Contentment, Fulfillment, Good Health and Peaks of Joy
The Body, Brain, and Books: Eleven Questions with writer and broadcaster Pandora Sykes
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!
Pandora was the co-creator and co-host of the No.1 women’s culture podcast, The High Low, and is the host of The Missing, a podcast about long-term missing people, which was nominated for a British Podcast Award. She also hosts and produces an interview series, Doing It Right, about the trends, myths and anxieties of modern life. Pandora writes the newsletter
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What are you reading now?
I am reading The Fetishist by Katherine Min - it was posthumously published and it's utterly brilliant. I wish she was alive to see the response to her work.
What are your most beloved books from your youth? Did you ever hide any from your parents?
Matilda by Roald Dahl. And I loved Enid Blyton - particularly Malory Towers - although coming back to them as a parent, they don't have the same magic interestingly. I also read Jilly Cooper's books at a very young age, thanks to my older sisters. I didn't hide them from my parents but I did have to hide Polo etc from the nuns at school!
What’s your favorite book to reread? Any that helped you through a dark time?
I read easy, comforting fiction when I'm at a low ebb. Anything by Jill Mansell.
What’s an article of clothing that makes you feel most like you?
A suede jacket or coat. I have lots of vintage ones, whatever the trend or my style at that time, they have never not felt like me.
What’s the best piece of wisdom you've encountered recently?
What you see as your limitations are often your superpowers.
Tell me about any special relationship you’ve had with an animal, domestic or wild?
I had so many animals growing up, we lived in a real menagerie, so they mostly blend into one!! I now have a cat called Indi, she's almost 10 and extremely unfriendly. I admire her singularity.
What's one thing you are happy worked out differently than you expected?
Oh god, so many things have worked out differently to how I imagined - or more accurately, never imagined. We started The High Low as a hobby between two friends and it grew into a huge business which changed the trajectory of my career. I started my Substack in January because I was bored of sharing all my recommendations on Instagram Stories and now it's become one of my main jobs. I find things always work out differently when I follow my gut and go in with zero expectations.
Singing in the shower or dancing in the kitchen? Or another favorite way your body expresses itself?
I'm excessively hypermobile, so I love nothing more than sitting in child's pose, head on the floor. I'm happiest preztled up.
What are your hopes for yourself?
My hopes for myself - and by proxy my children (as they are intertwined for me): contentment, fulfillment, good health and peaks of joy.
What’s a kindness that changed your life?
My mother, every single day of my childhood and adolescence. The older I grow, the more I understand the daily sacrifices she made in order to be a wonderful mother to me and my siblings. I don't think I am nearly as selfless.
What’s a guiding force in your life?
My children are my guiding force. I know that sounds corny, but they galvanize me and offer me clarity. I need them as much as they need me.
Thanks Jane and Pandora for this inside look into another person's way of being. I love learning about other's lives because I feel like we're all doing it together even if it looks different.
Having an article of clothing that feels like you is the most amazing thing. I would have to say mind is an old Gap jean jacket that always seems current and now the many other jean jackets I have in different colors of blue - because who needs just one?! I love the suede jacket idea, might have to try that.
I've just learned about Pandora and her newsletter. Loved learning more about her!