A Very Good Ordinary Every Day
The Body, Brain, and Books: Eleven Questions with writer Molly Wizenberg
Welcome to another edition of The Body, Brain, & Books. If you enjoy reading these quick, insightful interviews brimming with wisdom and hope, please subscribe to Beyond!
In a previous version of her life, Molly co-founded and co-owned (with chef Brandon Pettit) three Seattle restaurants: Delancey, Essex, and Dino’s Tomato Pie. In this version of her life — which suits her muuuch better — she teaches narrative nonfiction writing to adults, both online and in-person. She also cohosts the weekly comedy-and-food podcast Spilled Milk, where, with her friend and co-host Matthew Amster-Burton, she’s been chewing on-mic since 2010.
Molly lives in Seattle with her spouse Ash, daughter June, and son Ames, a dog named Gilbert, and an exuberantly incontinent guinea pig named Percy. She is occasionally on Instagram at @molly.wizenberg.
What are you reading now?
At any given time, I’m reading one novel and at least one nonfiction book. I like to read fiction at bedtime. A couple of nights ago I finished Loved and Missed, by Susie Boyt, and I’ll be thinking about that one for a while. Judging by the description, you wouldn’t think it would be funny, but it’s very funny – and tender, and affecting. I will miss being inside the narrator Ruth’s head.
As for nonfiction, I’m making my way through Fat Talk: Parenting in the Age of Diet Culture, by Virginia Sole-Smith. I’ve been reading it while I eat lunch, or if I have some free moments during the day. (It makes me think too much for bedtime reading – not a critique; a compliment.) Virginia Sole-Smith’s work is absolutely vital. I took Fat Talk into my daughter’s school a couple of weeks ago and asked her teacher and the head of school to read it.
And lately I’ve also been tearing through the audiobook of This American Ex-Wife, by
Lenz. God, it is THRILLING to read someone so unapologetic about the joy that can come from divorce, from freeing yourself from a situation that no longer fits. That was something I tried to evoke, too, in my memoir The Fixed Stars. I wish my book had come out this year instead of in 2020, when — even though it was only a few years ago! — we just weren’t having these same conversations about divorce. I love that we’re starting to talk about divorce as something other than a failure, and as not only an ending, but a beginning.What are your most beloved books from your youth? Did you ever hide any from your parents?
As a young child, I loved When the Wind Blew, by Margaret Wise Brown. We still have my copy from back then. It’s small, almost pocket-sized, with endearing illustrations by Geoffrey Hayes. Looking at the book makes my chest hurt, in a nice way.
And I love that you ask about hiding books. I remember going to the bookstore with one of my parents and coming home with a copy of Judy Blume’s Forever. Do you know it? I don’t think my parents did. They didn’t vet what I read, and anyway, I’d read tons of Judy Blume by that point. I was maybe ten years old. Maybe eleven. I was still young enough to have a bubblegum-pink bike with a banana seat and a white plastic basket on the handlebars. I’d heard that Forever was more ‘mature’ than other Blume books, but I didn’t know what that meant. How can you imagine a sex scene if you’ve never read one, watched one, or lived one? Well, Forever was my introduction to the genre. I read it as fast as I could, with sweaty palms, like I was getting away with something. I remember bicycling around the neighborhood with Forever in my bike basket, hidden under a wadded-up sweatshirt.
The only book I’ve read more than a couple of times is The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, Michael Chabon’s first novel. I picked it up the summer I was 16. I remember lying crosswise on the bed with my legs up the wall, reading it. It was my favorite book until I was probably 25. The narrator has sexual relationships with both a woman and a man, and I remember noticing that the way Chabon wrote it, the narrator’s queerness, or bisexuality – it wasn’t labeled – just seemed normal. I think I envied it a little, though I couldn’t have articulated it then.
What’s your favorite book to reread? Any that helped you through a dark time?
The Mysteries of Pittsburgh. I think I’ve read it four times. I’m not a rereader, so that’s a lot. I’ve also reread
’s novels What Belongs to You and Cleanness, twice each. Greenwell’s work makes me feel more than any other writer’s, and I’m someone who likes to feel things.I should also mention The Argonauts, by Maggie Nelson – not because I’ve reread it, but because I encountered it at a time when I really needed it. It was mid-2016, and I was separated from my husband and having my first queer encounters. The Argonauts gave me language for who I was becoming. It helped me to believe that my nascent queerness was real, and that I could trust myself.
What’s an article of clothing that makes you feel most like you?
ARQ underwear. Oh man. I can’t tell you how sad I am that they’re closing down. I never feel better than when I’m wearing their massively high-waisted underwear in some loud color. Admittedly, that’s a lot of fabric to wear under a pair of jeans, so I tend to wear them more for lounging around or under sweatpants or a dress. I also like the style they call their Misha undies – also high-waisted, but with a lower profile.
What’s the best piece of wisdom you've encountered recently?
About nine months ago, urged on by my friend Ben, I started a consistent journaling practice for the first time in my life. This may seem weird, but Ben and I text each other a snapshot of each day’s journal entry. We do it both for accountability and because we live very far apart – he’s in Memphis, and I’m in Seattle – and this turns out to be a quiet and steady way of staying in touch. The best piece of wisdom I’ve encountered in a long time came from Ben’s journal. It’s something he writes often: “Generosity is the path to abundance.” By ‘generosity,’ he means generosity of time, of attention. That phrase really struck me, and it’s had a huge impact on how I think about my days.
I want to clarify that women in a patriarchal culture, well, we do not need more encouragement to give of ourselves, our time, and our attention. They’re demanded of us at every turn. But when I have time and attention to spare, to offer without obligation or guilt or resentment, to offer freely and with intention, it feels almost radically good to give it. A couple of weeks ago, a friend mentioned over text that she and her two sons were sick, and there I was, sitting at my desk with a couple more hours of childcare, and I thought, I’ve got a quart of soup and a loaf of good bread in the freezer. I’m going to drive over there and leave it on their porch. It was a tiny gesture, but I have never been in the habit of doing things like that, you know? Dropping off a meal not because of a new baby or a death, but just because it’s awful to be sick, even with an ordinary little virus. It felt miraculous to be able to share what I had, to be able to care for them that way. Strangely, it made me feel cared for, too.
Tell me about any special relationship you’ve had with an animal, domestic or wild?
The first relationship that comes to mind is with my late dog Alice. Alice came into my life as a nine-month-old rescue that my then-husband and I brought home in the hope that it might help our other dog Jack, also a rescue, who suffered from terrible anxiety. At first, it seemed like a mistake: Alice was of course still a puppy, with all the puppy needs, and nothing really changed for our other dog. But Alice grew up to be a sort of holy presence in dog’s clothing. She asked almost nothing of us, but she gave us bottomless reassurance, easy companionship, and unflappable loyalty. I kept her when we divorced, and she was the emotional core of our family, especially within my second marriage. When she slept, she smelled like popcorn. I loved to plant kisses above her eyes, where there was a soft, padded spot. She would lie in the flowerbed while I gardened.. Alice had a sad face, but I think it’s just that she was dignified and wise. She died of vascular cancer on February 27, 2022, very suddenly. It was the most intense grief I’ve ever felt.
I also have to mention a horse named Boomer. I rode horses competitively as a kid and a teenager, then didn’t ride for 25 years, and started up again a couple of years ago. It feels revolutionary to just do it for fun, without a goal. My trainer lets me ride her horse Boomer, a Connemara-Thoroughbred cross who is (I think) 17 years old and was once an advanced-level eventing horse. He’s very sensitive and quirky and honest, and it feels like an honor to ride him. I grin pretty much the entire time.
What's one thing you are happy worked out differently than you expected?
Being queer! I did not see that coming. I also did not expect to be divorced. Or remarried. And I did not expect to be a mother of two. I grew up an only child, and I loved being an only child, and I was very comfortable having an only child, too – my daughter June, who is now eleven years old. It’s been wonderful, and difficult, and wonderful, the decision to have a second child with my spouse Ash. Ash carried him, and his name is Ames. I still can’t believe it. He turned one in January, and we are crazy in love and very tired. June is a brilliant big sister.
Singing in the shower or dancing in the kitchen? Or another favorite way your body expresses itself?
I love to dance. As a kid, maybe 10 or 11 years old, I won a dance marathon at the bar mitzvah of a family friend. Now I’m that lady dancing to Wham! in the cleaning products aisle at Target.
What are your hopes for yourself?
I want to keep becoming myself. I want to get more comfortable with disappointing other people. I want to write more books. I want to travel alone more, like I did before I had a child.
What’s a kindness that changed your life?
My mother, who is 77, moved from Oklahoma City to Seattle in 2015, and she lives a block from us. I can see her house from our living room! Having her as a neighbor is something I absolutely never expected in life. She and I have always been close, but I couldn’t imagine her leaving Oklahoma, where she lived for 40 years and where my dad died in 2002. I think I thought that if she ever did leave Oklahoma, it would be to move to California, to be closer to her identical twin sister Tina. But Tina died at 65, in 2012, of pancreatic cancer. It was horrible. So it feels especially poignant to have my mother nearby at this point in her life, and at this point in my life. She’s our neighbor, our friend, a grandmother to both June and Ames, and also a caregiver for Ames a couple of afternoons a week. She is tremendously generous with her time and her presence, and that’s a kindness so big, I have a feeling I’m hardly even seeing it all. I love seeing her with Ash – they share a love for celebrity gossip! I love seeing her with our children. Ames beams when she comes into the room.
What’s a guiding force in your life?
The quality of my everyday life. That sounds kind of dull when I write it out, but I will try to explain. I have always cared about having an everyday life where I feel at home – where I feel at ease with my people and our animals, where there is good food, where there are books and blankets and a healthy appreciation for naps. I’m a homebody, and so is my spouse. The life I (and we) like to have might look boring to some people, ha? But I have worked hard, and continue to work hard, to make choices that align with this kind of life, a very good ordinary every day.
"But I have worked hard, and continue to work hard, to make choices that align with this kind of life, a very good ordinary every day."
Yes. That's my bucket list, right there.
This is such a great series.
I loved the last comment ! I too am a homebody and catch alot of grief from my friends ( " why don't you want to travel ? Why don't you ....?). Molly captured exactly how I feel in this regard. I'm newly retired and just want to live in my everyday life.