pattern on the couch and it was a very specific rose red color and these white roses, which just looking at the sun on this fabric. It was very simple. That’s it.
McKendree: Wow. How old do you think you were?
Leigh: I must have been three? I don’t know. I don’t have a lot of story memories until I’m older but I just remember that image, and I can see the room you know it’s very clear. Yeah.
Jeff: So, you said you were three?
Leigh: I don’t know.
Jeff: You don’t know…And you said were 3ish…And I said I was three. I’m wondering—it’s a little early because we haven’t heard from everybody— I’m wondering...Could three years of age be the threshold of some of these memories, of conscious memories that you can recall or make some sense of? I mean a baby has feelings, but... it’s interesting to hear all of the stories. Does anybody remember anything earlier than three years old?
Georgia: I think I might. I think I might. I think I was probably around two or younger and my dad was holding me, like you would hold a baby, and we were dancing to music while my mom was making dinner. And I remember just feeling very excited and secure because I was also getting to play with this light switch that was a string hanging from a ceiling that had like a bauble on the end. I was always like, “Aww, let me play with it,” and I was up being held, and I was like, “Yes.” It was just a good family moment because my mom was also there. I think I was pretty young. It was pretty abstract. That’s as far back as I remember. I don’t know for sure.
Jasmine: I don’t remember how old I was, and I don’t know if I remember it because it was a story that was told so often that’s why I remember it. But we moved into the house I grew up in when I was four, and we lived in the same apartment building before then. My grandmother lived on the second floor, and I lived on the third floor. I have two memories. I think one was my third birthday party. My mom collected people in our extended family. She had met a woman in Chicago who wanted to move to New York. So, she was like, “Come live with us.” So [this woman] dressed up as a bluebird. I remember she had the leotard with wings. And she was doing bluebird through my window to get us to go upstairs from the party. I don’t remember. But it was before we moved. And another was riding a tricycle down the hallway looking over my shoulder…My grandmother had a home attendant and was old and she couldn’t chase me and I wasn’t supposed to be in the hallway on the tricycle so I remember like being yelled to come back and trying to pedal as fast as I could. And I just remember, [grandmother] being a shadow, cause she was backlit, and I remember she looked extra scary yelling. I don’ know where I was going, but I remember looking back at my grandmother. She died just before I turned four so I don’t know when…
McKendree: But you can locate that memory definitely in the first four years of your life somewhere?
Jasmine: Yes. I can see the hallway. I think with memories, a lot of them come with thoughts, but those are pictures. I can see the hallway and feeling [like] it’s extra far and her looking dark and shadowy you know? I just remember that feeling.
Williamain: I’m Willie. Similarly, I don’t have that many story memories, but I have objects and places. So, I remember this very particular green rug that was in the living room that we spent a lot of time in. It was right next to my room. It was just this very particular color, and so I associate...It was also the room that had the piano in it. And my mom used to play the piano for me when I couldn’t fall asleep and I think that was a later memory, but there was also a record player in that room that I would play. I was really obsessed with the sound of music.
McKendree: Me too!
Williamain: So, the rug itself is kind of imbued with all these feelings—and that was a room that I felt safe in and happy. There’s like music and lots of…yeah… That rug.
McKendree: Sounds like one of your photographs.
Williamain: Yeah, maybe. I mean memories for me are pictures, for sure, less than stories.
Azucena: I’m Azu. I also don’t have a lot of early memories, I feel like, until I was maybe five? But I do remember feelings. I was a pretty rambunctious kid who ran around a lot and would get into trouble and doing things I shouldn’t have been doing. But I just remember being a kid, and I remember the feeling of giddiness and like a smile on my face, of like running rambunctiously down the hall when mom was screaming after me, “Azucena, Azucena,” but in a cute playful way because I was probably doing something I shouldn’t have been doing like running around as a baby in the house. But I want to say that’s my earliest memory, more the feeling and the sound than anything visual.
Doreen: My name is Doreen. And my earliest memory is centuries ago.
McKendree: Not quite.
Doreen: A lot of memories, to me, are smells. Like I remember my mother’s smells. Up to today if I smell something like talcum powder that reminds me of my mother.
Jeff: That’s great.
Doreen: If I smell palm olive soap it reminds me of my father. But what I remember…I used to ride a horse—that is back in the Caribbean—and we had a saddle. To today, when going to a ride, I remember the smell of a saddle, and I also remember the stirrups hanging. And [my father would] put his foot and when he got on the horse I was right there. I would be there. And his foot would...well I guess I could see...But my face was parallel to his foot so I remember the stirrup and his foot when he was getting up on the horse. And he put us on the horse. He put one in the front, one in the back. One in the back he would say, “Hold on to daddy really tight now. Don’t let go.” One in the front, and halfway [there] he’d put one down—because there’s three of us girls—so we could get to change [positions] until he got to where he was going . But it’s just that smell of a leather.
Jeff: Talk about it. Do people still raise kids with talcum powder?
Doreen: No. Not anymore.
Jeff: Not anymore right. You don’t do that with [Rue]? Did you have talcum powder put on you [Rue] when you were a baby?
Rue: What’s talcum powder?
Jeff: You don’t know. Okay.
Doreen: But there’s a lot of talk about talcum powder now and ovarian cancer and stuff like that. But I remember…I know the smell…Yardley’s…
Jeff: I know exactly what you’re talking about.
Doreen: That smells like [my mother] and she died in 1951.
McKendree: Your mother did?
Doreen: She died in 1951.
Georgia: You were a little kid.
Doreen: I was a little thing. Yes
McKendree: Yes.
Doreen: Very little so like I don’t put faces…like kind of blurry [in my memory]. But smells…
McKendree: That’s so interesting.
Doreen: ...And if I see crochet, any crochet. She used to do crochet and embroidery…If I see that…That’s why I try go to Freemont. I would pick up something that reminds me of my mother. I would buy little crochet and doilies and stuff.
McKendree: Thank you. Anyone else want to share?
Esperanza: For me it’s all kind of a blur. I don’t remember very much. I had a very happy childhood so it’s all happy sings, but the more you talk the more my memories come back. And I’m like, Oh yeah, this happened to me, and it’s all kind of ...it all exists more than anything in photos. So I think I remember something, but it’s like I’m just remembering the photo where my dad was holding me so I think I was there…I mean I was, because of the photo, but I don’t remember. So, the one that really stuck to me when you said three years...I was like, I don’t remember. I was like, I must not be that smart because I only remember til I was 6. But then I was like….the first time I travelled, and it was to the United States—because I grew up in Venezuela but I lived briefly here. Anyway, I remember my grandmother taking us to make us a special dress because that’s when you travel in the airplane in a special way. And they made me this special dress and it was my first time on an airplane. That’s the most vivid memory, but as you guys were talking I’m like remembering so much.
McKendree: So, other people’s memories are jogging your own?
Esperanza: Yes.
Steve: Yeah, I’ve just thought of a couple good ones. But it’s easy for me because when I was three years old we moved to a house from a third story walk up. So, I have that separation.
McKendree: You can mark it.
Steve: I know all those thoughts were when I was three or younger. But okay I’ll tell you the worst one. I went to this nursery school, and at a catholic church in Evanston, Illinois, and I remember Ash Wednesday. They had all us little kids down in the bowels of this church, and I was holding hands with [a] little blind girl and going through this dark creepy basement of this church. Some old guy had the…What do you call it? That makes the smoke?
Azucena: The incense holder?
Jeff: Censer?
Steve: The censer. Isn’t that what it is? And he was walking around with that, and there were all these guys in these big robes and it was dark and then they smear the stuff on your forehead.
Doreen: Ashes.
Steve: That ended my religious and my nursery school career. I never went to nursery school again.
Ethan: You haven’t gone to school since right?
Steve: Well...Hardly. Since you noticed it.
Kendra: I’m Kendra. I have ...it sounds kind of morbid, but it really wasn’t. But I think I was around three, two. My parents had a lot of parties when I was a kid, and we were in upstate New York. It was a pool party, and [we had] one of those pools that was a stand up pool that was a circle. So, all of the adults were on the edge of the circle, and my father was holding me …And I don’t know if I wanted to get out of his arms. Or... I mean I don’t think he dropped me, but I wasn’t...I fell from his arms and sank to the bottom of the pool and remember seeing the sunlight coming through and being like, Are they going to get me? And he did, but it felt like too long, and I remember later, years later, being like, “Why did it take you so long to get me?” And he was like, “I wanted you to swim, to figure out how to swim.” And I was like, “This is trash.” It was one of those things that I held against him in not really a major way at all, but just sort of an “Oh, well you let me sink didn’t ya? Are you going to help me with this test or am I going to sink?” But yeah…
McKendree: How old were you?
Jeff: Was that a true dynamic? You’re kind of joking about it a little bit but…?
Kendra: I’m totally joking because he’s a coddler. II was raised in a pool of love. [Growing up] wasn’t like that all. It was definitely something I jabbed at him about...
McKendree: How old do you think you were?
Kendra: I was old enough to wrap my legs around and hold him. I remember having that feeling. So I wasn’t a baby or I wasn’t floppy, but I was too young to have a reaction that was gained through experience or doing yet. So, I remember not having much of a reaction outside of my own brain so it felt like three-ish?
McKendree: Wow that’s intense
Kendra: Sorry. It’s actually quite beautiful in general.
McKendree: Has [everyone] shared? Any out there [want to] share? Totally fine. Or come closer if you want. But did you want to share something you don’t have to?
Ethan: I don’t really remember that much. I always look to the future, and I’ve done that since I was a little kid, which is strange. I don’t have a good long term memory I think. I forget people. I forget places. I forget...I don’t understand that, but I [don’t have] major events like I didn’t...we never moved except for when I was six months old, but after that my family never moved from [that] one location. My parents are still in that same house, which is weird to go back to, but that’s a whole other thing. But I remember we moved to…We only had one move. We moved to Wales, my father on sabbatical. He taught mathematics. He worked at a university. He worked with other professors, and I learned a little bit of Welsh. I learned to play soccer, but all those memories are sort of mush, which is interesting. I also got asthma from my stay, we think, in a moldy house, which almost every building in Wales is like that unfortunately. I don’t understand why I can’t remember specific things like when I’m three or five. I can remember six a little bit, running through a field in Wales and playing soccer.
McKendree: That’s a good solid memory.
Ethan: But that’s six though.
McKendree: Maybe that’s your first memory.
Ethan: There’s no way…I can’t retain things, and I’m not sure why. I got to figure that out. By the end of this…
McKendree: Anyone else want to share anything? Did we get everybody? I was going to...It’s interesting. Some people’s memories are really just feelings and smells like I can smell the leather when you said the saddle. I can smell it. But some are maybe more informed by what’s happened afterwards like photographs taken or stories told. I feel like my memory, I can see it in my head very clearly, but I wonder how much of it comes from the stories I’ve been told about where I was born and seeing photographs—and I’ve been back to that house—and how much of it has been compiled on top of that.
Jeff: I was going to ask that question too as everybody was recounting their stories. How many of these memories are actual and how much of them are received by accounts, by photographs? What memories are true?
Jasmine: I don’t think any memory is true. That’s the whole part of a lot of studies that they realized. No matter the...fourth graders, Rue, you may have done this too. Last year, they…Or, no, maybe it was this year, they did a study about forensics. So, my son—my kids are somewhere—and one of the assignments was looking at fingerprints and witness accounts. Even if things are photographed and people—the actual memories that people have—even if it’s [recalled] instantly after, [these recounts] are usually wrong. They’re all the way that you perceive the information. There’s no real true memory because the things that hold onto...the way that memories in your brain work is like something that triggered it— whether it was a smell that was meaningful or an image or a telling of a story that gets put in a locker that has more protections and preserved and other things if there’s nothing connecting to it kind of float away. So, all memories aren’t real memories…
McKendree: Or they are real because you make them real by saying what they are.
Jeff: And, of course, obviously that’s why eye witness testimony is legally interrogated so heavily and suspect. And you have to have more than one [inaudible].
McKendree: Because there’s no factual.
Doreen: I have a lot of siblings. There were six of us and then two cousins so eight children. And some of the things I remember, they remember [differently]. “What are you talking about? I never...” you know?
McKendree: Yeah, Georgia and I grew up together and she has a much sharper memory for specific things. You remind me of things that happened that I have no idea and people and you know specifics that I completely glossed over. It’s a different kind of memory ability.
Georgia: Well, I also kept a journal since I was 8, and I still do. Not every day. But I think it’s really helped me cultivate my memories documenting it. So, I wrote a lot in college. I think that’s part of it.
McKendree: Totally helps.
Georgia: I think that’s part of it. I also think that memories are all filtered through our emotions around them and our feelings. So, I think that how we interpret them now has everything to do with how we felt and that’s how they get filed as personal importance and what did that mean to you. I think that’s a huge part of what we remember and how we remember stuff. I don’t think it’s really possible...but it’s interesting to hear physical impressions. But then why did you have that impression at that time? Why did you hold onto that moment?
McKendree: Right, and as you age, your first memory gets farther and farther away from you so I’m interested in how some of the older people at the table think about that first memory.
Steve: Who’s she talking about?
Jeff: I don’t see any older people.
McKendree: Compared to how somebody like her [Rue] thinks about it. It seemed to come to you very easily your first memory right?
Rue: Well, you showed me a lot of videos about it.
McKendree: There you go.
Leigh: You what?
McKendree: I showed her a lot of videos she said. So, there you go. Already…
Leigh: You get to see more images when you’re younger because there are so many more images.
Jeff: Especially now.
Leigh: That’s what I mean. We’re constantly...
Jeff: But then the question is… Is your memory what really happened or your recollection of the video?
Leigh: The mediated parental…
Jeff: ...experience. Exactly.
McKendree: And what I think about a lot is the fact that we will never know if you’re ...what you think is your first memory is really your first? Or if it was real? Or if it really happened? Even if you have photographs and you have people telling you what it was like there’s no way you’re ever going to know if that was something that you concocted in your brain or if you really experienced it or how you did you know? It’s lost.
Williamain: And someone else is telling you through their subjective idea of what it was.
McKendree: Right.
Williamain: That’s why I have a similar...I don’t remember anything, and I’m such a detail oriented person so it freaks me out. I’m like is there a reason why? Am I choosing not to remember? Where is this filed in my [brain]? It freaks me out.
McKendree: Have you ever had a memory come back to you after years?
Williamain: Yes. Oh yes. That freaks me out. It’s amazing. It’s just like a smell or a thing.
Azucena: It’s usually a trigger or something like that.
Williamain: Yeah, but it’s really mind blowing because it’s been in your mind…
McKendree: ... stored in there.
Williamain: ...Then it’s kind of coming forward and why then. I mean clearly there’s a reason it fits into the story. I’m fascinated by it.
Doreen: I think sometimes...like I was having a discussion with a cousin of mine who’s a little bit older than I am in Toronto a couple weeks ago. And she was relating some stuff, and I remember the same thing but totally differently. Totally differently.
Jeff: But they’re both true.
[cross talk]
Doreen: And she was getting all emotional about it. And I said I don’t remember it that way. I mean I was younger than she was… But I realize that some people want to hold onto certain things. Some people hold onto the unpleasant; some people hold onto the pleasant. She holds on to the unpleasant things. So, to a point when she comes to the house, I make sure the conversation stays in a certain way because I’m not wanting to go back to talk about stuff… but that is where she is. She wants to go back. She’s always living in the past.
McKendree: To the unpleasant parts?
Doreen: Yeah. To the unpleasant past, you know?
Williamain: This is interesting to me thinking about personal histories and then thinking about cultural histories and how we as a culture form memories and history. There’s no one narrative. That’s not how we’re taught history. If we were taught all these different narratives, it would give us a bigger picture. I don’t know.
McKendree: Wait, wait keep going with that.
Williamain: Well yeah, I mean it’s just when you’re talking about the fact that there isn’t any real memory that’s real or true or factual. There’s all these differing ones. There’s all these various ones, and that is how we should learn history really
McKendree: Right.
Azucena: It’s really interesting because people as a community have sometimes agreed upon a certain memory to maintain over time. It’s been passed down orally for years. And it’s like if everybody saw these things differently and remember them differently, kind of like the game telephone almost. How people as a community have agreed to hold onto a certain part of their culture and pass that down for years is interesting.
Doreen: Funny that you say that. Because, you know, my granddaughter ask me if I would write things down so she can share with the next generation, the fourth generation you know? So I started telling stories more that I remember, incidences or just cultural stuff. And I been writing it down because she wants me to do that, because she wants the culture I guess.
[cross talk]
McKendree: So, you have a big job. That’s a huge responsibility because whatever you write is what she’s going to take…
Doreen: ...as truth.
McKendree: …as truth.
Doreen: Right.
McKendree: How does that feel?
Doreen: You know, it’s okay because I’m going to write my truth you know? That’s my truth. That’s how I saw it. That’s how I relate it to her. So I’m just doing it from my perspective.
Ethan: And you’re a good storyteller too. I can see that.
Doreen: Yeah.
[cross talk]
Ethan: But I think going back to that good storytellers are the ones that provide the history. Not the bad storytellers. I’m a terrible storyteller. So, my history is going to be lost. But you’re going to have a good history. You’re going to have a good history. You’re going to have a good history, and there’s a lot of other people that are really good storytellers that can [describe] an incident and everybody can be drawn into it. It’s fantastic. Is it the right truth though?
McKendree: Yeah…
Ethan: Truth and history…
Jeff: And this is where...I’m sorry…
Ethan: Go ahead.
Jeff: History itself has many different...this is a common place...many different ways to go about it. But this is where myth intersects with the kind of stories that we were recounting in the beginning. Myths are the stories that cultures tell each other to create these shared memories, these shared experiences. You know, you talked a little bit about Catholicism. I mentioned, as a Jew, one of the key myths is the story of the deliverance of the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai. For Jews, it’s important to have the lived experience, “I was there. I was at Mount Sinai.” Now, you know that’s a myth. There is no archaeological, scientific basis to conclude that that really happened yet that is something that every Jew, who has a feeling for it takes into themselves. It’s one of the reasons why as a culture there’s a commitment to social justice because that feeling of being enslaved and being freed is a myth. It’s a story we tell ourselves, and it intersects with these personal things and how we live our lives.
Esperanza: But in this narratives that shape who we are. We are memories. We are truth. We decided….I really don’t think the truths are that important personally because you create your own and it’s fine. We have all these common things that we share: birth, our birthdays, death, we have mom, dad. We have all these common things that even though we’re all so different. We kind of create a narrative based on the same like we kind of have similar, different, but similar three year old memories. That’s I think what creates all those narratives.
Jeff: ...the collective.
McKendree: I often have this feeling along those lines...and this is going to sound so hippy dippy. But I feel like I’m all ages at once. You ever have that feeling? I feel like I’m very rooted in my youth, and I remember being twelve really a lot. I have strong memories of being 12, 24—these mile markers—but I feel like I’m still that person but I also can project into the future and be an 80 year old person or a 90 year old person. I don’t know
Doreen: Do you think that…Sometimes the things you remember when you’re three or four or five and you get older and you look back at how you related to that experience? I remember as a child, we used to call it a library—my father’s room—but it was really a bookcase, and he had some books in there, and I remember we would take the book and read it. Years later when I came to this country, I was in school and they were doing Chaucer...
McKendree: And it was what?
[cross talk]
Doreen: Chaucer. We were reading Chaucer. I think it was Chaucer, The Nun’s Priest Tale or something. But as a child, I read this little thing, and I guess I accepted it at 3, maybe 5, 6, 7? When I read it, it made an impression on me. And like twenty years or thirty years later, I’m saying well this reminds me of something. It was a story of about a little boy who was Catholic, and he lived down the street near Jewish people, and he would walk by and he was singing praises to the Virgin Mary, and they thought that he was mocking them or something. And then his mother came looking for him in the evening. And I was mortified as a child. Where was this little boy you know? Even the little poems...this little poem about a little boy who came from school and he wanted to show his parents how smart he was with math and they put two chickens on the table, roasted chickens, and the little boy said, he going to prove them three. So, he said, “This is one and that is two and two and one make three.” And his father said, “I’ll take one. Your mother will take one. And the third we leave for you.” And I remember being so upset because I’m thinking the boy went to bed with no dinner, you know? So, sometimes, we have to be careful [with] little children because you don’t know how they’ll internalize it. Because at that age whatever you read you believe it to be true you know? And sometimes you have that conversation you look back at the poems you read when you were kids. English education—because were colonized by the British. Every poem, every story was either about a war and people getting killed and all that. All the stories had a hard, a real sadness.
McKendree: So, that really formed your child self?
Doreen: Yeah…because I believed whatever I read.
McKendree: Didn’t I tell you last night [Rue] don’t believe everything you read?
Esperanza: But isn’t that like the top…[incomprehensible] Towler (sp?) the talk? You were talking about like…I remember reading Hans Christian Andersen, and I don’t think you Rue probably read Hans Christian Andersen now.
[crosstalk]
Esperanza: I love them. But I also feel like before like kids, sorry Rue, all the stories were also people had us believe that kids were cruel, now there’s this belief that kids are pure, which I don’t think it’s one or the other. But it’s so interesting how also all these narratives that shape us personally are also what I mean all of you guys were talking about, narratives that shape society. So kind of like we grow up individually but the time around us also grows. And so my sister is a children’s book editor and her books are not at all cruel.
McKendree: They’re not at all what?
Esperanza: Cruel. Like not like the...
Doreen: ...sad stories you know?
Jasmine: My grandmother used to say when she was in her late 80s that she didn’t feel like she was older on the inside. She felt like she was the same person, but everybody else seemed to be changing and growing around her. But the woman that she was and the person who she knew herself to be didn’t change, you know, as the years went by. Though, now I have great grans and grans and people are getting taller than me and all of these things. But I’m still being me. And she was an usher for sixty five years of her church. People lived. She committed into the things that she did and the person that she was and how she cared for people so I always thought about that. And she lived until she was 93, but she didn’t feel old. She could think for herself, and so, as I was listening to what you were saying and I feel the same. It doesn’t feel...we have milestones like people, like I made a person and he’s going to be 11 on Friday, those are the things... but the person that I feel that I am it doesn’t feel like that time has changed. Because I have a lot of the same friends I’ll say remember when we did that and she’ll be like, “You know that was 15, 20 years ago,” and I’m like, “Nooo. Stop it.” We’re all turning 40, and so that’s a big round age. It doesn’t feel like 40 years have passed. I don’t feel like I’m that far into, in theory, what my life is supposed to be you know? I don’t know how to explain it, but…
[cross talk]
Esperanza: Until you see that photo that is what shapes our memories.
[cross talk]
McKendree: Well, so, that actually brings me to the next really big question, which is about death.
Leigh: I was just going to bring that up.
McKendree: And we need to tie it… I think we need to go there. I think it’s time. When I thought about having this breakfast months ago, I thought about ...This is really the question that I have…Do you fear death?
Leigh: No.
McKendree: Tell us.
Leigh: I actually wanted to ask you about your grandmother because I feel what’s comforting when you say you feel like 20 years have gone and you’re like, “What?” I feel the same way and I wonder if that’s an inflated sense of self [especially] when I read people who are so concerned about aging. I wonder if your grandmother, even in her nineties… Was she preparing to enter [the afterlife]? I mean was she getting prepared? Like was her mentality of that you’re still [you] at the end? Because my grandmother, I was very close with her and she also was this young spirit full of life, but at a certain point in her late eighties, she said, “I can’t do the things. I can’t read, so I’m finished. I don’t want to be here,” and [then] she died. It was a very sort of intentional...I mean she was ill, but she sort of said, “Okay the things that fulfill me like reading and listening and... I can’t. My senses are losing so I’m done.” I just was curious about your grand mom.
Jasmine: In a similar way… I mean towards the end she was still the same person, but she would be like, “I want you to have my mink.” She’d be making dinner, and she’s like, “Oh this goes, make sure that YaYa or Autumn gets this.”
McKendree: [She was] preparing.
Jasmine: Yeah. She would drop these things in. So, I have a cousin who is now ill that she raised as her own, who is 61 and has dementia in the same way that my grandmother had it in her 90s. And [my grandmother] was trying to teach [my cousin] how to cook because up until 85, my grandmother was cooking for my cousin. So, she was like, “Look you’re going to learn how to make these three things.” Like trying to make sure to prepare her in those ways, but she wouldn’t actually say…What she would say, “This is for Jasmine. Shelly you take care of this.” She was dropping nuggets of what she wanted and we took care of her. We created a team [organizing her] food, and someone would stay at home with her and take her to the doctor. She spent less than 24 hours in [a] nursing home. So when she was ...the moment that she realized [she was in a nursing home]...she died when she got to the nursing home because that was not where she wanted to be and how she wanted to live. So I think it’s very similar.
Williamain: My grandmother too lived until 98. [She] passed away at home with all of us there. And she would talk about it. It was like as she came closer to death, she talked about her childhood so much and it was so present for her. The memories were really, really clear and so it was just interesting to me like…
Janet: Like she was circling back.
Williamain: Yeah. Full circle.
McKendree: So, how does that change...how does your experience of somebody you love passing away, intentionally in many cases, how does that change your own perspective on your own death? Because it’s gonna happen. It’s like the one thing that bonds us all. Right? We are born and we die.
Williamain: I think it’s the ties to earth that are the hardest right? The people we live behind. The things we haven’t completed. Those kind of feelings that keep us... That’s what scares me. Did I finish everything I was supposed to do?
Steve: No.
Williamain: I don’t know. Do you ever?
Doreen: When my aunt died last week, about two weeks ago in Toronto, and she was my mother’s sister, the last sister. She sort of raised us when my mother died very early. She was involved. So, it was very, very, very hard, but at 92 ½ she was as youthful as they come. If they did not tell her and said last year October that she had Stage 4 cancer I think she would have been living. From the time they told her that she started talking about the diagnosis. She never said a word. Well, you know, the diagnosis is why I’m getting this pain. Well, you know, with the diagnosis. And I said, “How do you feel now? Do you feel the same way you felt like you did last week, last year?” She said, “Yes.” I said then you don’t have any diagnosis. But I mean it was hard you know in the end. She just really suffered the last week. But her brain, she was as youthful as youthful [can be]. She looked good. She didn’t have wrinkles. She was...the last week she was here, she was reciting poems from way back in the day. And she was 93, she could remember things when she was 7 years old. So, she took it…her experience...we took it hard; she didn’t. She was ready. She was ready.
McKendree: Wow.
Jasmine: But did that comfort you just to see that she was ready?
Doreen: No. It made me feel worse. Because I didn’t want her to go you know? I didn’t want her to go. I couldn’t...I could not deal with it. Her children took it better than I did. Because to me, she was the last person left that knew who I am. She knew my history personally. She was there when I was born and so it was...Although she lived in Toronto, it was always a comfort to me I can call Aunty you know. Then, they had me read the obituary, and then I said, “Finally, I can say Dorothy.” Everybody thought that was funny. But by the time that came, I was able to read it without [crying] you know... But she had a remarkable life and I think it was her ability to make fun of herself, you know, and she was sharp. She told me all the politics that was going on in the United States because she [watched CNN]. She could tell me everything that was going on. She was ready to go. She said, “I’m ready. Jesus is waiting for me.” And she had a cookie and she said, “You know what…” Another thing was a sense of humor; she had an unparalleled sense of humor. They gave her a cookie. She like the cookie, she say, “You know what I think I’m going to put this in my pocket so when I see Jesus.”
[cross talk]
Doreen: She was going to give Jesus piece of her cookie. She had us laughing you know, but I did not take that easily. Oh no.
McKendree: My grandmother used to do that too. Grandma June used to take things off the table, like the bread in the basket, and she would take it and put it in her pocket.
[cross talk]
McKendree: The amount of...the abundance...the amount of stuff we have now is so different.
Jeff: You know to get to your question. Everybody’s so noble at this table and so brave and I admire all of you so much. Am I the only one who’s…?
McKendree: That’s scared shitless?
Jeff: I’m about to turn 64 next week.
[cross talk]
Jeff: You know, you get that, but you know, Andrew Marvel [wrote], “Time’s winged chariot is hurrying near.” I’m afraid. I’m in pain. I dread the end. My father has dementia. He’s diminishing rapidly. I’m frightened of seeing this. I’ve seen a lot of death in my life. Sorry kids. It sucks. It’s awful. It’s painful. It’s final. I’m not like you. My girlfriend we talk about this all the time.
Steve: You’ve gotten your diagnosis.
Jeff: We know this is a fact of a life. You’re right. This is something we all share. A lot of people at this table are younger than I am so you have a different perspective. When you were talking about your memories, and seeing yourself at all these ages, let me tell you that when you get a little bit older, your body is going to give you a totally…your changing body is going to give you a totally different sense of those memories that you have. And you may feel, “Aww…Perhaps, I was a little jejune in that recollection, a little innocent.” This is a...death is a horrible thing. We miss those who are gone. We miss them dearly. And once we’re gone, that’s it.
Esperanza: That they live in the way how we want them to live. I’ve been near death. Sorry that I interrupt you. But like, I first have to recommend you the movie Coco. Have you guys seen Coco?
[cross talk]
Esperanza: I know it’s not very artsy. But go and see that movie.
Jeff: Coco? What is that?
Azucena: Pixar.
Esperanza: It’s on Netflix. It will change you of death.
Jeff: Okay.
Esperanza: And actually my little nephew, he’s ten. He brought up a good point. So, if you die when you’re like 40, 43—I was making myself younger—then I will be in the outer life at 43. So maybe it’s good to die young. Because that’s how you’re going to be in immortality. Anyway, I just feel like...I have been near death a lot too since I was a little kid. So, I don’t like death either. But at the same time I’m relieved by that because it’s kind of like it’s going to happen anyway.
Jeff: I admire you. I adore you.
[cross talk]
Esperanza: Don’t you think it’s a cultural thing that we culturally are afraid of death, are afraid of aging. Actually 60 is the new 40. I just read that in the new propaganda.
McKendree: I have Ilk behind you saying like, “Yes.”
Ilk: Snaps
[cross talk]
McKendree: Do you want to add something to that?
Ilk: I also think it’s funny that you brought up Jewish myth. All my Jewish friends are so cynical. There’s like a storyline…
Jeff: You’re not saying I’m cynical?
Ilk: Ha. No. [But] I think it’s really funny about the underpinnings of views. Like independent of religion, there’s this cultural thing that gets passed around, and you learn it, and it’s passed down to you at the kitchen table, in your memories. That outlook has a really big effect on you as you get older. So my father...I constantly have to combat my father’s cynicism. And when I notice that my views of death have changed, the more cynical my father has gotten as he’s gotten older. So I think it is cultural, and culture meaning the people around you. It’s independent sometimes of religion, but it’s important. Religion provides a framework for that. Life experiences provide a framework for that. Intimacy and closeness provides a framework for that. That’s what I think culture is and that really affects it. So, I liked your [Esperanza’s] point.
Jeff: That’s a very...That’s a very...You know I just have to say one thing. I’m sorry if I’m talking too much. But that’s a very intellectual point of view. And I appreciate that. I hear what you’re saying. But I’ve got to tell ya something: this is what we’ve got. I don’t want to lose it. This is it. After this...you know some of you have different religious beliefs that’s fine. You know cookies for Jesus. Great. I’m not mocking any of that.
Doreen: I know.
Jeff: You know, I appreciate it. But this is it. And after we, you know, after we go that’s it. Einstein’s gone. There’s no Einstein. You’ll be gone; there’ll be no you. Jeff is gone. You know consciousness has come to an end. This is it. It’s a gut wrenching, painful, agonizing.
Doreen: Oh boy…
Jeff: You can tell I’m...
[cross talk]
Doreen: So, what do we do then?
[cross talk]
Azucena: Going back to the cultural point. It is true. I have a bittersweet emotion around death. My parents are from Guatemala; they’re Latin American. Día de Muertos. We have a very different culture towards death, and then also I’m from New Orleans where we have the jazz funeral. When you die, your life is celebrated and people cry, but you also sing and you know there’s a jazz band and you dance, and you drink and you eat and you celebrate that person’s life. So, I’ve spent the past a year and a half, because of that background, working on design and the end of life space and facilitating discussions around death, and I think it’s all cultural. It really is about how you learn acceptance or if you’re able to talk about it with the people around you.
Jeff: But that dead person is still dead who you’re celebrating.
Azucena: They are dead. They are dead.
[cross talk]
Jasmine: But you don’t know what that dead person’s experience is on the other side. That’s your personal opinion. If your cultural beliefs believe that you keep going, then that’s somebody else’s. So, for you, that’s very true and it’s very jarring. But you have to leave space for the fact that other people don’t see it that way.
Jeff: Absolutely.
Jasmine: My grandmother, my mother’s best friend, died of an aneurysm when I was four. So I’ve been going to funerals and my life has been shrouded with death since the beginning. I’m going to a funeral tomorrow okay? Because my mother would have been in her seventies, she died when she was 61, I was 25. So, I feel blessed that I have people in my life of varying ages that I get to go and celebrate their lives and stand and be present. When she died we had a money bag, that the transit—cause my godmother who died when I was four worked for the MTA. So, we had a token bag filled with funeral and prayer cards from all of the people and lives of people that had passed on. But you don’t really know how painful it is. My mom had a triple bypass. So, yeah, her death was probably painful, but my grandmother’s I don’t know that it was. She wasn’t agonizing. I think that you very much are valid in having those feelings that are yours, but I think that there’s room for other people to have an experience.
Jeff: Of course. That’s why we’re here.
Jasmine: My body creaks now. I’m trying to run a marathon, you know. And those are shifting things. After you have kids, your body stretches in real time. You feel yourself expanding. You feel your hips moving and that happens to everybody as you age and shift and things move around and you have to keep reintroducing yourself to your own body. And I think that’s part of aging, even internally you may feel all the same. You accommodate and you shift and you change. Death is another shift. It’s another transition, and I don’t know where I’m going to be. I have faith. And I believe my mother lives in her stories. My kids have never met my mother but they know all kinds of silly things about her and we have a community that they tell their stories about her so that I feel that they still know their grandmother. So, yes, she’s physically not here and that doesn’t mean that they don’t know who she was and how she was. I feel she still lives in the same way. I think she lives through me. My aunt cries when she sees me because I look so much like my mother did at my age. If I don’t think that she’s living through me, you know? I think she is. If you don’t…
[cross talk]
Steve: Yeah, but your point was how did she feel about it?
Jasmine: Yeah, but no one can know right?
[cross talk]
Azucena: Why can’t we accept that it’s going to happen? We all know this.
Jeff: Rage against the dying of the light.
[cross talk]
Steve: I think there’s two things: the fear of being gone, but there’s I think what you think about more is the quality of your dying.
Leigh: That’s for sure. You can control that.
Azucena: You can prepare.
[cross talk]
Steve: The only thing that helps me. Though…I took a couple steps backward this weekend when I was with my brothers—cause they’re gonna go first— but I realized I’m gonna go, you know? I might make it a little longer than them but [I’m] gonna go. But sitting with Rue’s great great grandmother, your great grandmother, my grandmother when she was a 105
Ilk: Oh my god.
Steve: We’re sitting there watching TV, waiting for her daughter, whose 100th birthday we just celebrated. At that point the daughter was 80 right? So as soon as Analena (sp?) left me alone with my grandmother, Daisy reaches down, pulls out a big bag of chocolate chip cookies. She was waiting for Laney to leave because Laney wouldn’t have let her eat the chocolate chip cookies. But she, when she died, it was she just left her body one afternoon. It was just quiet and over. There was no drama, and I think, I’m comforted by the—well, I used to be comforted—fact, that I have a lot of long-lived ancestors. But the worst thing I think is about how’s the dying going to go.
McKendree: Your own dying?
Jeff: I hope I get hit by a truck...
Doreen: Wait. I think what it really means….
Steve: ...A long stay in the hospital
Doreen: I think it means...from what I can gather, I would say, it’s important then how we live the life that we have when we are present. Today is what counts. What we do; how we live today, because nothing was promised you know?
Georgia: I think death can remind you of that right?
Doreen: Yeah.
Georgia: But...I mean I think I personally have been pretty fortunate to not have experienced death [with] the people that are very close to me, except someone recently, but no family members for instance. If I were turn to mainstream American culture, [death] is not talked about. We don’t look at it. It’s not really in our face so I think that we, if we don’t experience it ourselves, there’s a huge amount of fear.
McKendree: Exactly. Yeah.
Azucena: And I think part of that has been because death has been medicalized whereas before it was in the communities and the home. If you died in the home, people came to visit, you bury your own family members and now it’s like the second somebody’s sick you put them in the hospital and you’re disconnected from it.
McKendree: I’m going to do something weird and call on people because I want to hear from certain people like Leigh whose work centers around people that are dying. And I just would love to hear your perspective and Kendra as well.
Leigh: I mean I love that you’re [Jeff’s] so honest.
McKendree: I know. I was going to say that. Thank you for sharing.
Leigh: Because most people are afraid of death. It’s pretty much the commonality for most people I know. Mine is very uncommon.
Jeff: Very uncommon?
Leigh: Yeah. It’s because I had sort of succession of deaths—very close friend, father, a few suicides. So, lots of death in a span of years. I was so close to the deaths that I became fascinated with what was happening. Of course, I’m an artist so even more using my own experience in order to open myself to [death] in a way that I would not have before. I just started spending time with people who are dying, just sitting there. And then I started singing to people who are dying with this choir that would go to the bedside. And so I just had to face it, and it wasn’t easy. I think that it’s shifted my comfort with my own death to see someone physically losing all and mentally. It’s scary actually to sit there and look into someone’s eyes who’s dying…and how alone they feel. So there’s something about placing myself really deep in it, you know, at the age of like 40 or 39. I don’t remember when I started to face it, [but] that has really shifted my being with dying. There's even a book called Being with Dying that’s really wonderful. I also had good examples like my grandmother who had a sort of idea about it…But I don’t know what to say about it except for: it is scary and then you accept it and then you can see there’s actually beautiful deaths that are so full of love and you see people coming out of themselves in the last moment to have redemption with people or they get rid of regret. And once that’s lifted it can be this incredible kind of transformation where people are...There’s people giving psychosilven (?) drugs to people who are afraid of dying who have cancer and then they take the drug, do a trip, and then their fear of death is gone. So, there’s all these interesting medical interventions that are starting to go around it too.
Steve: psychosilven (sp?) is that what you said?
Leigh: So, I’m less afraid because I’ve faced it in a really horrific way where I’m like, Oh well, it’s okay you know? This is part of the natural…
McKendree: So you’ve looked it in the eye.
Leigh: I have looked in the eyes of it.
McKendree: Is that all it takes?
Leigh: I don’t know if that’s...not everybody.
McKendree: Because I’m more like...I’m kind of with you. I’m a little bit... I haven’t experienced death really.
Leigh: Maybe it will change when you have a really strong...like I don’t want it to happen to you, but maybe when you’re sitting next to someone who’s dying with you. I think that shifted everything for me. I have a few people... just holding their hand while they’re dying. It’s pretty intense.
Williamain: Yeah, I was with my grandmother when she...It was terrifying actually.
Leigh: Yeah, it’s...And you’re breathing and she’s there right?
Williamain: She kind of...She was 98. She kind of almost looked like a skeleton of a person. It was really terrifying but, yeah, I don’t know. I don’t know if it made me less afraid or more afraid.
Leigh: Maybe not afraid or afraid. Just being with it. Just sort of accepting it. Because I’m still afraid. I mean it’s scary, but it’s also just accepting that it’s going to happen prepared me.
Jeff: Can I ask you a dopey question about this?
Leigh: Anything.
Jeff: First of all, I’d love to know are you making artwork around...
Leigh: Yes, a lot of it.
Jeff: ...I mean is it paintings or photographs or?
Leigh: Well, I sing.
Jeff: Ok, so…
Leigh: And then I’m making a film about this, but it’s sort of an experimental film.
Jeff: Oh, so this may...this question may not be valid, but is it the more you see this, the process happening, does it…Could it possibly desensitize you to the incredible horror, pain and anguish that I’ve expressed or that these folks might be experiencing? In other words, do you get...is it possible that you might get used to this or does it open your channels of empathy up even wider?
Leigh: It opens me up, but those moments you’re talking about where I’m in a hospice singing to someone, and they’re having a psychological break while they’re dying and I'm trying to hold the space with two other people…That’s scary. I am trying to hold my...I’m trying to not bring myself in and just sort have that empathy and that’s the biggest...I just to do it to sort of help, but it’s a weird challenge for me. It’s sort of…I’m watching something so horrific, but then something will happen where there’s someone who’s been completely comatose, and we’ll sing like This Little Light of Mine, and they’ll start singing. So, there’s this sort of...You can see that there’s something in there that is needing…I don’t know. I don’t know if I’m answering the question. How about both? I’m not just like death is amazing; let’s all be together. It’s not...it’s real. And it’s really physically unsettling to be with someone who’s just…Your physical body…Your mind is gone…. There’s things that are happening, but then you’re also sort of holding this space. I don’t know how to describe it. My work is about those [moments]. It’s not like I am this…It’s all back and forth back and forth. Contradictions all the time.
[inaudible]
[cross talk]
Steve: You know like all of a sudden for me, and you perhaps, I mean my friends are dropping like flies, and when that happens you kind of realize [you’re] on the next boat. Most of my life, death was way out there somewhere. Then all of a sudden, you know, your parents are gone. You’re kind of like we’re next in line. I mean how many funerals have I gone to in the last couple months? People that I regularly went to their house for dinner, all of a sudden they’re gone. I think I’m afraid of how I might die much more than the fact that I’m going to die. That’s going to happen, but boy I don’t want it to be ugly.
McKendree: You were going to say something to that as well right?
Kendra: Well I agree with the fear of quality of life.
McKendree: Quality of life not the…
Kendra: Yeah. More than dying itself. I think this may be controversial statement, but I do think that experiencing a close death is a gift in a way. I don’t know that it’s a privilege not to have had that. I certainly think my story. I lost my mom at 25 too. My story with her in my life would be wonderful, [but] I can’t see it, but it’s not that way. And what I have because of it is a gift. And that’s not something I would take for granted and it’s certainly the reason that I have the relationships that I have or that I can count on my brain and communication in a way that I don’t know if I could if I didn’t have it. But maybe that’s all bullshit too. I don’t know but...
McKendree: Communication?
Kendra: I think when you’re forced to figure out how to be when there’s that close of a death. There’s a lot more articulation...like you’re thinking in a way that you hadn’t before like how are you going to survive emotionally? So your brain…Or my brain did that. It was like here’s how we’re going to do this? And here’s how we’re going to talk to people and here’s how you’re going to feel love. So...that is a gift.
McKendree: It’s resilience.
Kendra: Yeah, it’s like a survival thing. But I don’t know...You know on the way over I was thinking about aging like your brain aging, not so much the… because at first I was like I’m going to have to tell everyone I bought a hundred dollar face mask for whatever, but I also think that your aging brain—and at a certain point it maybe it will go the other way—but your aging brain is a gift. We get to count on the fact that we are, our brain—we’re in school every day—our brain gets better. You know wisdom is not something to take for granted and you get that by being older. That’s really exciting to me. Aging in that way is incredibly exciting and having more stories is a really wonderful thing to be able to look forward to as your body maybe doesn’t work out as well.
Azucena: It’s interesting how you said like if your brain like because… When my grandma was dying, I watched her die in the hospice and helped her when she had dementia. She kind of reverted back into her earliest childhood memories—so like we were talking about that at the beginning [of the Breakfast Den]— the only thing she could keep telling me were just her youngest childhood memories of her back in Guatemala. Stories I’d never heard before, but they were the most vivid memories she kept. So, it’s really interesting that you’re saying how as we age our mind is...We’re growing it, but at the same time it’s also reverting away because you’re thinking back to your childhood more reflecting.
McKendree: The important things are shining through. That would be nice right?
Azucena: Not the trauma…
Esperanza: But actually what I was referring when I was to that…Actually, I think to what you just said Kendra like about the...I think we culturally are said that aging and dying is bad. And I actually have a very visceral relationship with—it’s not as nice as how I said it is...I don’t like white hair. I see one white hair and I feel that’s death.
Jeff: Oh, feel a little bit better now.
[cross talk]
Esperanza: I mind mine like when I get one white hair, it’s so visceral I take them out. That’s why it doesn’t look like I have that much yet. It’s very morbid actually because I feel it’s death. It’s death is coming to me. So it’s not so like, “Oh, I have such a nice relationship with death.” I actually don’t. Because I take my hair. One hair, “Oh my god! Death is coming.” Like ahhhhhh! So...And I’ve seen people dying, and actually it has not been as nice as your experiences actually. I’ve seen the fear of somebody that doesn’t want to go. And the fear of being like...and people who are very, very sick that are kind of like they should go being like, “I don’t want to go.”
[cross talk]
Esperanza: In that way, I was saying it’s not as like so healthy my relationship with death as it sounded was, but because it’s not so healthy I try to see the cultural part. Where I’m like also feel like … we’re like...I’ve been raised in the spirit of hard times that being younger is better. And actually I like myself more now than before. And I like what you were saying about your brain. I like the gift of who I became. I feel I’m more an empathetic person because I had no choice, because I’ve seen so much around me like as a personal war in a way. So, anyway, I just wanted to say that. Yes, it’s very visceral, but I have to go beyond that so I can survive and I also think our culture is wrong how they see aging and how they see death and I tried to...so I can survive and create my own narrative. I have to go to other cultures to see what I can get from other cultures that can help me live in this one that I live. Because I’m not going to move elsewhere. I’m going to stay here. But I don’t think it’s healthy how [death] is encountered here because there’s beautiful things. And I actually don’t have my parents and I really miss them and I wish they were around. And, yeah, I feel I live with their ghosts and I invented who they are and what it is and they live with me in a different way but anyway like I ...it’s not so nice the whole relationship I have...I lost my memory...my….I’ll pass the baton onto you. I lost my track…
Shaun: No, the only thing I wanted to add is that I felt the dramatic shift in my experience of time when I had a child. And you know I’ll share this anecdote with you only because I’d love to hear other people talk about their experience of time as age has passed. But there are moments when I’m with Aniese (sp?) my daughter, and I’ve always thought of myself as prepared for age, prepared for dying, but when I’m with her alone, there are moments when I say to myself I can’t quite hold this time firmly enough; it’s just passing too quickly. As prepared as I would like to feel that I am… For every year that comes I say to myself this is just not fair. It’s just not fair. Every year, every day, every waking moment goes too fucking fast. And I started to arrive at this place where I was like I just I don’t want to go. I don’t want to get older. I don’t want anything else to happen. And alongside that you know given my life and my career, I was like I want to give as much to the time that I have, and it’s just not enough time. I see the projects that I need to do, and the experiences that I need to have with my child. I’m 38, turning 39, and you know how much can I fit in? And just the weight of time is different now.
Doreen: I think to me you so young to be thinking that way.
McKendree: Yeah.
Doreen: Really. You know, it’s remarkable. I’m just beginning to think that [way]. When I begin to realize the passage of time and then I look at young people and I’m thinking there’s so much they can do. Why don’t they? There’s so many opportunities and all that. And I’m figuring if I knew then what I know now, my life would have been so different, you know? But I just think it’s remarkable for you to have that feeling now. And another thing I wanted to say. Whenever I go to a funeral, I go with the expectation that I will take away something that will [help] me to understand death or the afterlife or whatever it is. And I really go listening to hear if the pastor—or whoever it is—going to say something that I can hold onto. And I never...I haven’t had that yet.
McKendree: Really?
[cross talk]
Jasmine: You’re looking for it...
Doreen: No. And if I do get a little something, by the time I get home, it’s gone. Really. You know I just want that thing that somebody can tell me this is what it is. So, I have a feeling a lot of people don’t know what is out there.
McKendree: But you said it before like humor.
Doreen: Humor. Yeah. Yeah.
McKendree: And being able to not take yourself so seriously.
Doreen: Well, I guess that’s what my aunt got from childhood because she was a clown until she died. She was always so fun in the most bizarre things. But, no, that little thing because nobody can tell me if you don’t come back. You know when you go...like you said...when you go, you’re gone. And sometimes I see some little kid, and they might be very smart, and they’ll say, “Oh, he was here before” or “She was here before,” because the way the child might be interacting in such a mature way they figure that is an old spirit that is back.
McKendree: Right.
Jeff: You know your….It was so great to hear these two reactions because I, you know, 38 for some people does seem young, but you know you’ve been around for a long time and I appreciate where you’re coming from with this thing. And let me say something about aging. What happens as you get old—and this goes to your cultural point—is a lot of doors start to close. Not just in your body, but in society. People who are older...I actually don’t think of myself in this cohort [as that old] even though the numbers say I am. But it’s hard to get work. It’s hard to get mates. It’s hard to get... No I mean, I’m not a ...I have a girlfriend, but you know you walk down the street… And women have told me this all the time… Women complain that as they get older—except you are amazingly beautiful woman, you never aged.
Doreen: From your mouth to God’s ears.
Jeff: I’m ignored...
McKendree: It’s a thing.
Jeff: There are a lot of doors that get closed. So, I really want to—I don’t like this word—validate, but I really want to, whenever there’s a better word. I want to say your fears are real, yes. And yes the optimum side of all of these things, the best thing...but this is also a common place that I don’t like to traffic in. The common place is...Yes we should appreciate life, live life to the fullest, fulfill our potential and all that. Kum ba ya. That’s all great, you know? It’s all wonderful. We all feel this way. But that doesn’t change these very horrible, door slams, pains, fears, you know, etc. And I think one of the things that myth has done—to get back to your overarching point earlier on—myth and religion, which I by the way—maybe we could talk a little bit—it might surprise you, my commitment to my religious vision and to my heritage. But you know one reason as Bersay Arleotti (sp?) and other cultural anthropologists and you’ll see it more popular in Joseph Campbell’s work. One of the reasons why we have myth is to deal with...to explain death and to make that into a workable shared narrative that we can all relate to.
Azucena: Something to hope for with a lot of people.
Jeff: Yeah. Hope because hope is supposed to be what we all have and hope is that common place. It’s almost like that cheap thing. But the truth of the matter is even though it seems expected, and even though it seems commonplace, to live a life without hope is extremely difficult.
Esperanza: I understand what you’re saying about the cultural... But don’t you think it’s also ridiculous how society has made the expectations of somebody [at a] certain age that they’re supposed to be like 20? Let’s go back to the advertisement 60 is the new 40. Why?
Jeff: Why?
Esperanza: And then I remember my grandmother when she was 66. She was very different than 66 that is right now 66. I don’t think that you have to be 66 and old, but why do I have to be 66 and wanna dress as if I was like 20? I think that is ridiculous. That’s what I’m bringing in…
Jeff: To be desired is why. To be wanted
Esperanza: But I went to a Buena Vista Social club. I don’t know if you guys know them. Like a concert. And there was Omara Portuondo, [who] was like 90 years old. She was singing. She’s one of the sexiest women I’ve seen on earth. She was there. She dances—no offense to any of the ladies here—but she dances better than probably all of us together. She was so sexy and before there was this girl that was so beautiful. She was 25—no offense to that girl—from Barcelona. All like what we’re supposed to be: skinny, sexy, cute, like dancing. Then came this woman and she was a force of sexiness. I wanted to be Omara. I didn't want to be the other lady. And my role model was Chifs (sp?). That’s all I want. I mean I can’t...To society, I’m just here having fun and like breakfast, but I do feel my responsibility as a person is to not like, and to myself, is to not like...when I see the advertisement that says 60 is the new 40. I’m like, “Why?” That’s all I’m bringing in. I’m like 43, and I have to understand that my hair is getting white. I can dye it or not, but I can’t expect to look as how I was when I was 20. And also why would I? I’m happier now. So, I have to bring all of those things into my account so when I can’t get a mate anymore and stuff like that I can deal with it.
Doreen: Get one now.
[cross talk]
Azucena: That is a problem with the society things like all these thirty under thirties who have accomplished all these things. Every time I see them I’m like, Damn, I feel bad. I haven’t done enough. I’m past that point.
McKendree: Ok, I have to hear from my mom. Because if I don’t hear from my mom during this conversation it’s going to be tragic.
[cross talk]
Robin: No, I just wanted to say—I’ve been hearing about half of this—and I’ve thought of a few things when we talk about where we go, you know, when we die…My mother is here right now. She’s dead, but she is here.
Steve: That’s because I’m here.
Robin: No...I’m going to tell you why she's here. When she died, McKendree was pregnant with Rue, and your daughter, Sicily, was pregnant with Zana. And we each named—or we didn’t—but McKendree named Rue, Rue Perry. Perry was my mother’s name. And [Sicily] named Zana June, and June was our mother’s name. And I think for me I feel like she’s here. I think she’s so happy we’re all here. And so that is one of the things that makes me not so fearful because I see. I see my daughter and my granddaughter and my son-in-law, and my brother…Everybody doing their work and living in this world in such incredible ways that I’m not afraid to leave because I feel like I’ve had a part in what’s still here. I don’t know. It’s a weird thing.
Doreen: That makes sense.
Robin: But somehow right now…And that might change when I get my first grey hair. I’ve never gotten a grey hair.
McKendree: Wow.
Robin: So, when I get my first grey hair I might start to get scared. But so far.
Doreen: That’s good.
[cross talk]
Robin: You see one? Ah!
Doreen: I’ve never done anything [to my hair]. My hair started to get grey and I just left it. It is what is, you know?
Georgia: It’s great. It’s good.
Jasmine: I didn’t realize it was going grey until it started….I thought…I was doing henna to deep condition my hair and I was like, “Oh, it’s dark. Nobody’s going to see it.” And then all of a sudden, I looked like carrot top because there was so much hair on the top that it turned orange. And so it was like Stage-4, Oh my goodness, I have carrot hair. I might have been pregnant with Cira (sp?), and it was just like, Oh, this is just really bad. I don’t have the fortitude to just fight it. It’s just too much.
[cross talk]
Jasmine: But my daughter is named after my mother. She is my mother’s name. My middle name is my grandmother’s maiden. So, my name is Jasmine Chappelle. My grandmother’s maiden name is Chappelle and my niece, who is the same generation is, Dakota Chappelle. So, we keep...That’s another…She’s baby Cira. She’s the third person to be named after my mom. I have other cousins who are also named after my mom, who she knew. So, I hear that. And I feel that. And I can’t remember first step, first tooth, first fall—and I don’t have enough of the pictures— and then middle school… In the same way that I hear...I’m in grad school. Is it too late? There’s so much that I want to do, and I’m only in grad school. It took me so long to figure out where I wanted to go. Do I have the time? But the seeing, and this is the last little one, seeing death, you know, and seeing birth. In addition to having my own children, I was in the room when another baby was born and I was in the room when my mom took her last breath. I think both of those hold the same purpose, of the privilege and the gift of seeing more and doing more. As a person to watch another life come in—as a woman you don’t always...you don’t see it yourself—but to be there, you know, that’s a gift to see the life renewing and coming back. I think is equally as impactful as it was to be there, and that was terrifying you know because in the end when she was sick she was on a ventilator. They turned it off—labored breathing after you’ve been on a ventilator for 30 days. It’s not a normal death because it was delayed through, you know…So, It’s long, and it’s scary for us more so than [them]. So, I think both of those helped me to see that and also helped me to be terrified that I can’t remember. I still remember Rue and Oscar in the playground. That’s how we met, in the little doll stroller… But now they have opinions, —they’ve always had opinions, but [now] they can express them a lot so I don’t know. And they’re getting taller. And I think my hair...all of those things are fighting against each other you know. Because I don’t think my face matches my hair…
Doreen: Goes with your hair. Right.
Jasmine: But I like that because it makes people think I’m in high school or in twenties. But the same… Are we supposed to be 40 is the new 40? And yoga’ing? Or am I comfortable with where I am? My body gave me two kids. That’s cool... but I don’t know.
Jeff: Can I ask a question? This is gonna be a tough... I’m sorry.
Steve: No, you’re fantastic.
McKendree: Ask your question and then we’re going to have to have some cake. But ask your question first.
Jeff: Well, this is a tough question. This is a very difficult...can I ask?
McKendree: Oh please, please.
Jeff: This is going to be a very challenging question that might upset you all…
Doreen: We don’t have to answer.
Jeff: But it’s about ...and I’m wondering about this because this is a great table and you are so wonderfully articulate and sensitive and coming from so many incredible places, but there are a lot of women here and we’re talking about door slamming. And you know one of the doors that slammed for me, let me put it personally: I didn’t realize this is in my mid-40s, you know. I thought that women could have children for much longer than...I thought women could really effectively give birth into their 40s. And I had a lot of time to look for a wife and to possibly become a father. Then my forties happened, and I realized the women that I was most likely to get involved, were most likely, not going to get pregnant and that was a shattering door closing. When I was not too much older than you. You know I’m wondering the ability...for this incredible group of women here, I’m wondering about what the possibility of your child birth years coming to end…How that plays into the whole thinking that we’re talking about here?
McKendree: Yes.
[cross talk]
Williamain: I appreciate you bringing it up actually. I think it’s devastating. It’s so painful.
Jeff: Scary? Devastating?
Williamain: I mean I still don’t believe that I can’t have children. I keep thinking that it’ll be fine, but the reality is I might not be able to.
Shaun: Wow.
Jeff: Would you be kind enough to...May I ask how old you are? Just so I can…?
Williamain: No. Sorry.
Jeff: Okay. I’m sorry.
Williamain: I’m in my 40s. So it’s a very strange thing because not having your DNA continue feels like a little bit of a death to me. It feels like yeah. There’s no through line there’s no continuation and I come from a huge family where everyone has children. So, it’s very...it’s a very strange thing and it definitely connects to me with…
McKendree: I wonder if Janet can speak...if you want to.
Janet: Well, I didn’t have children and I’ll tell you how old I am. I’m approaching 65 and I think I just kind of forgot to do it. I didn’t really think I wouldn’t do it, but it just didn’t happen. But I’m kind of okay with it. I have a lot of kids around me. I come from a pretty big family.
Williamain: But did you become okay with it because it was no longer a choice or an option?
Janet: No. I was kind of always okay with it. Even though I never made the decision not to. I always loved kids. I mean I like being around kids all the time. They didn’t bug me. I mean I got lots of energy from them. But I’m okay with it because I’m surrounded by them. Steve has kids. We have grandkids. I got to inherit some grandkids, and I’m an artist so I kind of feel like I birth paintings. I’m doing something all the time.
McKendree: And your life sounds awesome.
Janet: I really am okay with it. All my brothers and sisters had kids, and there’s a lot of kids in the world, and there’s a lot of people in the world. And I don’t think everybody has to do it. And I think you need to figure out how to be okay it.
Georgia: I’d like to say...yeah…I mean I think that that’s a question asked by men to women a lot and it’s not asked to men as much. So, I think that’s a very valid part…
Jeff: I just answered that question for you…
Georgia: Right I know. You came from your experience. Right. I appreciate that.
Jeff: …Which is that I found it very, very difficult. But I’m not the one who has the body. It’s not my body that is giving birth.
Georgia: Right so it is...But it is asked of women a lot, and I think it puts a lot of pressure on...there’s a lot of pressure on women around that question, and so I think it’s such a personal situation for every person regardless of gender. But I also think there’s different roads to parenthood right? You can be a parent without having a biological child. I have a daughter now who’s a year and a half, who I gave birth to at 37, but it’s something that I thought about a lot leading up to that and didn’t know if I would do [it]. Then I did—and I was glad about that—but I just think that she’s given me a lot of purpose. I like to think that a lot of our fear around aging has to do with losing a sense of purpose. So, I think it’s maybe about redirecting or just finding your purpose. It doesn’t have to be around your biological child but…
[cross talk]
Steve: No one has brought up what is the Buddhist kind of thing...you know when you come back into the next…
[cross talk]
McKendree: Reincarnation. It’s in my notebook as a talking point.
Steve: …To relay your fears, and Robin maybe you don’t know this. But I know that the night my son was conceived, the next morning, our older brother called me to tell me that our father had died. And nine months later, when my son was born, I knew…Our father was always very impatient and I knew that that night his soul went into my son...
McKendree: Wow.
Steve: …And when Adam was born it was like, “Oh my god Dad’s in there.” He didn’t wait around, my father; he came right back. He had to wait the nine months, but that was it. So, I don’t know.
McKendree: Mmm...So, you’re a believer?
Steve: Oh, I was then. I think there’s...when I was into reincarnation. I don’t know what I believe now. I just hope I live long enough to play golf next week you know?
McKendree: We have to wrap it up. But I just wanted to end with this cake, which is...it’s Doreen’s 80th birthday today. They wouldn’t let me give you candles.
Doreen: It wouldn’t be able to hold a candle to me.
McKendree: Would you cut the cake? Just as a ceremonial thing.
Rue: Pretend to cut it up.
McKendree: And she had no idea she was doing this a week ago. We didn’t know each other. She had no idea.
Doreen: I was trying to play down the whole thing. But…
Rue: Blow out big candles.
Doreen: You know, when I first started realizing that I was getting old? Older? When I walked by store windows, the showcases, [and] I said, “Who’s that person?” I wasn’t walking like that a couple months ago. You look at yourself in the mirror…
McKendree: That is a moment that we all have right?
Doreen: Yes.
[cross talk]
McKendree: Your reflection…You see yourself with fresh eyes.
Doreen: And I remained that way for a long time, very youthful, and then I met a school friend and she said, “Dori you finally have a big woman’s body.” Because they were waiting for me to get plump, kind of rounded and everything, you know. Am I doing all right with this thing here?
[cross talk]
Williamain: I just have to say something totally personal. I have to pee so bad which has to do with aging. I was like I’m not waiting here. It is a bitch. Like I had to pee.
[cross talk]
Williamain: I was thinking of this the whole time.
[cross talk]
Shaun: I have a question for you. Is this a therapy session for you and your family and extended family?
[cross talk]
McKendree: Not intentionally, but it’s really nice to have my family here. I learn things for sure.
Shaun: I think so.
[cross talk]
McKendree: I didn’t know that about what you said about your feelings...
Jeff: How many members of the public are here? Am I the only?
McKendree: We are the public. We are all the public.
Jeff: No. I mean like you have your family and people…
McKendree: Well, I’ve never met you or you or you.
Jeff: Ok.
[cross talk]
Jasmine: She does these on a regular basis. These are part of her art practice, and I went with my niece, Jamaica (sp?), which is another generational project.
McKendree: Oh my God! That was so good.
Jasmine: I tried to get her to come, but she is now graduated and is in a job. So about aging and intergenerational...Part of her art practice is doing these conversations in a space...well you could...Do you want me to…?
Shaun: Do you do it all the time?
McKendree: Not all the time.
Ethan: Every day.
McKendree: I had lofty goals at first, but no. There’s three of these this summer. This is the first one. And they usually center around topics that are undercurrent in society and among humans, but are not talked about, which [for example] I’m always struck by aging. How we’re all doing it, and it’s all happening to us. And it’s going to happen to us. Regardless it’s happening. But we never talk about it in ways that we’re talking about right now. We talk about things we do to stop ourselves from aging and the things that aren’t going to do anything….
Georgia: I’m curious to hear from you Rue. What do you think about aging? Just in general.
McKendree: Yeah. Wait you’re asking Rue?
Georgia: Yeah.
McKendree: I know. Do you feel yourself aging Rue?
[cross talk]
McKendree: Last night she told me wished she was a baby….independent of...
Rue: I was jealous of my little sister. She gets all the attention. I wish I was her.
Ilk: That’s interesting.
Steve: That’s because she’s so cute. You’re just a school kid.
[cross talk]
Robin: Rue, you’re so beautiful!
[light chatter and cross talk]
Esperanza: Rue, and I was jealous of my older sister because she was able to do all the things that I couldn’t because I was the younger one. So that’s how it’s going to be when…
[light chatter and cross talk]
Maya: So, I’m just going to just quickly chime in. I’m Maya. I’m the Public Engagement Manager here at The High Line. We want to thank McKendree so much for being here with us.
McKendree: Thank you.
Steve: But it’s time to go.
Maya: No. No. No. Please take your time. I just want to...before anybody leaves, we want to make sure you sign a release because the conversation was recorded, and we are going to transcribe this and use it in a way. We’ll let you all know, but I just want to thank you all for being here and please let us know any feedback you have about your experience here. We’d love to know more. There are going to be two more breakfast dens this summer.
Steve: Well, it’s really important to have no sunshine.
[cross talk]
Rue: Especially when we were talking about death.
Jeff: What’s that?
Rue: There was no sunshine especially when we were talking about death.
Jeff: When we were talking about death. Very good.
Maya: Anyway, so thank you all. Alicia has the releases here. She is our Public Programs fellow. But yeah feel free to eat your cake. Happy birthday!
Doreen: Thank you.
Maya: We’re so happy you’re spending it with us today.
[cross talk]
Jeff: Can I give one other High Line related note? I’m actually...some of the staff I’m a familiar face to many of them. We give tours of the High Line. They’re open to the public. So, please everybody if you don’t know about The High Line come take a tour with us. They’re at Tuesdays at 6:30 pm and Saturdays at 10 am. So come and we’ll show you...We’ll walk and we’ll talk about the history of The High Line and what makes it such a wonderful place, and spend some time together doing that. So, you know you’re all invited. Please do come.
[light chatter and cross talk]
Leigh: You know what’s really interesting about being up here in this sight? Is that I’m not aware of… Because of this, I’m not aware that we’re on The High Line. It’s such an interesting way to be on The High Line because usually on The High Line you’re so aware.
[cross talk]
Leigh: I was saying it’s so interesting to have the den here because I’m not [aware]...We’re on the high line getting here, but I’m not paying attention because it’s so intimate.
Ilk: That’s one reason why I wanted to do this. Have a different experience.
Leigh: It’s such a great space for this to happen.
Shaun: I know. I have so much to say. That you couldn’t possibly have noticed based on where you were sitting.
Leigh: Oh, that’s great you were watching everything?
Shaun: Yeah. But the sort of the public/private instigation was really beautiful to see and the way that all of a sudden on such a simple lawn...and really, I mean there are stretches of The High Line that are much more recognizable but to see how this...all of a sudden this natural conversation elevated into some sort of important realm just because of passerby was really incredible to witness. It’s somewhat isolated and people were just like this must be important, but it’s just conversation. I think there’s some kind of critique of our culture.
McKendree: Yeah, I was just saying. It’s become a radical act to gather and actually talk face-to-face.
[cross talk]
Ethan: Yeah. Well, there’s that one guy who came in and got bread and coffee and turned around.
Shaun: …and kind of hovered.
Ethan: And I thought that was really interesting. I was wondering what was going to happen next. But he asked a few questions from a few people. He asked you question. I thought it was interesting [that] he wanted to be involved. He asked you a question too.
[cross talk]
Leigh: Of course, I’d do the same thing. I’d be like what’s going on.
Ethan: But I would say what’s going on and I would never approach. Never. Because I would think I’m not involved. I wasn’t here from the beginning. When I first came anyway, I felt like I’m not really supposed to be here am I? I’m not sure. I’m late
[cross talk]
Ethan: I came right at 8 o’ clock. We’re supposed to be here at 7:45 so I was late, and I thought I must be late. It must have already happened or something. I’m not supposed to be here.
McKendree: Yeah. This was the first one here, and I was really wondering how that would work. How people would circle? If they would or how? And it was great. Thank you.
Jeff: I have a just between us girls kind of thing that you would like. There was another...don’t tell anybody that I’m going to say this okay. Staff.
Steve: It’s being recorded.
Maya: It’s fine.
Jeff: Is it being recorded? I really can’t say this if it’s being recorded?
Ilk: Are the mics still live?
Jeff: I’ll actually tell you in private.
McKendree: No, come on now you have to tell it.
[cross talk]
Jeff: Ok, I’ll tell everybody. What the hell. There was another event that was held like this in the evening. I was leading a tour, and I was coming back from it. And there was a panel of people and they were having...it was not such an intimate conversation, they were talking about...different topics ...and they had it set up similar to this at a larger table and they were having dinner. There was wine being served and all this. And I led the tour and we were going north and I was explaining to them what was going on. Big panel of people so I go up to everybody talking, and there’s about 30 people talking or so sitting on the lawn, and I was coming back thinking, Okay, you know what? I’ll take in the rest of this conversation, and there are two or three altar cockers sitting at the...you know what means...sitting at this table and one’s going on, he’s going on about the gentrification and the striation of capital formation and I was ...one by one by one the people of the art project exited until all that was left were these people talking to themselves and it’s sort of is a tribute to you and your wonderful way of facilitating a conversation...you created so beautifully an atmosphere where we could engage in something that’s so intimate, so exciting and that we could actually say things that require a lot of trust. I know some of things that I said frightened me a little bit so you know. That engagement, that excitement, I have to compliment you. There are other artists that did not do that.
McKendree: Thank you. That is so really meaningful. Thank you. And I think it’s also about everybody...Two hours is a lot of time in our lives, and everyone was here, and that’s amazing. That’s what make it happens. You just have to carve that time out you know?
Esperanza: But it didn’t feel like two hours. Now that you’re saying it. I just saw my...because I eventually have to go to work.
Jeff: Yes.
Shaun: I’m going to your work too.
Esperanza: Oh, good we can leave together and then I was like two hours and such an interesting conversation. Thank you. This was really amazing.
[cross talk]
Jeff: Thank you for putting this together.
Esperanza: And, I also want to compliment you on something else. The one that I went to [at] your house that one was about the spoon and I think you created this intimate thing...I can’t believe we’re on [the] High Line...What you’re saying… I always walk and [say] like, “Who wants an apartment here?” And here I am having the best time of my life. The one that you had was about the spoon. And it was so emotional. This one was also very emotional. I almost cried. Thank you for that experience with a lot of people I don’t know. And the spoon was also as intimate…And I also think this is so successful because this is a table that is like our kitchen table with things that we love and are familiar. [It] feels like home. Thank you for this experience.
Doreen: And I have to say thank you for acknowledging my great date and picking me out by chance.
McKendree: I can’t believe I just met you last week, and she said, “Oh my birthday’s on the 27th of this month. And I said, “What?” Because I introduced myself...I called on her randomly. She didn’t know anything about me for this, and it just so happened to be her 80th birthday. I mean that’s kind of amazing.
Leigh: Everything’s aligning.
McKendree: Yes.
Doreen: It gives me a lot of food for thought. I’m listening to what he said. What is your name again? Shaun? I have to begin to sort of ...two perspectives...many other perspectives…Room for thought. I’m going to be a great grandmother again.
[light chatter and cross talk]
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