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PHOEBE M. T. - INTERVIEW #12
HOW TO ENGAGE: WATCH by clicking the video up top (or visit YouTube), LISTEN by clicking the audio link below.
THE BREAKDOWN:
0:00 - Thank you - to my first friend in high school and my (lifesaving) landlord during the pandemic.
9:25 - What’s in a name? Phoebe vs. Morgan
19:20 - A full time plumber since 22yrs old. (A home builder / construction worker)
23:00 - A great deal of loss at a young age.
24:30 - Motherhood (an intergenerational thing)
34:20 - How about friendships? (a chance for reinvention and also very difficult)
40:00 - An outsider and code-switcher extraordinaire. (The language games of growing up in Montreal)
47:27 - There are consequences to every choice and the deuil that comes for us all.
56:50 - The addictive quality of (being good at) work.
1:01:00 - What Phoebe wants: optimization (making the most out of what is available).
DEBRIEF:
The summer prior to starting high school I left Montreal (where I had been living for my entire life up to that point) and moved to a small town in Ontario with my mother, her new boyfriend, and his young daughter, whose mother had recently past away from the flesh eating disease (remember that one?!). To make a long story short, things did not work out for me in this tiny town, and I ended up moving back to Montreal (without my mom) and beginning my secondary education a couple of months late. Needless to say, I was a very unstable child at that moment in time. What I remember however, was walking into those asbestos soaked halls of my high school, and meeting Phoebe.
Phoebe was definitely an outsider, a punk kid, even when we were twelve, that much was obvious. I was an outsider too though, in a different way, but nonetheless on the outside. And so we became friends. I don’t remember feeling scared or alone for even one second in that time period, and I thank Phoebe for that. For giving me the kind of safe acceptance and connection that I needed more than ever in that moment. And then it was like POOF - she was gone. I mean, obviously she didn’t disappear, she just left our high school, but that’s kinda how it felt. I made new friends and we both moved on, as kids do. I saw her around over the years, I knew she was “doing well”, but in my mind she remained my first high school friend and that was that.
Then, roughly 20 years later, in March of 2020, my already crumbling life completely decimated. It culminated in a desperate facebook post reaching out for a (*emphasis on cheap*) place to live, like right away. To my surprise, Phoebe replied. She asked if I was interested in renting the place above hers. They owned the building and had been meaning to renovate but, well, things were a bit on pause at that moment in time so it was vacant (and very cheap). And if I didn’t mind the nicotine drenched ghosts that lived in the walls, then it was mine. I did not. I was overjoyed. I WAS SAVED.
Then, for the next 6 months, all I saw was Phoebe (and whoever else I passed on my daily walks to nowhere land). It was actually pretty remarkable. One of those moments where you wonder what in the hell this trickster universe is up to placing you in lockdown with your old friend from high school. Giving you both an interesting mirror to peer into. The mirrors of who we had become. And once again, perhaps, giving us both the exact kind of connection we needed in an extreme moment of chaos and uncertainty. And then - POOF - I was gone, off to New York. Like it had never happened at all.
But of course it happened. I even wrote a feature film about it to prove it. Maybe one day I will be able to look at that script again. But until then, I have this, an interview where I ask all the questions I could have asked Phoebe (but didn’t) while we sat on the balcony together, in the dark, and tried to wrap our heads around “the future”.
All to say, meet Phoebe, she’s a really cool lady and I’m grateful to have her in my life.
THOUGHTS & THINGS: (My post-its edition)
In lieu of writing this section, and because I have just unpacked and set up my desk area in my new apartment, I am going to share a sampling of the post-it notes that have been in my work space since I moved into that place above Phoebe. Words that have helped and inspired me through the uncertainties.
Just some light hearted daily quotes you might want to integrate into your world.
TO CONCLUDE:
I’d like to end here by noting the place where Phoebe and I end our discussion - on the difficult and inevitable feeling of deuil that comes with being a human being. It’s a French word meaning mourning or grief and it’s a feeling that I have become quite familiar with. It’s also something that I have seen almost everyone close to me experience once or twice or many more than that times in their lives. I’d like to avoid saying something cheesy here, something that offers an easy answer and oversimplifies or squashes truth. So I’ll just say this - I started this newsletter/podcast thing to try and reveal (mostly to myself) something that I wasn’t seeing honestly portrayed in the world. And I think Phoebe (and every single one of the people I have talked to) nailed it - in their own way. Life is hard, contradictory, uncertain, unfair, and founded on consequences to the choices we make. Consequences that force us to mourn and grieve and grow and then make more choices. Choices we inevitably make because we are who we are, for better or for worse. Perhaps I’m deeply naive, but it’s taken me a VERY long time to get this shit.
Anyways, thank you to everyone who has let me talk to them on the internet and everyone who has spent some of their time on this page. Good luck out there and more soon.
Thank you for reading A LIFE BASED LOOSELY ON REALITY! Please like or comment on this post below and share it with a friend who you think would enjoy it. Right now all of my posts are free, but any and all financial support is deeply appreciated. Paid subscriptions will go towards helping to support my work and develop this project. More about me here.
Send interview inquiries to vanessameyer85@gmail.com.
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