Radio Manu, Papa Tchango.

Band Music

Greetings, Earthlings. I come to you in peace. We've landed here in Topanga Canyon. It's not on fire.

Ohai is surrounded by flames. I have friends in Ohai. It's a beautiful place. Hope they're all right.

This episode is with Micah Springer. She is an author and I believe a yoga entrepreneur. I think she mentioned she has a bunch of yoga studios in the Denver area.

So if you are a flexible person living in the Denver area, you may know Micah.

In any case, this is one of these episodes where someone who listens to the podcast wrote to me and said,

I think you should meet my friend Micah. She just wrote a book about her experiences in Africa and then I corresponded with Micah a little bit and sounded really interesting and she was going to be in LA for some stuff.

She came by and we chatted. So join us, won't you? Her experiences are fascinating. It's something I've thought a lot about actually both from a professional and a personal perspective.

It's largely about the experience of connecting with someone from a different world.

Which is sort of just an amplification of what happens every time you connect with anyone because we all live in our own worlds.

But when you have a connection, you have a cross-cultural or a trans-cultural relationship with somebody. A lot of things become very clear because they're so amplified.

Things that you might not notice or you might not think about when you're with someone from your own culture.

I've had three probably, I would say three major relationships in my life. The first was with a woman who was Puerto Rican born in the South Bronx in New York.

No money, welfare, foster care when she was growing up, abusive parents, just difficult situations.

Totally different world that my white upper middle class suburban white boy, caddying at the country club for spending money on the weekends kind of existence.

The second woman was French Spanish woman. I met in Barcelona who came with me and lived with me in San Francisco for a while when I was in grad school.

She spoke English very well, but again, very different culture. She was also 11 years younger than me. So there was like a generational distance as well.

And then the third woman is Cassilda who, as you probably know, if you listen to this, is born and raised in Mozambique, civil war, Indian, Hindu, Muslim, mixed family, then in Portugal, medical school, I mean, totally different world.

So my own experience has been, you know, I was going to say, I don't know if it's because I was living in foreign countries, that's just where I happen to meet these women.

But the first woman was in the US and that was another world within the US. But I think it's also I'm attracted to that. I like that difference. I like bridging a wide chasm with some of my family.

With someone I like the exoticism. I like the challenges.

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