Nora McInerny: When it All Falls Apart
Nora McInerny is one of the brightest lights in my life, and a guide to many, many others, thanks to her hit podcast, “Terrible, Thanks for Asking.” Nora is quick to point out one of the deep and painful ironies in her life, which is that she wouldn’t be our guide if she hadn’t really been through it—and lost so much. In the span of a few months, Nora miscarried, her father died from cancer, and her first husband, Aaron, died from glioblastoma when he was 35. Alone with their baby, Nora began the journey back to life, using this new, deeply unwanted reality, as the ground from which to plow a path for the rest of us—a path that’s often sad, sometimes hilarious, and always wise. In the early days of her loss, she founded a Facebook group called “The Hot Young Widows Club” and started a podcast called “Terrible, Thanks for Asking” as a meeting ground for other travelers who also found themselves improbably devastated and lost. She also gave an incredible TED Talk: “We don’t ‘move on’ from grief. We move forward with it.” In the intervening years, she remarried, birthed another child, and written a roster of hilarious and moving books—It’s Okay to Laugh: (Crying is Okay, Too), No Happy Endings, Bad Vibes Only, and more. She also started a company called Feelings & Co., where she attends to all of our messy emotions: Besides the main podcast, she now produces a short, daily show— “It’s Going To Be Okay,” and “The Terrible Reading Club.” Shameless plug, but she featured On Our Best Behavior and interviewed me on her show. Nora is one of my favorite conversation partners because she’s not afraid to go there—and make jokes while doing it. Okay, let’s get to our conversation.
TRANSCRIPT:
(Edited slightly for clarity.)
ELISE LOEHNEN: I remember the first time we ever spoke, I interviewed you and at the end we kept talking and you were like, I'm just one of those Midwesterners, I see you in the store, I follow you to your car, you get in the car, you roll down the window. I'm still talking and you know, 45 minutes later it's time to go.
NORA MCINERNY: It's time for dinner, 45 minutes later.
ELISE: Yeah. But it is a very specific sensibility.
NORA: Yeah. The Minnesota goodbye.
ELISE: The Minnesota goodbye. I mean, I love all of your books. I love everything that you do. I obviously love your podcast and, with Bad Vibes Only, not that you don't talk about before times in your other work, but the hilarious insight into your life and your upbringing and the fact that you actually knew the shrink next door, I feel like that was a real mic drop in the middle of your book that I did not see coming.
NORA: I'm trying to decide whether I should make this into its own podcast episode because, I listened to that Wondery podcast, The Shrink Next door like anyone did, like a fan of a podcast, within two minutes of listening to it, I thought, wow, this is so similar to my boss's therapist when I was in my twenties and you lived in New York, every boss has a therapist that they tell you all about. Not every boss has a therapist that you go see.
ELISE: Right.
NORA: For what is not therapy at all, but strangely for us, a dinner at Le Surk or what were the other really fancy ones? Like name the fanciest restaurants in New York.
ELISE: Le Bernardin.
NORA: So many, we went to craft steak when it was new. We went to, what was the other one that was on Madison? 11 Madison Park, with this older man and a bunch of girls in their twenties. I listened to two minutes of that podcast. I realized it's the same guy. And at the 2020 iHeart Music Podcast Awards, which I think was maybe the first one of these awards, I'm not sure. But either one, right before the world shut down, I was out here, went to that show, got an award, Joe from the Shrink Next Door also got an award. The way I weaved through a crowd to grab this man by the shoulders, turn him around and say, I knew the shrink next door. I know him and then spilled the story to him, he described it as alarming, and I think that's the best way to put it.
ELISE: An assault.
NORA: To the senses and to his physicality. He was like, yeah, yeah, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure. Email me. And that is how I got to be on the post show bonus episode.
ELISE: Oh my God. The most famous thing you've ever done.
NORA: Yeah. And I always thought that could be a good story. And it had gotten cut from a couple other books, variations on that story really had gotten cut from other books. And I thought, no, there's a good way to tell this.
ELISE: You're likeI'm slamming this down. Anyway, I was reading your book at a pool last summer before it came out, and I got to that story and was dying laughing and dying that I did not know that this is part of your lore.
NORA: Part of the lore.
ELISE: And I have to wonder, it's impossible to understand, but thinking about a fantasy in which your life, where you travel down a different path and didn't become the shepherd of young widows everywhere, the patron, saint of widows, young widows, what do you think, where would you be? Do you have any sense?
NORA: I always think about that. There's two ways that I think about this. One is that I always had this in me, the same drive to create. I've always been an idea factory. I've always been a person who wants to think about how I feel, how it connects to how other people feel, how it connects to the world, and talk about it. I was doing this when no one was reading. I was doing this when no one was listening. I was talking about making a podcast in 2009 with my best friend called Best Friend One to Best Friend Two. That's what it's called, because we call each other and say, best Friend one to Best Friend two, do you copy? I always had this drive to do things even when nobody cared about it. I had a blog the minute I discovered what a blog was, I was dancing like no one was watching. I was writing like everyone was reading, when no one was reading at all. And I do think it wouldn't have been this obviously, but it would've been something else. And we would still be talking. I truly believe that.
ELISE: Yeah. No, I agree. I think, you know, the Loehnen family, we’re stans, so for people who are listening, my older brother Ben, who is a book editor and a young, a hot young widow…
NORA: possibly one of the hottest. The hottest. Ben is so cute.
ELISE: He is adorable. That little, you know, little book editor, bird watcher, and he’s so cute. But when Peter died, did he know you?
NORA: We had not met.
ELISE: Yeah. And for anyone who knows anyone and I recognize you can't sort of be everyone's guide to this process, but your work can be. And you really walked Ben through the gate, that narrow gate that no one wants to pass through. And what's so amazing about you and your legacy and the work and what you're doing now is the full complexity of what it is to be human as someone who has really lived, right. And you have been in it, you've been through it in a way that most of us pray we won't have those exact circumstances and yet so many people do, unfortunately, and you're also one of the funniest people I know. And so to be able to hold, we don't have many cultural examples of holding all of these simultaneous experiences at once. And I remember after Peter died, it was in San Francisco after he was at his older brother's wedding, so the whole family was there. I flew to San Francisco that morning. I flew with my brother and my dad. My dad arrived later that day, back to New York, and we went to see their friends and we were gathering and people were telling jokes and stories, and we were laughing and crying, and it was such a beautiful night that might have seemed perverse to anyone watching, but it was like thick with despair. Thick, and yet to laugh felt like the only way to actually honor Peter and bring him into the room and to be ourselves with his memory. I don't know. But you are that, for all of us.
NORA: My dad used to say, especially when I would get so sad, I would get so sad all the time in my childhood and my adolescence and, you know, my grandma died and I was old enough for that to happen. I was like 27, right? My grandma was a very, very old woman. She had nine kids. My mom was one of the oldest of those kids. And it's always sad to lose someone that you love. And I remember my dad saying to me so many things that were very helpful and he said this also when he was dying, he said, life is for the living and life is for livening. And I think, the most natural thing in the world is to wanna wrap yourself around the sadness. And that's good. You do need a period of time with that. And also someone's life is more than just their death. And Peter had a real life, right, that included hilarious things about him. And about your life together. Yeah. And so did my dad. And so did Aaron. Aaron was the funniest person I knew who could just immediately, so quick, so quick. My dad was very dry and quick and very clever. Aaron could just make anyone laugh at all. And the combination of them together was wonderful. But we were laughing. We were laughing, like if you could have seen my siblings and I driving to the Mall of America after my dad died in his car, my mom driving me in the front seat, the other three siblings in the back because my brothers didn't have anything to wear. And we were like, my dad liked a good suit. He liked a well-dressed man. And we were like, you fucking losers. You don't own a belt. You don't own a belt. We have to take you to Nordstrom to get a belt and a suit jacket. And we're walking through and just piling things up. Of course, my sister and I don't need anything ourselves, and we're piling things up to buy for our brothers while simultaneously berating them in the style of our father. We're like looking at them like, do you own socks? Do you have socks? Are they gonna be white tube socks? Now we gotta buy socks, but, and same thing, if you would've seen us driving down Highway 62 on the way to Mall of America. You would've thought, what a bunch of fun idiots. And if you would've known where we were going and why, you've thought, what a bunch of nut cases. But it is, it all happens together, to me, it all happens together. And it's not like you were sitting around being like, man, how can we just, isn't it so funny that Peter died? Isn't that the funniest thing though?
ELISE: So hilarious. Yeah. Well, and there's this part of life that becomes, one about compartmentalizing, when in reality most of us aren't eating our life off those compartmentalized meal trays. And two, the performance of how we're feeling, which can often feel deeply disconnected. That awareness, and even when no one's watching, definitely when people are watching, you know, when you're in any sort of forum where you're supposed to be expressing your grief in a certain way. But also in private where you have sort of this, I don't know, inner critic or other person who's like, what are you doing? You know, pick yourself off the floor. I felt a very strange experience, very strange in the mourning experience of Peter, because I met Peter when I was 16. He met my brother their first week of college and he was my best friend and the more emotionally able brother, between my brother and Peter. So, and my brother was always bird watching, being Ben. And so Peter was my travel partner. And since I was 16, and I felt the loss so acutely, but I'm an over-functioner and I was helping my brother, who was obviously not okay. And it's very interesting, like the hierarchies of grief, who gets to be the most sad, people were sort of like, well, why are you, what is this to you?
NORA: Oh, “your brother-in-law."
ELISE: Yeah. “Your brother-in-law."
NORA: Not your "best friend.” Not your, like true brother. I think of my sisters-in-law. I don't think like, oh, that's my brother's wife I think of, that's my sister. That's somebody I've known since I was 19. That's somebody I've known since I was 26.
ELISE: But we have these ideas too. Like, I'm not a particularly sentimental person sometimes, I mean, this is a terrible thing to say, but she wasn't a very kind woman, but sometimes I'm like, is my grandmother dead? I can't remember. Maybe that's a shocking thing to say, but it's not like I look for every opportunity in which to center myself in grief, and yet I feel like there's a cultural idea of who gets to be sad, how long, obviously like when you really need to be over it, but don't be too over it.
NORA: Yeah. Don't be too over it. Don't look like you're having too much fun.
ELISE: Right. When is it appropriate to, as a 30 something year old, find an a new life partner because your first life partner is no longer available? I mean, you've really lived that and now you're a person in the public. And you gave an incredible Ted talk about this, how we don't move on, but we move forward. But what do you wanna say? I know you say a lot of things, but like when do you, but what is that?
NORA: Oh, I think it's all wanting to know that whatever happens to us counts. And I think that's why we wanna weigh and measure what happens to other people. What they get and what we get. And is it enough? I remember I've always been a person to connect to the conversation that we had on my show and about your book wanted to be good. Wanted to be good at things and wanted to be perceived as good. I wanted to be the best widow I could be, which is Jackie Kennedy. And unfortunately, why is Elise laughing, it's because she's seen me, she's seen me. I don't have literally any of those qualities. Not a one, but damn, I looked good at that funeral. I will say, I wore a white wool dress
ELISE: Ooh, beautiful.
NORA: Aaron wanted me to wear white. He was very into Michelle Obama at the time, and she had worn a white dress somewhere and I was pretty ripped from not eating and working out. He was like, yeah, arms out, white. Find something white, arms out. I was like, got it. Got it, bud. I wanted to be so good at grief, so good at being a widow, and part of that was like checking up on how I was perceived. I didn't wanna be too sad, some people I could tell wanting me to be sadder. I felt like a zoo animal. Aaron's obituary went viral and I could not stop reading. I couldn't stop reading. I was on Twitter at the time, so replies to news stories about it Buzzfeed comments.
ELISE: Did he write it himself? I'm trying to remember.
NORA: We wrote it together. And the funniest jokes are his. The funniest jokes are his, he couldn't type, and we love to do things together. He was like my first creative partner, truly, the first person that was like, yeah, yeah. Like I would've an idea and he would make it into a thing, you know? A poster, a t-shirt, right? This was hard to do when you had to find a printer when you couldn't do it all online. And I would read all these comments, right? And some of the, I'm 99.9, as they always are, were good to moderate. And then some would be like, my husband died too. Who gives a shit? My, my mom also had brain cancer. Okay, where's her fucking news story? And you know what, I got it. I got it. I got that feeling. Of course, of course. Sometimes it feels like empathy, sympathy, sorrow, grief are scarce resources, because we certainly treat them like that. And if someone is feeling too much for you, they are not feeling enough for me. If somebody is comforting this person at the funeral because they are weeping the loudest, not because they were closest to this person, but because funerals bring up all kinds of feelings about ourselves, our relationships to other people. I was unhinged at a funeral for my mom's friend's husband. I was supposed to be on my second date with Aaron. This man died of brain cancer and I was choking, crying, imagining my own dad dying, not knowing that this same disease is growing in the man I'm about to go on a second date with. Not knowing that in four years I will be at my dad's funeral. And then we we're always checking up on each other. Just this is a human thing, right? To check up on each other, to see like how other people are doing it, to like take your eyes off your own paper to see how you are doing and what kind of attention you're getting or all these things, all these comparisons, they all come down to like, does mine count? Yeah. Does mine count? The thing is they all count and they're all completely different. They're all completely different. I can't say, you know, do I love when people are like, I know exactly how you feel because you know, my grandma died. Did you read the Rob Delaney book?
ELISE: No, I haven't. It's one of those books that I've circled.
NORA: I'm gonna give you the best part of it. There's someone who says something, I'm gonna paraphrase cause he said it in such a funnier way. But he basically says, I, you know, oh, your grandpa died. I don't give a shit about your, that's what they're supposed to do. And in fact, if your grandpa has the gall to be walking around alive when my one year old's dead, like what? You know? And of course, does he really feel that way? No. No. He just, you know, means like to him, the center of his world, his loss, his loss is the biggest to him. Peter is the biggest to you and the biggest to Ben in different ways. Ben is the one who lost his husband. You lost your Peter. Peter's mom lost her. Peter, these are all different Peters. I understand that because I've done it, it is something that I can see in myself sometimes. And it is something that I did when Aaron died, and it's the, to me that is the darker side of grief. It's not just like your own sadness, but the, you know, exchange rate to someone else's.
ELISE: And then there are so many other factors and it's the, you know, I'm thinking about after Peter died and my parents very practically being like, I wish it, you know, I wish it should have been one of us. Like, we don't, we can't exchange lives obviously, but being like, it would, I wish it had been one of us and I'm sure his parents felt the same. And you know that's like also perverse, but my dad was like this, that me dying at this point in my life, you know, he's in his seventies or your mom, like that's not a tragedy, right. That's an eventuality. But this is a tragedy and there's this line, and the way that we think about these things, there’s like a tipping point also between tragic to too bad to wow, lucky.
NORA: Oh wow. Lucky.
ELISE: Lucky, in your sleep at a certain age. Everything's sorted and done. And then to understand our grief within that spectrum and this idea that even when someone gets one of those, like, wow, lucky endings, there's still an implication that you're supposed to grieve rather than celebrate. I don't know. Or just be like, this is right. This feels right. This feels right. There's nothing that feels right about Aaron's death. Your dad was too young.
NORA: But if you would've asked me at 20, I would've been like, yeah 62 is pretty old. You know? Right. And then I'm 31 and my dad's dad, and I'm like, oh no, I'm a baby.
ELISE: I'm a baby.
NORA: I'm a baby. And I do think even if you are ready, right, my grandma was ready, she had a great goodbye as far as cancer goes. She was like, I'm in my nineties. No, I don't wanna do some chemo. You know? No, thank you. And still, I think the death of a parent turns everyone into a child again.
ELISE: Yeah. Certainly. When you and Aaron, when he was alive and next to you and you're co-creating and, and writing a viral obituary or making merch.
NORA: Yeah. For literally an audience again of none.
ELISE: But do you still feel him? Do you still co-create with him?
NORA: All the time. All the time. Oh my God. I wish he could have lived to see free Britney. You know, when I got amazing tickets to the Taylor Swift Eras tour night one, accidentally, first I was locked out. It was a whole saga. I didn’t get 'em. And then I got an email that was like, you have a second chance. I thought I was buying two tickets, so that's another thing. I thought I got a hell of a deal on two tickets. No, I paid through the nose for one row 7, seat 13, my two lucky numbers. That's where I ended up. Who opened Paramore? Who are Aaron's two favorite girls besides me and Jen Lyons? Okay. He had two framed photos on his desk. Three. He had a signed poster from Taylor Swift from the You Belong With Me video. I don't know where that is. And it's driving me crazy. I literally am about to go tear apart the storage unit now that I've thought of that I can't live without knowing where that is. I'm gonna die. Two, Haley Williams, Taylor Swift, the three of us. I don't know where Jenna Lyons was, she was not in Glendale, Arizona. We were all together on that night and I was like, I can't believe it. And then the song she played, there was all these moments, right? There's all these moments where I feel him. I hear him, I know when even when I'm making a joke that I'm like, I'm stepping into the line Aaron would've said if he was here. You know, and he really liked to be credited for his jokes. And sometimes I'll be like, that could've been an Aaron joke. Right?
ELISE: You're just giving him the nod.
NORA: That would've said that. Yeah. However, you know, someone said something and I was like, oh my God, Aaron would've died if he hadn't already. And I heard, and I heard myself say it, and I was like, that's an Aaron joke. That's an Aaron joke. He wants you to know that was him. That was him. That was him. Like, yeah. So I do and we were together for four years. And there are, I can't believe that truly because, and this is the moving forward of it all right, is that I still think of us as, like on December 3rd, 2021, was like, wow, we've been married to him for 10 years. You know what I mean? And I still think of that as like a real primary relationship in my life. Like alongside my marriage to Matthew. Polyamory, for me, couldn't work if they were both alive, I'll tell you that much. There's no way I could care about two men’s thoughts, feelings. It is easier when one is dead. But I do still think of that like as a marriage, as a continued relationship.
ELISE: Yeah. Well it makes sense to me and I think a lot of people can relate to that, the intensity or depth of certain relationships compared to the surface nature of others. And so in some ways, you can sort of amass a lot of memories and a lot of days and still not be as affected by the intensity you might experience with someone else. And I feel like now I think about friends who, or even myself like struggling to get over certain breakups or the way that some relationships, even platonic ones or work ones or could be romantic, like dog us, you know, the people who really stay with you. It's very interesting cause I think we had this tendency culturally to pathologize that. It's like, oh, that guy broke up with me. He was probably a psychopath. Or maybe you were dealing with a malignant narcissist.
NORA: Everyone's a narcissist.
ELISE: Yeah. That like, now we have this idea that to like be injured deeply by the loss of a relationship means that there's a pathological agent, but sometimes there's just an intensity. I also think, you know, I don't know on the woo-woo meter, like how many like football fields farther than you I am. But I also think that there are certainly people like where I'm sure you and Aaron have done this before.
NORA: I could cry cause that is exactly how it felt right away. When I met him it was, and I'd only had this with guys who I had very friendly flirtations with. Right. Where we like, like really got each other on a intellectual humor level where we could talk about anything. So my deepest male friendships were like what I had with Aaron. I'd never had a romantic relationship where someone liked me and not just like wanted to have sex with me or wanted to like date me, but like liked me and I was coming out of being in my twenties during The Game era.
ELISE: Hmm. Oh my God. Neil Strauss.
NORA: Right? Yeah. And then I was a part of a group of girls who were like, Hmm, I'm gonna do that to you. You know? And I literally did treat my twenties like, no man has a feeling and I don't care about any of you, even if I am also deeply affected by everything you do to me. And I remember it just being so easy with Aaron and me trying to complicate it. And saying to him, one time we were at a bar and I was like, are you like sleeping with anyone else? And he was like, he does a spit tick, spits his drink into his cup and goes, Jesus Christ. He was like, when when should I, he was like, you're my girlfriend. And I was like, well, you, like we never like really had, he's like, I'm sorry, do you spend every day with a person and they're not your boyfriend? And I was like, yes, I have done that actually. I have done that. And I just like wanted him to like be mean to me or something. And he just liked me so much to the point where I started to like myself. I don't think I would’ve. And when he was gone and I didn't have that lens to look at myself like, well, if this good person likes me, then, then I'm good too, right? And I'm worth something too. That was a huge loss. But no, I felt like I knew Aaron forever and I was there when he died and that did blow my woo scale a little bit, there were a few moments like that, but I was there when he died and I knew the moment I didn't need to be told. You don't really usually need to be told, but I was there, we were alone. And I knew that like, he was a part of me. Like, I felt like puzzle click in, you know? And I like understood where we were. Like cosmically, truly like in space and time where I was like, oh, it's forever. We are forever. You are forever. There's no, like, the physical loss is undeniable. It's never as good. Right. You're like you sense Peter, right? You feel him in moments. It's not as good as being like, I wanna watch this movie with you. Right? I wanna go to this place with you and hear you say, I wanna hold your hand. It's not the same. But it is real. My dad was deeply Catholic, and I remember as he was dying, him saying to me, he was telling me he'd just woken up from a dream where he was in his childhood home and he slid down the banister onto the landing into his mom's arms. And I was like, what do you think it means? I'm like crying, listening to this. And, he was like, well, we just never really leave one another. And I do think that's true.
ELISE: I really do too. And I think that in this strange, as you just said, like this puzzle piece, clicking inside, I don't know that this is true or has to be true because I think there's certain people who are persecuted by people on this plane and they don't want that person inside of them on from the other side. But I do think that yeah, Aaron does. I mean, he lives in all of your work and he lives in you. And it's interesting to think about because I feel Peter acutely a lot of the time. I have conversations with him. I sense him, but I also, as you say, it's listening to you hear this, it makes so much sense. I don't sense him outside of me. It's an internal, it's not like he's a, a phantom at the foot of my bed. And I don't think that I feel him sort of everywhere. I don't think I'm like the focus of his attention necessarily. But you stop and not being able to pick up the phone to call someone or to see someone, it's a direct line. I can't explain it in any other way except that there's no questioning what they would say. Because that reality is your reality.
NORA: like Catholics pray to Saints too, you know, and when I was younger and my grandpa died and his death was very, very sudden and he was in his sixties and it was very, very unexpected. And I remember my dad saying like, you can pray to your grandpa, and I don't even know if that's allowed, but my dad was like, you can pray to him. You know, like you can, that's a way that you can, like, you can tell him things like you can ask him for things, you can do stuff like that. And Aaron was not religious at all. He was not religious. And he watched my dad get last rights, which yes, they've renamed again something dumb? I was like, no, I'm calling last rights baby. I'm not, not updating my vocabulary for something I dip in and out of. And Aaron was like, oh, I want that. I want that, whatever that is. That sort of like ritual, that sort of connection to something. Beyond yourself and to like other people too. Like the other people who are around you or have been around you. I do talk to Aaron.
ELISE: You've spent so much time with other people in deep grief and talking about this world and everyone's path is different. There is no tidy package, there's no linear model. All of that has fortunately been debunked as much as it sort of like corrals our sense of certainty or security that we can follow a process and be done with something that will definitely have its way with us in unexpected ways. But is there anything that, when you meet another griever, another lost traveler, where you think, okay, this person, you're gonna be okay?There’s that woman who wrote the grieving brain, Mary Francis O’Connor, I don't know if you read that book, but there's studies of Japanese mourners and she writes about sort of like with loss the part of it is the physicality of like as map making creatures in this reality structure where we know where the chair is, we know where the couch is, and then you're trying to navigate your life with like a massive part of it missing. It's like you're missing the map. And so she is a scientist, probably an atheist, I'm not sure. But her point was like, for people who think that there's a place that these people go, they did a study I think on Japanese people who believe in some sort of liminal space or realm, and then they did just so much better than people who believe that there's nothing else. And there's just this materialistic realm. Not to push spirituality or like my, I don't what I, what I believe in has no name or context. But do you find that this, the people who can somehow find a way to maintain contact do better? And I recognize you're not a research scientist.
NORA: Yeah. I don't know. I really don't know. But I can tell you anecdotally from my, my life and my experience that most people I have met, even if you don't have a faith system, you do believe, I’ve never met a person who's like, yeah, and they died and there's just nothing else, and then they're gone. I've never met a person like that. I haven't encountered a person like that, except for now, my 10 year old son when he was 2, he was 22 months when Aaron died. And The veil is thin with children, right? We'd be in the living room. Our house is all sort of like connected. And I remember him, he was underneath the dining room table and he said, oh, hi papa. And stood up and hit his head on the table. Because he was standing up to see like he could, he was looking at the couch where Aaron laid a lot of the time and, and then he hit his head and he was saying like, oh, papa like talking, still talking to Aaron while I'm holding him. I remember being outside and he was standing on this tiny picnic table I had bought saying, oh, hi papa. I have this video of him saying, my papa's the clouds, my papa's the grass, my papa's the dirt. Just like things that I don't remember saying to him, but I remember feeling is so true and so real, but now my child is 10 and he did go to Lutheran preschool and I've not raised him religiously. And he's like, well, heaven's not real. And that's like, that's a hard thing for him, right? Well, my dad's not here. He's not here. Right? He's not here. He's not here. And I have said, you know, all those things, we've like, laid in bed and, you know, talked about all these things and cried about all of these things. And you know, I've said like, I do feel him. Like I do feel him. And it's not the same. And like, it's not as good, right? It's not as good when you're a 10 year old boy, you know? Of course it isn't. And we were recently on a walk, my two most traumatized children, and I went on a walk one evening and I was like, God, isn't this great? Look at us. And then we hear a thud and we hear, and a Prius has hit a cat in front of us. I won't describe it except to say the children are screaming, the car stops. And I say, you hit a cat. And the guy, you know how Prius's peel, he just Z’s off, and the kids are crying and everyone's crying and I'm like, okay, we gotta go. We gotta go, we gotta go. And we were walking home and I was like, this is where believing in God would really be helpful.
ELISE: Did the cat die?
NORA: The cat did not survive.
ELISE: Yeah. God.
NORA: You know, I'm like yelling at them like, I'm like, you know, my dad would've said, let's say a little prayer for the cat, but can't really do that with you two.
ELISE: Oh my God.
NORA: And you know, and they're like, I'm like, I was like, and yeah, sometimes bad stuff just happens guys, and you know, you just saw kind of a bad thing. And also that person's not a bad person. They did a bad thing. We don't know. Maybe they've got, you know, maybe it's someone else's car. Maybe they don't, you know, who knows? Believing in anything is usually pretty helpful when something bad happens. Believing in anything, even if it's just people. Yeah. Even if it's just, you know, whatever the universe is.
ELISE: And that it's, it's not something that we'll ever understand that follows no linear logic, as you know our friend Kate would say like, there's no reason.
NORA: There's no reason you can't say like, you know, well, the good thing about Peter dying, I’d say the best part about that cat getting pancaked in front of us. Well, the upside of not having a dad, you know, and or if having a dad, but not the dad, because Ralph has somebody that he calls Matty, daddy or, or dad or you know, like he has a dad, but he doesn't have his dad. You know, and that's different. You need to be seeking out sort of like the, the sunny side of loss. And I do think sometimes I look at my kids and I think, well, God damn it, the best part about being raised Catholic was I had a place to sort all of that. You know?
ELISE: No, totally does. It definitely give, religion is powerful. It certainly creates some order amidst the chaos and structures us all around a, a common language and vocabulary that is cultural. It extends beyond just knowing how to use a rosary, you know?
NORA: I know. And knowing how to use a rosary is so lovely. And to say like, oh, you know, your grandpa's dead. Go grab your rosary. You know, let's go say these same words that your grandpa said that his grandpa said, that his grandpa said. Over and over.
ELISE: It's interesting. I mean, one of the things that I think is really hard, I mean, there are a lot of hard parts about religion, but one part is when I think of my own being a person of faith, of like an really difficult to define faith, but trusting that there's some other order to this universe and that energy matters that we're more than this materialist reality, but I write about this in the book, it's one of the core tenets is this idea that, you know, whether you believe that Jesus was a real person or you believe that he was half human, half divine, which I think we all are, his point or one of the things that he was actually saying was so beautiful, the way that it's been weaponized to stand for things that he actually didn't believe in is not so great. But he wasn't preaching about a church. He wasn't talking about priests. He wasn't creating intermediaries between the people he was talking to and their direct connection to divine.
NORA: He wasn't starting an MLM.
ELISE: He was not starting an MLM. There's something to the effect of like two or three people, that's a church. And when you think about getting in touch with ourselves and this idea of confession or even like penance at the original word was metanoa, which was like essentially just not about penance. It was about higher mind, like getting above things, getting to I think maybe a higher perspective, but when you think about these, these hard moments and being able to talk to someone, whether it's a dead loved one or God ,Jesus, Allah, a deer, nature, whatever it is, and being able to sort of be seen in your totality, in the way that Aaron saw you, and be held and be told, be held in your wholeness and completeness and goodness is such a beautiful and essential instinct and all of us. And now, you know, I don't believe in telling priests about your sins, and I mean, to each their own. But this idea that you need an intermediary isn't great.
NORA: Some people really love it. Some people love, you know, like some people love, you know, a stage and, a script that tells me who's in charge. You know, who's in charge here? And thank God it's not me. Yeah, right. Like, you know, thank God there's this other person who can tell me like what I'm supposed to do. I do think that set me up for a tough transition into adulthood and into not having religion, honestly. I'm like, well, okay, then who's in charge? Who's in charge?
ELISE: When did you fall away from that? Just through growing up?
NORA: Yeah, I mean, just slowly and, you know, it's hard to tell, like as a kid I would sit in mass and be like counting the squares in, we had a post Vatican two church. I didn't love the architecture of it and I was like, Ugh. Yeah, 63 didn't love it. Now we look at it, I'm like, beautiful. I get it, gorgeous. But at the time I was like, Ugh, God, I don't love the colors in the stained glass. I'd be counting like the stained glass tiles. Then I would be like, I better pay attention cause I'm afraid God can tell. And then I was afraid that the priest could see like, thought bubbles above my head for a while. But I also loved, like, I loved the rituals. I was an altar boy, we didn't even say alter girl.
ELISE: Amazing.
NORA: So I did that kind of stuff. But I also like never really felt it, I felt it at Easter Mass, and I felt it at Christmas Eve. When they really bring it all out. But I could never understand the homily. Never once. I was like, what are you talking about? I don't understand what this is about. You're reading something, you, this man who lives in the house next to the church is explaining something. I'm not getting it. It's definitely not engaging. The music's not good. The seat is uncomfortable. I totally understand why people love megachurch. I get it. I'm like, ooh, stadium seating, a fog machine. Audio visual.
ELISE: A wild ride.
NORA: A sound system. Are you serious?
ELISE: Intense music.
NORA: Then go out to the gift shop, a literal gift shop with a Starbucks. Onsite amusement for children. I still went to a Catholic college, on purpose. And I would sometimes go to mass at college, on purpose. And when I graduated and I lived with a boyfriend who was also raised Catholic, the first thing I did was like, well we have to go to this church. We better join this church that’s two blocks away.
ELISE: It's interesting because going to Jewish Services in this Methodist church in Missoula, which is kind of funny, but I could connect to the stories. I could connect to the culture that was being passed down and I could recognize its power and like that was interesting to me, but the rest of it, in a way, is like not for kids. That's where I think we get this idea of morality that can be really pernicious and that we don't have the context in our own lives to interpret. But I think that faith, and I think about myself, I really had no interest or engagement with any of this until Peter died. And I do think that once you start living, once things start happening, when you're, to quote Richard Roar, in the second half of your life, where you've hit the floor and bad things have happened that you would never have chosen, then you have the material, the fodder to actually understand what some of these stories are about.
NORA: And I really did think I found my way or myself more interested in that. I started going to a Lutheran church maybe in 2016, 2017, I baptized my second son, Lutheran, my first son Catholic cause Aaron was like, look, I don't know, let's just, you know, hedge our bets baby. I don't know. Let's cover the bases, let's cover the bases. And also he also loved the ceremonies. Yeah. He loved them. You know, and it like, it does feel, and it felt powerful to me as a parent to say like, I'm doing this thing, you're wearing the same little dress I wore when I was a baby that my mother, you know, bought for me. And there's a little bit of lace on it from her gown and you know, it sort of like does put you into the tradition of a bigger culture too. You know, I would say I'm culturally Catholic. I did not feel any of that stuff as a kid except, you know, I sent my kid to Lutheran Preschool both thelittle boys and like, you should hear them talk about like if you, when they hear Easters coming, Q as a two year old was like, came home and was like, and they stabbed Jesus in the side and they kneeled his and they made him and they laughed at him and they laughed and he died and they killed him and they laughed like just, I'm like, yeah, that is a dark story. And he's like, loosing his mind over it, you know, and it's like, it just, it's a lot, it's a lot for him. We did stations of the cross, like in second grade, and I just remember being like, once a lot of time on your feet, and then two, you're like, holy shit. Like this is dark stuff, you know? And you're like, you're really talking about like torturing a person and you did this for you and your sins. You confess your sins, you know, they moved it all down. I was, I did that in second grade. And I got to confession and I said, I have nothing. Because I have not, I mean, you know, I'm eight, you know, and father Ken's like, right. But like, have you ever been rude to your parents? And I was like, what? You know, he is like trying to draw it on me. I was like, honestly, I don't know. I don't know. They passed me, but barely. And then I did confirmation at the same time we did a twofer. Confirmation. Wow. Like confirming into your faith. You're eight years old, right? Like, I can't even cross a busy street alone.
ELISE: Right. So, but you're deciding what you believe.
NORA: And I don't understand it, none of these stories make any sense. And then when you do read or you're reintroduced to them as an adult, as I, you know, like they're deeply meaningful and beautiful. And I was talking to my mom the night before Easter, and she's like, isn't it so amazing to think like that Jesus didn't even wanna die? And he just cried, you know? And his mom was there, and I'm like, weeping, like talking about it with my mom. And I'm like, yeah, what a sad story.
ELISE: And then even the way that that whole, the crucifixion is interpreted, this idea, he never said he died for our sins. That's like Augustine, that's fourth century stuff. If anything, I think he was illustrating that, yes even the son of man, which is what he called himself, not the son of God, the son of man, this half divine, half human guy is fallible and will die. And but not. You know that there is this resurrection event. Anyway, it is a beautiful story, but I think also the way that it's told as sort of this like is, is is actually quite strange and perverse and the programming for kids within the Catholic faith, that we're all depraved and fallen and have to atone for things from birth that were tainted is also not actually really in the Bible.
NORA: Yeah. And also just not great to hear, right? Like not the best way to like think about yourself or other people weirdly. Like that didn't really get in for me.
ELISE: Doesn't make sense. I think cause probably there's also that inner knowing where you're like, this doesn't make sense. I don't even believe this.
NORA: That doesn't make sense.
ELISE: Not to completely switch gears, but as your umbrella continues to expand in the world, you're a little bit of a sort of safe harbor, I think for everyone who has a lot of feelings, I know that's the name of your company, but when you think about that, because there has to be a point where you're like, I am more than a widow. I'm more than a person of who represents grief. I mean, we know this about you. You're also comic anyone who can see Nora Alive needs to go. But are there points when you’re sort of like, can I pass the baton and enter a second chapter of my life where. I am not the patron saint of hot young widows. And you're like, I'm not young. I'm not hot. I mean like, or the patron saint of sadness.
NORA: Yeah. The patrons scene of sadness. Yeah. I think it's just, I think there is like a natural undercurrent to everything that I do where every funny thing I do will always kind of acknowledge that sadness that is like streaming through me. And every sad thing will have those points of levity no matter what. No matter what, I'm always gonna be Aaron's widow. I don't think it will always be the most interesting thing about me. I think the longer you live with something, you kind of decide, I don't know, you decide and it's decided for you how important that is in different contexts. There was a period in my life where I couldn't meet someone and not have them know that about me. I really couldn't, I couldn't bear it, you know, like you needed to know if you met me, that my husband was dead. I'm married to this guy, but there's another one and like, and he is dead. And that is a part of me, and it always will be, but it's not always the headline. It's not always a headline in every situation. And I do think even like reading my earlier books, listening to the very, very early episodes of the podcast, like there's always been more, there’s always been more and there always will be more. And that was the catalyst to get me working outside of a cubicle. It really was like, there's no denying that. But that's not the, that's not the only thing that could have done it. It's not the only thing that I was going to do. A long time ago, back when that was the only thing. The only thing, right? Was that book, that first book and the first episodes of this podcast, someone said, oh, there's just so much more. Like, and there's so much more you're gonna do. And I was almost like defensive about what I had already done. And I don't think they were saying like, oh, we're sick of it. You know, let's move along. Yeah, let's move along. But I do think that they were offering me that for my own sake.
ELISE: Yeah, it's interesting to think about and I have friends who are very closely identified now with really important issues and it becomes, so defining in a way that at a certain point they're like, can I be anything other than this thing? And what's interesting, I'm thinking of Lynn Twist who writes about this idea of whenever you're engaging in the world, are you taking a position or are you taking a stand? And the difference between positions, implying directions, you're for something you're against, something you are, something you're not something. And then a stand, which is this higher perspective of being open, not only to movement, but like some bigger, higher goal in mind where you're standing. I stand for human rights, equity, empathy, you know, a more sane culture. And there are positions that are part of that, but I am not just against. this. And I think of you knowingly or not as, you can't really take a position about being a widow, but about being about a stand. You're taking a stand and in a very powerful way in our culture that I think allows evolution as you get a wider and wider perspective, the more that you live, which is you're taking a stand for all of it, and the importance of the full human experience and the reality of our lives, and you're a bull work against a culture that would insist that we try to be happy at all costs all the time. That that can be engineered. I don't even, I don't even like that word. Happy.
NORA: I have described myself as happyish. You know, I've used that like we have a Happyish Holidays event that we do every year because it's like, I tried so hard for so long to kind of be a different kind of person, too. I wouldn't have been able to say the word depression. Or even anxiety when I was young or in my twenties or, you know, I literally didn't go to therapy till after Aaron died.
ELISE: That's not probably abnormal, right?
NORA: Maybe, but it's like I don't know. Like I just went through all that stuff, like with him and didn't even think, you know, at no point do I remember, do I remember? It doesn't mean it didn't happen. I don't remember anyone in the medical sphere that surrounded us being like, you okay? Do you need an Ativan? I don't love the word happy either, cause it does, it does kind of imply destination and all of the sort of work, hacks, tips, tricks, the optimizing. I don't wanna optimize. I don't wanna optimize. I wanna be as inefficient as possible. I wanna be a person, not a brand. And I think that is why like, people have had all kinds of experiences with me, you know, and my work. You're not going to find my work or my Instagram and be like, wow, I know exactly what I'm looking at. You know, you're gonna be like, wait, what? Like there's some sad stuff and then there's also like, you know, a rating of Maybelline lipsticks. Because I really am just trying to be a person in the world.
ELISE: Well, and I think that there's so much joy. I love the word joy, and I feel like there's so much joy in so much of your work, and joy to me, whereas it feels like happiness, at least how it's projected onto us culturally, is something that can be engineered, et cetera. Whereas joy is just that laugh that escapes that sort of the, you can't, it's not contrived. You can't force it. It's fleeting. And you know it when you feel it, but it's not gonna be conditioned, corralled, or demanded and happiness to me, like the corollary is functioning or numb or placid.
NORA: Yeah. Joy is so active. It's like a hummingbird. It's like, when you said that the fleetingness, I was like imagining like a mirror ball. Yeah. You know, and like when something, when like the light catches something and it just sort of refracts all over.
ELISE: So wait, this, not to go back, but did you go to the Taylor Swift concert by yourself?
NORA: I did.
ELISE: Is that how you like to go?
NORA: I didn't go intentionally by myself. I literally thought I had two tickets till I got to the gate. So
ELISE: Who did you invite? And then
NORA: Well all day I was like, I don't know who to go with. I wanted to bring Ralph. Thank God I didn't, it would be a sensory nightmare for that kid. Right? Even with like earplugs and these headphones over. No, too many people, too many crowds. Very, very loud. Even with earplugs, which I always wear. It happened that my, one of my best friends from growing up was in town visiting her in-laws in Phoenix. And I said, I have two tickets. And she was like, awesome. I go pick her up. We drive all the way there. We have like this beautiful hard tire conversation. We've cried, we've left. It's 45 minutes in the car. We park, we walk up there. I'm like, I have one ticket. And she goes, I'm not shocked. We've been through worse. We passed an olive garden a mile back. I'm gonna walk over there, have a glass of wine, take an Uber home, have fun and kisses me goodbye.
ELISE: Oh my God, what a friend hero.
NORA: She was like, we've been through versions of this numerous times. And we have, we have, we have, we have. But this was like the equivalent of like getting, like going to a club in your twenties and being like, look, they said I can only, I can go in.
ELISE: She’s like I’m gonna fine dine down the street. That Olive Garden house red is amazing.
NORA: myself a salad. I'm gonna, she's like, this is still a great night for
ELISE: She's like, never-ending breadsticks.
NORA: Never ending breadsticks and salad.
ELISE: Is it a salad bar?
NORA: No, it's a bowl. It's a glass ish bowl that's like, you know, the printed glass where it's like stamped glass. Yes. Like textured glass on the outside, sort of like resembles leaves
ELISE: Durable.
NORA: Yeah. And with tongs and you never get the dressing on the side. It's a crime.
ELISE: That is a delicious salad.
NORA: All iceberg, which is the greatest of the lettuces. And yes, I brought her, and then I didn't, and she's like, well no fairness. You did say you'd bring me to the concert. Not in. It's like.
ELISE: It's amazing.
NORA: Thank God I didn't have to like miss it cause I brought a kid. Right. You know? Oh yeah. And only had one ticket. Yeah. That would've been, I don't know what I would've done. I would've missed the show. It was a beautiful show. So, no, but I do, I like to go to stuff alone if I can.
ELISE: Yeah, yeah. And have that communion.
NORA: Yeah. And then the second night I went with my, my best friend Dave, Best Friend One to Best Friend Two, he flew down
ELISE: Oh, you went two nights in a row?
NORA: He got me those tickets for my 40th birthday, not knowing that I had gotten the one ticket, cause all he saw was me crying alone and be like, I didn't even get a ticket.
ELISE: What a friend.
NORA: What a friend. Yeah. He was like, yeah, you can take anyone you want. I was like, you mean you? Yeah. Like that's, if you get some tickets, it's me. And you we're going together.
ELISE: Yeah. I'm sure he was he thrilled that you asked.
NORA: Yeah. The week before he was like, oh shit. Okay. Yeah. I guess I'll be down.
ELISE: So this conversation with Nora, is the second ever Pulling the Thread that I did in person. And it’s funny, because when I cohosted a show before, I did almost every single episode, save for maybe one or two, until Covid, I did in person. And I couldn’t imagine doing it any other way, and I became so used sitting in my bedroom interviewing people. But, I have to say, being with Nora, both because I have known her for years without ever actually meeting her, I went to her show in LA, but we didn’t get a chance to physically meet, was such a pleasure because she is one of those rare people, who her insides match the outside, if that makes sense. I hope that you could feel the energy in the room and how emotional it felt at times. Anyway, I hope you love her as much as I do.
