Death, Sex & Money - A Weekend Homework Assignment From Tayari Jones
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4.2 • 2K Ratings
🗓️ 10 April 2020
⏱️ 9 minutes
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Summary
One of the things writer Tayari Jones has learned in isolation is mastering different forms of connection, from re-learning how to teach her college students over Zoom to sending money to friends in need. The simplest way she's connecting? Greeting cards! "People love to receive cards and I have so many of them and I just imagined that if people are at home alone feeling isolated, wouldn't it be nice to get a card even if it's the wrong holiday?"
In that spirit, this weekend we're asking you to send a greeting card to someone in your life. Send us pictures, record a voice memo and email us at deathsexmoney@wnyc.org by Monday morning.
Sign up for our newsletter today at deathsexmoney.org/newsletter. And follow our show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram @deathsexmoney. Got a story to share? Email us any time at deathsexmoney@wnyc.org.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is Death, Sex, and Money from WNYC. |
| 0:03.8 | I'm Anna Sale. |
| 0:05.4 | One of the things that's been helping me, as I've been self-isolating over the past few weeks, |
| 0:10.5 | has been checking in with some of the people I've talked to on the show over the years to see how they're doing. |
| 0:15.5 | And to inspire you for this weekend's homework assignment, |
| 0:18.9 | we wanted to share a check-in call I recently had with the writer |
| 0:21.8 | Tayari Jones, the author of the best-selling novel, An American Marriage. She and I first talked on |
| 0:27.8 | the show a few years ago, as she was getting ready to move from New York down to Atlanta, where she |
| 0:32.2 | grew up. She wanted to be closer to her aging parents, and she'd gotten a job on the faculty |
| 0:37.1 | at Emory |
| 0:37.7 | University. Now, like most universities, Emory has moved to online instruction for the rest of the |
| 0:44.2 | semester. So Tiari is leading an undergraduate writing seminar from her home via Zoom with mixed |
| 0:51.0 | success. We're doing our best, and I think that we're bonding over our effort to do our best. |
| 0:57.6 | But I feel that something's lost, and my biggest sadness is that I didn't get to say bye to them. |
| 1:02.8 | When I saw them last before their spring break, I was like, be careful, everybody, see you week after next. |
| 1:08.0 | And then we won't ever gather again. |
| 1:10.5 | Are you staying mostly home now |
| 1:12.2 | where you are? Yes, I'm staying home. I am staying home. I take a daily walk around the block, |
| 1:18.0 | otherwise I stay home. What have you noticed about it so far? Well, one thing I've learned is that I |
| 1:26.4 | enjoy my own company. I'm grateful for that. But I've also, I've learned a lot of things. I feel that I'm living more for myself because I'm alone in my house. I have my own audience for my life right now. And I think that is the positive thing that I'm learning about who I am. I'll be 50 years old. This is my 50th year. I'll be 50 |
| 1:47.5 | on my birthday. And this is the first time since I was a child that I can remember not worrying |
| 1:55.0 | about how I look. That has been really, I keep a journal and I'm just writing about all the ways that my life is changing right now, what that has taught me about the life I used to lead. |
... |
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