Some Nerve is a weekly podcast for people who have the nerve to show up, talk about hard things that matter, and share our secrets. On Some Nerve, we discuss all the stuff your grandmother wouldn’t have wanted you to talk about at her bridge party. Topics will include whatever makes us feel human, like mental health, grief, trust, boundaries, and joy. We hope that understanding each other better will help us build deeper connections in our lives.
Join us every Wednesday!
In this episode, Justine introduces the podcast with her dad, letting us in as she attempts to define the itch that has kept her up at night and pushed her past the initial fear of judgment into actual recording and publishing a podcast.
Show Notes: (note: some links are affiliates to Bookshop.org, my favorite online way to buy books that supports local bookstores)
- “There’s nothing that can happen in life that we shouldn’t be able to talk about and share with one another.”
- The world you’re born into: Catholicism, identity, indoctrination
- Rows with our parents over teens flying away from the nest [3:00]
- Sex is a mortal sin: being handicapped by being raised Catholic and not talking about sex [5:00]
- Sex Ed, Puritan values, & 60’s Counterculture: Dismantling taboos by taking a lid off the proverbial puritan purity pot [7:30]
- Left Coast vs. Yankeedom: true progressiveness, book called American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America by Colin Woodward [8:30]
- Racism and Civil War reenactments [9:00]
- Clint Smith’s article in The Atlantic, “Why Confederate Lies Live On”
- My dad’s letter to the editor, published August 2021
- Book by Clint Smith, How the Word is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America
- “The heavy baggage of my family history is a racial karmic debt.” [11:50]
- “This was a wake-up call for me to start seeing things differently, and I will never again display any confederate symbol, for crying out loud.”
- [speaking about William Hair, a grandfather many greats back on the paternal side] “During some period pre-Civil War, his father was an overseer on a plantation. All these guys with the whips and shit were working for Grandpa Billy! That’s a heavy burden of debt right there, racial debt, and anyone who is complicit in it is guilty of violating the laws of humanity.”
- Intent versus impact: Talking about racism with kids and how to have difficult conversations [13:00]
- Generational wealth [14:30]
- Going to your annual physical and quitting drinking [19:00]
- “Alcohol is a carcinogen. It elevates your risk of getting cancer. It’s a poison, and the more poison you put in your body, you are incrementally increasing your cancer risk.”
- “For the first time in my life, I’m doing the math, and in 21 years I’ll be 90 years old! That’s a stunning revelation because I look back 21 years, and it doesn’t seem that long ago. I’m already starting to count the days. Life is precious, you know?… There are no guarantees how long you’re going to be around.”
- On vitality and what it is you find interesting about life:
- “Listen, I love life. I love life and I still feel, believe it or not, if life was being shot out of a canon like a roman candle, and you reach an apex, and then you fall down and when you hit the ground it’s over, I’m not climbing anymore, right? But I’m not far from having still been climbing. This is how I feel, and I’m not falling very fast yet. I’ve kind of leveled off maybe. That boundless love of life and sense of adventure that one feels as a youth, I still feel a lot of that. There’s still a lot of things I want to do and see. I am nowhere near saying, ‘Well, it’s been a good run.’ I want to hang around as long as I possibly can to see the youngsters growing up, but a lot of it is selfish. I’m nowhere near ready to throw in the towel. I’m still having fun, and I have a lot to do.”
- Parenting is never over, it’s just different
- Worrying about kids’ safety, but still letting go and letting them take risks
- “Thoughts become actions.” [26:20]
- Happiness seekers vs. meaning seekers: Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning
Some Nerve: A Podcast 