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Everything Happens with Kate Bowler

Dani Shapiro: Family Secrets

Everything Happens with Kate Bowler

Everything Happens Studios

Health & Fitness, Religion & Spirituality, Society & Culture

4.84.7K Ratings

🗓️ 23 February 2021

⏱️ 40 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Who are we when we can't answer where we're from? Who are we when we can't locate ourselves on family trees or on familiar religious traditions or among genetic traits? How do we live after we thought what was true about our identity is totally upended? In this conversation, Kate speaks with writer Dani Shapiro about uncovering life-altering and long-hidden family secrets, what it means to belong, and what to do when the truth is… complicated. For show notes, transcripts, and discussion questions: https://katebowler.com/podcasts/ Sign up for our free daily Lenten reflections at https://katebowler.com/lent To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

I'm Kate Boehler and this is Everything Happens.

0:04.0

I'm a historian, author, aggressively fast walker, but lately in a world that promises endless

0:10.9

progress, even now in a pandemic, I've realized I just need to be a person.

0:18.4

It's hard to give up on the feeling that the life you want is just out of reach, if

0:23.7

only you tried.

0:26.0

Make this food, find that relationship, just get the kids graduated or the parents this

0:31.6

kind of care.

0:33.4

Only then will I feel different, better, whole.

0:39.3

But that's not the way this works.

0:42.1

When I was 35, I was diagnosed with stage war cancer, and here's the very fun thing about

0:47.5

that.

0:48.5

The world loves you better when you are shiny, when you are cheerful, when you still

0:53.8

believe that your best life now is right around the corner.

0:57.9

I've written multiple books on the history of the idea that you can always fix your life,

1:03.2

so I'm going to be the one to say it.

1:05.7

There are some things we can change and some things we can't, and it's okay that life

1:12.0

isn't always getting better.

1:14.7

We can have beauty and meaning, community and love, and we will need each other if we're

1:21.2

going to tell the truth.

1:23.4

Life is a chronic condition, and there's no cure for being human.

1:34.4

Who am I?

1:36.3

Sometimes we answer that question by describing our roles.

...

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