Spreading joy and harmony, in our joint discovery. Finding connection. Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh. Ritual Sister. Welcome to Ritual Sister's Pod.

On today's episode, we have straight from Derry Public Radio, the amazing Josh Kahn. Derry Public Radio is a book club podcast for Stephen King fans, and on today's episode, we talk all things reading, Stephen King, building community through reading, processing life transitions through reading, all sorts of good stuff. So enjoy! Bye! 

All right. Welcome Josh Kahan. We are so excited to have you here. Yay. I'm excited to be here. Who are you? What's going on? Oh, man. Ah, I'm a nobody who does nothing. Aw . I am, um, I am a retired burlesque show host. Oh, okay. I did not know that. Truly, Josh. I was a, I was a burlesque host for 10 years.

Actually I have a around my office somewhere. There's a, um, when I retired, they made me a vinyl pop of me in my host gear. That's yeah. So yeah, I, I, um, I retired from that when my wife and I had our first child. Uh, she is now three and, uh, as much of a terror as all three year olds are, but the absolute light of my life.

Uh, and so in addition to being a dad, I run a podcast, Dairy Public Radio, a Stephen King book club podcast. And I am an executive assistant at a law firm in, in my day job. Wow. Wait, how did you go from burlesque host to executive? How did this happen? This is, this is honestly a really crazy story. This, uh, how I got this job is a trail of connections that I built for years.

I was, uh, working at the, uh, hospital. nearby. And when I was doing improv, I was improvising with a few people who were on a morning radio show, our local radio show B 100. And I just started asking like on off days, can I come into the studio and hang out? And they said, sure, come on in and I came in and I have a very loud laugh.

So even though I wasn't on mic, people were hearing me in their cars. Oh, I love it. And so they started putting me on mic. So I kind of became an unofficial member of this morning show every once in a while. And then I was also doing burlesque, so flash forward decade later, where my wife goes out of town and I tried to tell my work that I need to work remote for a week.

My work doesn't normally let that happen. I'd burned all my my vacation time because I'd gone to Hope's wedding, my sister in law's wedding. And I was just like, I need this break. I need, uh, and I, oh, and I just finished filming a movie. That is doing festival circuits right now. What? Yeah, my mask is up on my wall here too.

It's the mask I rob a bank in. Oh, wait, so are you an actor in the movie? I am, and I'm one of the leads. I'm a, I'm a robber. Ooh, gosh, you are so multi talented. Well, thank you. Kelly's also a robber, I just want to say. She, um, in real life, she will get a water cup at a restaurant and get soda. I mean, she admitted to it the other day.

We were talking about white lies, and I was like, oh man, I'm feeling judged. , , the, the, the statute of limitations is blown on that. You're good. . Yeah, . But so I, um, I, I, I tell my work, all right, well, I'm not showing up 'cause I, I can't. And so I was taking my daughter on a walk to a park nearby and rage applying for jobs.

And I saw this job pop up for the executive assistant for the head of a law firm, and I've done a bunch of movies. I also did a seven episode web series called Against the Odds that you can find out there on the interwebs. So I have a lot of pre production, like that's my jam. And being an executive assistant is basically pre production for a human.

And so I applied. Turns out, I get a phone call, the person who had my job before me was a long time burlesque fan, big fan of mine. What? Yes. Oh, it is the world. So she slipped me into the second round of interviews for this job. I come in, do my interview, I think it goes well. Come to find out I get the job.

Come to find out. The host, the main host of that radio show, not the friend that got me into the radio show, the main guy, is a very good friend of my boss. And he called him and said, Hey, uh, Josh Kahn applied. What do you think? And without skipping a beat, he said, He's exactly the guy you need. So, these connections that I had made ten years ago, just doing my creative stuff, These people didn't know me in a professional setting.

They just saw me in my element and it all came to a head here. Kelly, I don't know if you've heard this. Um, there's this thing in yoga that the term is Dharma, right? Do you have Dharma, which is your like destiny. And I've heard it described in yoga as like, you're like a sieve and throughout your life, you're kind of like filling these holes in the sieve.

So that when your destiny arrives, you're ready to catch it. Oh! Oh. Isn't that cool? That rules. The power of destiny, man. Yes. That's awesome. Yeah, but that's me in a nutshell. So your daughter's Mallory, right? Yes. Would you say that she's a three nager? Oh, a thousand percent. Fun fact, I am in the process of interviewing to be on a game show on Fox.

Can't say more than that at this time. But in the conversation with the casting producers, she also had a three year old and we were talking about the COVID babies and how it seems like they are All in being three majors, the three year olds coming that were born during COVID are just like fiercely independent and have strong opinions.

Everything has to be by her rules and I have to explain to her, like I taught her, we taught her how to play tag. To get that, to get those zoomies out. Uh, and she'll start running and be like, all right, now, no, you chase me. And I was like, babe, that's not how it works. How the game works. You can't just decide unilaterally.

Yeah.

But man, it's magic watching kids develop those, the long term things, like we take playing tag for granted as adults, that we could just pick them and play tag with any generic stranger, but like a kid, man, they don't know, you gotta, you gotta build the building block of that game in their soul. That would be an interesting video experiment, is just to be out and about and just like tag an adult, just see what happens, see how people respond, take off a dead sprint.

Oh, Josh. Well, just love hearing all these different aspects of your identity. Um, and I'm sure we'll hear more. We are curious, you know, especially this being the ritual sisters pod. What your own relationship is like to ritual or ceremony. I know some people feel more connected to one of those words. I was thinking a lot about the rituals in my life.

And I realized that I am, am kind of a ritual whore. Oh, yes. That's the first time someone said that to us. It's. Coming from an actor background, we're very superstitious people. So, uh, like, you can't say Macbeth backstage. If you do that, everything's gonna go wrong. Someone, someone will get hurt. Have you ever literally broken your leg before a show?

No, I have not. I did, I did a show once. Uh, it's the best show I ever did. Uh, it's called Ghost of a Chance. And the premise of the show is my character, before the play even begins, I'm gored to death by a moose at my hunting lodge. I I crawl back to my hunting lodge and die. And then the play opens years later, my widow and her new husband.

Her husband, or her new fiancé, are coming to the cabin because it's finally come time to air it out, sell it, move on with her life. Them coming back to the cabin awakens my ghost, and I'm a narcissist. And, uh, she's the only one who can see me, and I basically spend the whole first act trying to get her to leave her fiancé to be with a ghost.

And like there's, I got to do a bunch of physical comedy and like I did a flip over a couch at one point to land next to someone who couldn't see me and it was such a delight. I love being an invisible character, but I completely lost my voice. Absolutely. I, I, and I'm the lead in the show and it was the, like, I was ripping my throat to shreds every night doing that show.

It was like the worst pain I'd been in doing a show, but there's a, we have a dinner theater here in the Quad Cities. It's one of the last musical dinner theaters in the country and there's a place around the corner that sells this stuff called Magic Voice. I don't know what's in it. I didn't ask the pharmacist.

Uh, the, you just take a little dropper and you take it and you have a voice for the next two hours. Just don't ask the ingredients. Yes, exactly. We don't need to know that. I, I don't need to know. I just need to get through this run of shows.

I also, my wife pointed out to me that when I do improv, I have, I don't have a uniform for improv, but I have a uniform for improv. Like there are certain clothes that I wear when I'm going to do improv because they're just there. They are what puts me in that zone. I think that I took that from acting.

I'm a very much, uh, I'm an external actor. I like to have my costume pieces and get into the character's skin. And then I kind of can build that character. So it's a lot about what I'm wearing. And so I have a lot of. Uh, rituals tied to that is deciding what the correct costume is for a role. And I go through a lot of different variations for that.

So are you very, are you thoughtful in the moment? Or is it just like you kind of, you just have your set? Yeah, um, I have, it's, uh, I, I definitely have kind of set uniforms, I guess. So for instance, there was a show we did called Shots and Giggles, where we would do college drinking games and improv on stage.


And for our normal shows, we were button up, white shirt, black pants, I had red suspenders. And for Shots and Giggles, the red suspenders would stay, but they would be hanging down. And it was something about the ritual of whether the, the suspenders are up here or they're down here changes the whole vibe.

It's so weird that I just, I never noticed it till I paid attention to it. But it's, it's the energy I brought to the hosting. It was the style I hosted in. Just taking those straps down. New me. I think that is something that is really cool about ritual is that It, it can just be that symbolic piece of it that kind of taps into a different part of your brain.

It's like, yeah, I feel like we can really easily dismiss those kind of things from like more of the like cognitive like thinking mind. But we have so many other Aspects in our brains that do think more in that way, if that makes sense. Yeah, it's, I, I like to make my rituals automatic because it's, it's about building who I am.

These, these rituals are all a part of me. They're how I present myself in any given situation. Uh, it's whether I approach it. Meeting people and I'm I'm on or not. I've trained myself to subconsciously adapt And I take on those, those different approaches, I guess. Josh, I so deeply resonate with this. I feel like what you're saying, there's like this embodiment piece of like, I can see the suspenders falling.

Right. And you're like, Ooh, and I'm really intrigued. Cause I grew up as a rhythmic gymnast. So I performed. A lot, most of my upbringing. And so there is now I'm like, so curious about, yeah, like actors and anyone that's in this performance realm, especially right with gymnastics. We had a full face of makeup.

Our hair had to be a certain way. Leotards unit, you know? Yeah. It's just really interesting. So thank you for sharing all of that. Sure. Yeah. Did you guys watch the Simone Biles documentary on Netflix? Oh, I haven't. Because I learned about, um, so with gymnastics, it's like, I forget what they call it. It's like the spins or something.

Oh, she talked about this on a podcast and it's the, it is the spins. Yeah, so it's like the movement of gymnastics becomes so like ingrained. It's like that implicit memory that you don't have to think about. But if you, if something like shifts a little bit, Then you can lose that and it can be so dangerous, but I'm thinking about that with other kind of performance activities where you do have to kind of just get into that embodiment piece.

Like if you're thinking about how do I move my elbow and which foot am I putting forward? Like, you're not going to be able to do what you need to do. So you do need to get into that kind of like flow of things. Well, in jumping back to burlesque, I hosted my persona was the ghost of vaudeville. Um, that was how, what I hosted as so, uh, like bowler hat, cane, all that.

And because I'm hosting a burlesque show and I am a character burlesque shows, the audience talks back. So I've dealt with many hecklers, people who thought they were very funny interacting with me. And part of getting myself in the zone, like the rituals that turned me into the ghost of vaudeville for the night.

I need that because I have to be on my toes and be able to respond in tone, in character, in a way that doesn't break the flow of a live performance show. Mm hmm. Josh, what about when the night's ending? Like, now I'm thinking about the opposite end, like the other book end, when, you know, the show's over and you're heading home.

Are there any rituals to close out the experience? Yeah. Oh, that's a great question. There's a bar district right by where we perform, and there's a, a guy who has had for years a, just a food pop up that he does Chinese food and like meat skewers and crab ragoons and stuff. So it would post show would almost always be.

Going to a bar called M. D. Green's for karaoke. We would invite the entire audience to join us for the after party at karaoke. So we would fill up this bar and, you know, you'd get a chance to, to talk to the fans. And, and, you know, celebrate the, the wonderful show you all did. And then we would get our Chinese food and Uber home.

Wow, I love that. And so like the, I really enjoyed, I used to avoid after parties a lot because I thought they were a little self congratulatory and it wasn't my vibe, despite the fact that I most often play a narcissist, I am not. It's almost like over, like you have to find the homeostasis, you know, you're like over corrected.

And it was nice to be able to turn that off a little bit with the fans also. Because they got to know a little bit more of the difference between onstage me and offstage me During those after parties because it was it wasn't about hey, come to this thing and tell me how great I am It was we're all having a good time.

Let's keep the good time going come hang out with us Yeah, I was actually just thinking about this earlier today, because we're, um, we just told you we're hosting a podcast launch party. And we're, yeah, we really, as Ritual Sisters, we lean into the celebration and honoring. You know, big moments and I think our society does oftentimes think about it as like narcissistic or like cheesy or something, but I, I think it can be so nice just to honor like, okay, this was a nice moment.

I'm just going to honor it. And how often in life do we get time to just like, enjoy a nice moment? Absolutely. You're the memories are going to fade from those times, but you can remember that you took the time to appreciate them. And that's enough. Yeah, those memories really stand out in a different way.

So, Josh, um, we know you love reading. Sure do. And we want to

start by just learning more about what your relationship to reading's been like throughout your life. I've always been a pretty avid reader. My mom, Used to buy me the, um, the illustrated classics. So they're just basically abridged versions of classics to make it easier for younger kids to read them.

And, uh, my mom tells this story all the time that, uh, in, I think, fourth grade, I did a book report for extra credit. Uh, on little women and my teacher, no, it was third grade. And my teacher was like, did he actually read little women? Like, cause it's, it's long. Yeah. And it's, it's, it's dry for a third grader, but because I had, I had grown up reading those illustrated classics.

Like a little women was the first. Unabridged of those I'd ever read and so it's always stuck out in my head, but yeah It's it made me a really avid reader. And then in my hormonal years, I got away from reading. Oh Interesting. Yeah, I just kind of got away from it. It fell off my plate in favor of video games The video games.

I love telling, uh, trying to get my wife to watch some of the games I do play because I love the storytelling that games can do. That is. I've had video games make me cry because the power of the storytelling is so strong and people, uh, largely undercut the, the art from the, from video games because they think of it as.

Frivolous, but there are some stories that are told in by the player. You are participating in it. You will become extra invested. It feels more like your story. And so it, it draws you in the same way. Reading does. It brings you into the world because you're committing so much more than just the two hours to watch the movie version, let's say.

You're committing hours more into this world, into these characters, and it feels more real. And I realized getting back into reading that that is what games did for me in that lull where I got away from it. So I never, I never got away from the love of storytelling. I just got away from the act of reading.

That is a really cool parallel. I've never thought about it like that. Never. Yeah, thank you Josh. Wow. Yeah, absolutely. I loved, um, when I was Harry Potter in the video game and you got to go into the bean room and get all the jelly beans. That was my moment. That was the most moved I've ever felt by a video game.

Praying it wasn't the earwax one, that's all. Yes, exactly. Reading really picked back up for me at the start of Dairy Public Radio, which is coming up on it's, it'll be seven years in May that we've been doing the show. Yeah. So many congratulations. Thank you. Incredible. Thank you. And it's just, it's changed my relationship with reading because now, uh, we are a book club.

Style podcast. So we tell our listeners, Hey, at the top of this episode, we're reading from this chapter to this chapter spoilers, or just tune in and risk it. And it's been so interesting because now I'm taking notes on my reading. So I have to slow down. So that I can take it in more and then prepare to go into a room with two other people who have, who read the same thing.

But we all know you can read the same thing four or five different ways. So coming to the table with people with different perspectives is so interesting because we can talk about the same scene and the completely different ways we interpreted it. Yes, I think, yeah, we definitely want to talk more about building community with reading because it's such a solitary activity.

And I was, I was reading a lot on my own before Hope, your sister in law started the book club here. And it was so nice to all of a sudden take this like hobby that I've been just doing on my own and bring it into that space. Cause it's true. Like as you're reading, now you're feeling already in community because you're thinking about Oh, I wonder what other people are going to be thinking about this, or this is going to be a fun topic to discuss as a group.

So it's, even when you're reading by yourself, you're kind of thinking more in community. We, we talk on our show that Stephen King has a lot of kingisms, and one of his that has really just stayed with me through everything is so many. Characters say, This story I'm about to tell you happened to me twenty whatever years ago.

I've never shared it until now. Because the act of sharing something like this, the act of putting something like this into words makes it smaller. Because something so impactful happens to you, but when you try to tell someone about it They won't. They can't experience the moment the way you did. And so by sharing it.

That person made your moment smaller. And I feel like with books, because that's a solitary hobby, and again, you're getting into someone else's mind, some other stories world that the idea of. Sharing it with your community, with your book club community, is the way of making it big again. Because you get to share what your takeaways from a story that, you know, in world is a, a one off told to a person, let's say.

And so I, I've always liked that the idea of discussing it reverses. It's like an expansion. Yeah. Oh, that's really deep. Okay. I'm taking it. I'm taking what you both have shared. I'm like, whoa. Josh, did we want to, because your podcast. is specifically you focus on Stephen King books. And so we're wondering, yeah, just what you love about Stephen King specifically, and just, yeah, if you can go into that a little bit.

Yeah, Stephen King is, in my opinion, One of the, uh, the best authors to, to do it. He has written something in nearly every genre. My, one of my favorite things is finding people who've never read a Stephen King book because it's too scary. And so I asked them, okay, what's, what's your favorite book or what's your favorite genre of a book?

And then I, uh, on my shelf, these are all extras behind me. People will donate, like if, if somebody I've had people who like, uh, I'll. A loved one has passed away, and they've had a collection of books, and like, I don't know what to do with it, like, do you? And so I will take them, and I give them to people. I will hand select books to personally give people, because I think that's the book they'll connect to.

Ooh, even that's a fun ritual. Yeah, that is a very fun ritual. Yeah, to build a community around reading is to, like, think about, like, each person, like, what they would really gravitate towards. My, uh, my best friend since we were infants, our moms were best friends growing up. He was just over here and his daughter is 12 now.

And I gave her her first Stephen King. I gave, I, I was like, you know, what are you, what are you reading? What are you into right now? Blah, blah, blah. And so I gave her Firestarter, which I don't know if either of you are familiar with Firestarter. I know of it. I've never read it. Ooh, I want to know more. A big, a big theme of it.

It follows Charlie, who is a little girl who essentially has pyrokinesis. She, she can create fire. She can set fires and it's an alarming strength of power. Like she basically has the sun inside her, let's say for dramatic sake. And while on the surface. The story is about a girl with superpowers running away from a government organization that's trying to catch her.

What it's truly about is handling complex emotions. The themes between acceptance and repression, like what, what do these things do to you as you develop? How the themes of trusting, how do you, how do you come to trust an adult when you've never. been given the opportunity to trust anyone outside your family.

Who do you like? There's a lot of complexities that deal with really a little girl having to figure out the world around her and not being able to trust anyone but herself. It's such a good book. So good. Yes. And something that I really love about Stephen King, which you're kind of touching on is also that.

the age, like how you can start it at this younger age and get a lot out of it and then it can expand into your adulthood and then you're getting different things out of his work. Jay, my husband, the night that we met, that's what we bonded over is that we both loved Stephen King and he started reading when he was younger and kind of, bridge into this gap.

So did you also start reading Stephen King when you were at that kind of like formative age? No, I, I'm odd. I missed the bus, uh, that a lot of my peers did. Um, I, I kind of, I didn't get into Stephen King. I grew up reading mostly science fiction and fantasy. That was my jam. And, uh, When I was a, uh, when I was a senior in high school, my girlfriend at the time was a big Stephen King fan and she was like, she used to talk about it all the time.

And what really interested me was she would talk about the interconnectedness of Stephen King's universe and which is just, it's amazing. And so she gave me Needful Things, which is, uh, it takes place in Castle Rock, which is one of Stephen King's fictional cities in Maine, that Castle Rock, uh, or, Needful Things is like the fifth Castle Rock book, and it's the last Castle Rock book.

So it has a lot of the build up. There are things referenced from every other story that's happened in Castle Rock that it doesn't necessarily, it doesn't impact the story, but it's just, it's those little Easter eggs that make the world feel real and give the world. It gives Castle Rock a sinister history.

So you feel it the whole time you read. Oh, nice. Um, Jay wanted to know what you thought of the Needful Things movie. Which I don't, I've never seen it so I don't even know. Okay, um, I have in my possession, have not watched it, the three hour cut. That was released in Germany because the, the, the movie is bad.

The movie's bad. Um, Okay, but that's what I'm picking up on. I was like, I feel like The, the story's so good. A tiny snippet into Needful Things. The premise is a shop opens up in Castle Rock named Needful Things. And it's kind of a curio shop. It's, it's kind of odds and ends. People come in and it just so happens.

They find the exact thing they've been looking for. So the first character that buys something is a little boy named Brian Rusk and him and his dad. He collected baseball cards and they collected specifically 1984 baseball cards and the key, the one he is missing is a rookie, Sandy Koufax. And just so happens, this man Leland Gaunt reaches in, pulls out a signed rookie, Sandy Koufax.

That happens, the inscription says, To my good friend Brian, Best wishes, Sanford Koufax. And so not only is it autographed, but it's made out to Brian, and the man sells it to him for the change in his pocket, and a favor. And that favor is this woman in the neighborhood, he wants Brian to go throw mud on her sheets.

Keep in mind, no one in town has met this man, so he shouldn't even know who this woman is or that her sheets are out. How does he know any of this? And that is the way this book sets up dominoes. Everybody who comes in gets an item for a cost and a favor. And it sets up dominoes that invariably destroy this whole town.

It's amazing. It's my favorite Stephen King book. We'll add it to the list. That does sound so interesting. Yeah, it's it's wonderful. But yeah, the movie, the movie is terrible. It, uh, it makes some weird choices about characters that we should redeem that we have no reason to redeem. Yes, it's kind of a mess, but it tries really hard to fit a lot of complexity into like an hour and a half and it just doesn't happen.

So I'm excited to watch the three hour version and see how that stacks up. So I'll reach out. I'll let you know. Please do. We'll need update. Yeah, I feel like Adaptations are just, they're always a hot topic with, um, books, like, I think that can be, like, another layer of the community piece, is just, you can go watch something with other people, you, technically you can read with other people, but it's not really the same experience, you know, um, so I think that just, it's cool that, to have an author that you, uh, You know, you know, their story, you know, the interconnectedness, there's adaptations that you can, even if you hate them, you can like, get all fired up about all the things they did wrong and everything.

Oh, we did some of the episodes, we've covered the adaptations and we have just railed against them so hard. There are some terrible adaptations, but there are also some just beautiful adaptations. So it's a good balance. You get a good mix of garbage and greatness. Yeah, I feel like every five minutes somebody's trying to adapt Stephen King.

Are you familiar with the Dollar Baby program? No. It just ended this past year. I've interviewed a bunch of them on my show. In the 70s, Stephen King took a bunch of his unpublished work and put them out to people to adapt to films for a dollar. So you would pay a dollar and you'd have the rights to a Stephen King short story for a year.

The caveat being you just can't make any money. You can't show it publicly. It's for basically proof of concept. People have sent them to film festivals and have had great success in their career because they had the chance to make a Stephen King dollar baby. And I have been very, very fortunate to have seen a ton of them and interviewed a bunch of those filmmakers on our show.

So it is wild. I have seen Stephen King adaptations that were made for 50. You know, it's, it's crazy, the, the passion from fans to get, to have their piece on the Stephen King community by truly having adapted a short story and a Stephen King has, gets a copy of every single Dollar Baby that's been made.

It's just, it's wild, like the amount of adaptations that are truly out there that so many people will never see. Yeah, that's so interesting. The passionate community. Yes. Yes. Like that, I love that community shining so through, through this, through Stephen King. Yeah. What do you think about reading one author so in depth and so widely versus like reading different authors and having just a more eclectic reading style?

I definitely will sometimes, if I read someone not Stephen King, start thinking when the Stephen King thing is going to happen. Um, like, uh, right now I'm, I'm reading The Color Purple, and which, God, highly recommend that book. It's so funny, I was telling someone, I don't know why I'm shocked when I read a book that's on so many, like, 100 best books of all time, and I read it and I'm like, oh, this is good.

Why am I so stunned? Yeah, it's such a great book, but, um, but yeah, like it and because it is, uh, it deals with a lot of dark subject material. I've also found that because. Of the way Stephen King handles a lot of dark material. Uh, the way I handle that stuff is smoother, I guess? My, my empathy has increased due to reading nothing but horror.

Wait, can you say more about that? Yeah, uh, because you are, you are put in a position where, narratively speaking, you are in the worst day of someone's life. Uh, in a lot of these situations and because again, what you get from a book that you don't get from the movie is living the person's life in a, in a manner of speaking.

And so you get so tied into what they're going through. Uh, for instance, one of, one of the biggest, biggest impacts for me was we read Pet Sematary, which for anyone not familiar. It is a story about the Creed family who moves to Ludlow because the husband gets a job as the doctor for a college. They live there for a few months when a semi, uh, hits and kills their small four year old child, Gage.

And so the book takes a sharp left turn and becomes A story about grief. It is at, at its core, it is about processing grief and how all these people are processing it differently and trying to hold it together. And there's this mystical element thrown in. But when we first read that was, um, we. We've mentioned my wife and and sister in law hope when their brother passed was when I was reading that for the first time so I was Reading a book about a family losing their child at the same time My family was processing that same thing and it gave me the language To be there as best I could because I'm not experienced.

I don't feel that same grief I I don't have that But because I was so in a world where I was in someone else's grief that deep, I could really Be there and understand and there wasn't the separation you can sometimes feel when someone close to you is going through a tragedy that you're not connected to specifically, and it just it gave me a lot of language.

Yeah, I think horror is so Interesting from that perspective, because it really does goes into those kind of darker sides of life, and it taps into it in a different way than a lot of books do. A lot of other genres. You can get distracted by the blood gore, chaos, monsters, but really it's about the human connection.

Like nobody is in these situations because they desired to be. They're in there because there's a feeling, there's something they need that keeps them where they are. And I think there's something about that, you know, taking something that we all go through at some point in our lives and just really exaggerating it and turning it into this kind of like mystical thing that can make it more accessible to people that you can like tap into in a different way, like I think about Because I do play therapy, and that is one of those techniques that you can use with kids.

Like, a lot of kids don't like, and adults too, I would say, a lot of, but a lot of kids really don't like talking directly about trauma or grief. So kind of having it be in this like, In a faraway land, there's a family of rabbits that, you know, lost their rabbit sibling or something like that. You can tap into it, into those real emotions and you're really processing things, but it creates just that right amount of distance so that it's safe.

You've got the safety net that keeps it, though I'm discussing something fictional, so it's fine. I can hypothesize as far as I want into this. Yes, exactly. Yeah, there's so many just healing components to this, which I'm, yeah, I'm just really appreciating. Yeah, I, um, can I throw another Stephen King recommendation to y'all in your audience?

Heck yeah! Please! For, for Complex. Um, there's a book called Desperation, uh, which takes place in Desperation, Nevada, and it is about a, an entity called Tak that is essentially The devil let's just say for for broad strokes One of the compelling pieces of this story is there is a a child named David who?

Years ago, or I think like a year or so ago, him and his best friend were riding bikes, a car hit his best friend, launched him into a wall, head first, snapped the helmet in half, the kid was in a coma. He went to their clubhouse and for the first time ever prayed to God to save his friend, and his friend came out of the coma.

And like, the deal he made with God was, if you save him, I'll do something for you. And then so we come to this story, which is The, this monster has brutally killed this entire town at the very top of the story that his family is traveling through and his family has taken his, his, some, somebody's killed.

And the theme is God is cruel. That is always like what it comes down to is God is cruel. And because this child is. Following God's commands on how what they need to do to get through this and you know People don't want to listen because it's it's madness happening around them. But the the crux of the story We we focus so much on God is cruel in the end The reason God is cruel is because God is everything God has to be cruel because God is is all things And so I I thought that was such a for for me.

I'm not a very religious person It was very interesting to have a book walk me down this road of cruelty So long and then take that left turn on me to be like, oh You got me. Alright. You got me, girl! You made me so angry, but you knew exactly what you were doing for this rug pull where you're like, yeah, alright, it all makes sense.

Yeah, religion is very complex for a lot of people if you don't know how to talk to someone else about that. It is interesting to find a book that deals with a topic that lets you deal with something you don't know how to deal with safely because it's from another person, but you're dealing with it yourself.

No one has to know how you felt about this while you're processing it. You get to do that work yourself. Josh, I'm wondering too, because I can tell how much you take from these books, like I just can sense the depth. And I'm curious if there's rituals for you of like integrating. Yeah, how do you integrate, you know, these deeper messages, whether it's, you know, in your own personal relationships or your relationship with self?

Oh, that's a great question. I, I think, I mean, we all have unique circumstances and I feel I going back to a little bit of destiny. I feel like I've been in just the right place. The it's almost the same duration I've been doing this podcast is the same duration I've been going to therapy, which is about the same duration.

I have, I got married and started a family. I hit a transition point where I, Basically started all three of these things at the same time and so while working so much on myself having This side project that I get to explore my own empathy, plus the perspectives of two people I extremely value and love, who have made me a better person by sharing their perspectives and experiences, and building my family.

I feel like I got to process so much together. It gave me the skills to be there for everyone I needed to be there for, throughout all that. The combination of those things happening, It gave me perspective and perspective is so powerful to deal with things objectively.

And I've found myself, I think the weirdest takeaway, I've become a better problem solver.

So I'm I'm reading about worst case scenarios, which is something I do. I spiral about worst case scenarios. I told my fellow spirallers right here. I can't relate to that at all. I I told I walked my therapist down this road of something I was worried about and he was like, and why? And I was like, because that's the worst case scenario.

And if I have a plan for tackling the worst case scenario, I'm an improviser. I can I can roll with If anything better than that, . Mm-hmm . Right, right. Yeah. That's a great reframe. Yep. But the problem is I'll spend so much time spiraling, it's like, no, that's not the worst I could get worse. Really? Yeah. Yeah.

That's what I, I always say this to clients, it's like anxiety is great because it helps you problem solve and figure it out . But you get to a point where like, okay, you've done enough. Now you can stop. Like, you figured it out, you know how to deal with it, like, now how do you actually, like, stop that and, and just move forward?

Which, which is something that therapy gave to me that I did not anticipate. We all have, uh, not we all, most of us have, um, only the perception of, of pop psychology, what we see portrayed to us on TV. We see, we see therapists solving problems. That's not what they do. They give you the tools to solve your problems.

They give you the tools to break down what's in your way. Thank you for advocating for us. Absolutely. It's amazing. It's, it's was the, the biggest surprise and the most rewarding takeaway was. I had a gap in my treatment and when I came back, I got to share some of the problems I'd kind of solved in that meantime, that like, I didn't need to make an emergency appointment.

I handled, I handled this, I handled these nine things all, all collapsing at once, which normally would have broken me, but I took, I took a breath. I followed my steps. I did my rituals. I got myself in place. Yeah, so huge. Yeah, I want to lean in a little bit more on the point about how you've used all these things that you're working on and you're reading life to benefit you through this parenting journey that you're on, because I think there is.

I don't know if you felt this, but I think there's this perception in our society that taking care of yourself can be selfish as a parent. Can you say more about just how you taking time for yourself and, and this podcasting process and doing this book club has actually helped you as a parent? My wife told me when I retired from live performance that I needed, if I didn't have a project, I'd be insufferable.

And she said that because she loves me and knows me better than anybody. That's amazing. I need, I need outlets for my creative energy. And Mallory's finally at the age where playing pretend is, is so, there's so much more back and forth, and I love playing pretend. Part of doing performance so long, uh, especially I did a lot of comedy sports, which is a, for those not familiar, it's a national franchise.

It's, um, fake competitive improv, but it's family friendly. And so, uh, improvising in family friendly nature, having that history, I just never lost the love of playing pretend. Which is nice. I feel like we, as adults, will often lose the, the joy of playing pretend. Uh, so I've got to hang on to that. Which I feel has helped me be a better parent.

That's a way that her and I connect as, as playmates. Like that, that, that's, that's you, you, the difference between you, you know, uh, your parent can't be your friend. My mom's my best friend. I, uh, it was, it was me. Shout out to Josh's mom. Yeah, it, it was, it's, it was me and my mom. Versus the world our whole life.

And so like, she's, she's my best friend. She's my ride or die. And it lets me build that relationship with Mallory. But then because I have my other outlets, I can switch between my dad mode and my playmate mode because I, I, I clock in to do these other things. I get to section myself, I guess. It's such a, such a weird way to phrase it, but like.

I come home from work. If I'm recording that night, I'm, I'm still business dad. So that determines kind of how I parent that night because I have other responsibilities and uh, I usually am coming in, run the energy up because Betsy's been with her all day, and then I go do my stuff. And if it's a night where we're all home together, then I can get in silly dad mode and it just gives my life a, a balance and a structure.

It's, I, I'm a little type A. And so it's almost like I get to, I almost get to schedule fun Dad, serious Dad, . It's a weird relief for a Type A personality. . Yeah. Well, I, yeah, I think this is important too because I do, I, I'm trained in this type of. Therapy called TheraPlay. I don't know if you're familiar with it at all.

Sounds great. Yeah, it's, it's so awesome. And it's like a, it's like a dyadic model. So it's usually one parent, one child. And it's about building healthy attachment through play. Yeah. And so I have to teach parents how to play. Which is really interesting. Um, but it's We lose it. Yeah, we really do. Do you have any advice for, like, helping parents to tap into that playfulness that maybe feel disconnected from it?

I have, uh, the best advice you'll ever get, and it's the core rule of improv, and it is the rule of yes and. Love it. As simple as that, when it is playtime, the game has now evolved. It's just called Cows, Horses, Sheep, Stucks, Pigs. Um, that's how she's like, we're gonna go downstairs, play cows, horse, sheep, sex, pigs.

Uh, and it, it started from her just being like, I'm a mommy cow and you're, I'm a baby cow and you're the mommy cow. And I was like, yep. And I did like, I spun around and dropped on my hands and knees and mood. Like I just transformed because she said, and it was, I treated it like she just. Did that to me.

Like, oh, here we go. Oh my God. And it just, it made her giggle so hard and it just, it was like, all right, now we are mommy cow and baby cow and mommy cow, uh, chases baby cow down for hugs. That's just what mom and cow does. So if we're, if I'm transformed, I'm gonna catch that baby and give her. And like, that's the game we play, you know?

So precious, Josh. And I feel like following the rule of yes and lets you follow your kid's playing. Because kid logic is insane. They don't know what anything means. They don't know, they don't understand severity or gravity. But I think, yeah, just the yes and lets, I follow wherever she wants to take the play.

If she, like, tells me, alright, we're gonna have a jump in bed party. Yes. And which bed are we doing it on? Mommy and Daddy's bed or Mallory's bed. By yes anding, I get to follow along. I let her take me on the journey. So now I know, I know how her imagination works. You know, if she, uh, if she refers to, uh, Butterfly.

She's not talking about a butterfly, she's talking about the, the doll she named Butterflex has a butterfly on the dress. Uh, you know, like, you get all the shorthand as a parent. Oh man. When we were kids, my, my dad was a pretty playful dad. And he is, um, severely balding, and we, we had this, yeah, we had this joke that he had like, he would like pretend that we'd be like, oh, you're bald.

And he'd be like, no, I have long flowing blonde hair. And so my sister at school once like wrote, um, it was like one of those, like, describe your parent. And she wrote, my dad thinks that he has long blonde hair, but he actually doesn't.

That was so fun. Mallory made her first joke. Big moment. Betsy and Mallory were outside playing and the garbage truck came by and she asked what it was and she said, it's a garbage truck, they're coming to pick up our trash. And Mallory said, are they going to pick us up too? I'm just kidding. laughing And I was like, that's my girl.

That's my girl. Do you have any Rituals as a family around reading? We read to Mallory every night. That's been since she was a baby. She's not gone to bed a single night of her life without being read to. I talk to Mallory a lot about how she's changed, because I also think that's important, is a reminder how much she's grown.

We do affirmations too, uh, which is nice. Uh, we have a, you know. Uh, not every night, but we'll, you know, do the, you know, I'm strong. I'm powerful. There was a string of time where she walked around just casually commenting that she was a warrior goddess. And I was like, you're damn right. Yeah. You know, yeah.

And she is, she's the best. I was telling her about, when you were a baby, I would read to you until you fell asleep, and then I would put you in your crib. And then it became, I would read to you until you were sleepy enough that I'd put you into bed. Now we read, and get into bed, and talk. Before we go, like, this is how our bedtime has changed.

Reading is always the first step. That's always the, you know, we, we read and then we talk about our day. And it's, it's great. Cause she is double therapist. I know we're like, Oh, what's really cute is books that she memorizes. And then pretends to read like brown bear, brown bear. What do you see? I see a blue bird flying by me.

And so Mallory will pick it up and she will do it because she has memorized. She has to say what she sees. And those other words, and she'll pretend to read books back to me sometimes. So I'm, I'm, I'm so excited for the day that she reads to me. I'm, I'm, I can't wait. Little body goosebump.

Yes, I love, because we talk about in, Family therapy, like the idea of it can be hard for families to transition to different age ranges for their kids. And like, I think that is a really cool way that you're marking, you know, Oh, look at how we've evolved through this reading process and just allowing her to grow.

I think even though that sounds like we want that for her children, like, I think it can be really hard to like see those changes. It's scary. Especially the amount of growth between the first like five years, the amount of development that happens in like the first five years of a child's life. Like they, they become a dozen different people because that's how your brain develops.

You become, the stages are all different and you just got to kind of roll with it. Like Betsy and I remind ourselves when, when one of us is just at our wits end with her because she has been an absolute terrorist that You know, like when she, when she makes us the most mad, the other one will just look at us and be like, she's three.

And the other one just has to be like, she sure is. Uh, cause sometimes you just have to remind yourself that even though we do our best to speak to her, we don't talk down to her, speak to her like, uh, like a person, that she's not a person. Like she's not, her, her brain is mush still. There's still so much before, uh, she can be treated as, as a full individual.

I'm not gonna be that person that compares children to dogs, but I'm gonna be that person. I just remember when we got our puppy like two years ago, there, um, there was like a dog trainer and she always says, you don't have a dog. You have a puppy and that was like such a good reminder for myself. I like have to keep telling myself that over and over.

And it's exactly the same as parenting a human child. I mean, I go through the same issues, the same level. I didn't even buy a new kennel. Wow. Well, Michelle, I love when you ask Josh about. The family ritual. So we've talked to you, Josh, about like your personal rituals, the family ritual. I'd also love to learn a little bit about your community rituals for the podcast.

Cause I think sometimes for people ritual or ceremony can feel very personal and maybe one on one or with their partner, but I'd love to hear how you all do it as a community. I think one of the weirdest things about building community. Is the language because the more time you spend with a specific group of people, the more the shorthand develops.

And so we do for, for our community, we're getting back into this. We stepped away from it for a little bit because it just wasn't working business wise, but Patreon is doing some exciting things soon. So we're going to be hopefully bringing back our Patreon watch parties where we would watch horror movies with our community.

We would just live stream them and our audience would be in the chat. And, and they would just shoot the shit with us while we were watching our, our shows. We also do this, it's 100 percent fun for me. It's an event called Dairy Fight Night where I made, I used to be a professional wrestler until I almost broke my neck and then I stopped doing it.

But what I did was I made a bunch of Stephen King characters in the WWE wrestling games because you can create a character whole cloth and then I created a pay per view event that basically is like, Pro wrestling meets Stephen King and making characters rustling. We call it like it's a real wrestling match that's happening and it's just, it's fun ways to take our inside jokes as, as you two will come to find out as you get further along in the podcast journey, you're going to create inside jokes that start between the two of you and then it becomes everyone who listens to your show.

Uh, to the point that I, somebody screenshot and sent us a post from Reddit that was talking about a circumstance in their life and they ended it with saying, uh, what delicious foreshadowing. And the first comment under it was, do you listen to dairy public radio? Because the term, we use the term delicious foreshadowing to describe the way Stephen King just beautifully will set up Something that we know is gonna pay off so hard later And so it becomes it's a little bit about the community events that we do.

We sometimes we did A few years ago at Alternating Currents, which is a big event we have in, uh, Davenport, we had the, one of the, it was the first Stephen King Dollar Baby film festival in person. So we had a bunch of filmmakers here in the Quad Cities and we did screenings of Those movies that you can't see anywhere else and it was live streamed.

So it was on YouTube. So people were, were joining all over the world, watching stuff. I got to interview Lou Ferrigno. It was awesome. He's the incredible Hulk. But it was, it was such a cool experience to share with that community because these are all projects that were behind closed doors for so long.

So it was like a worldwide clandestine activity at the same time. And so getting to share community moments is really nice. You build that history with your audience, you build that shared language with your audience. Um, we have now listeners that email us after every episode. And I write them back every episode.

Like, very rarely do I not respond to someone's emails that comes to us. Cause it's just, it's interesting. It's what we want from a book club. We had, my favorite thing. Okay, so. This was kind of a scary time in our podcast life. We did The Green Mile, which is a lot about the death penalty, basically, is like, is a lot about what we discussed.

And Eve, who is a trans woman on our show, she took the stance of, you don't give the government permission to kill anybody. Hard line against the death penalty. We got into some very heated conversation between all of us. It's about, let's just think, not heated, it was intense because it's a, it's a real deep topic.

And so this happened over a year ago, two months ago, somebody on Reddit made a comment, posted something about how he is a, is a black man who has never had anybody outside his race. He felt advocate for him and his. And, and what they go through, especially when it comes to the, uh, the over sentencing of African Americans in our community, uh, in our country.

And he, the meme was like, I, it was beautiful to feel an advocate from outside my community. It's the first time I'd ever experienced that. And it was like, it made. All of the angry, we got a lot of angry emails about our conversation because people have a lot of opinions about that. And I was like, I'll take double those terrible emails of people who were pissed off about what we had to say for that one person who now walked away feeling like for the first time they had someone outside of their personal lives having their back in a way.

And like that's, that's the connection. Like that's the best stuff. We have these shows. They're sitting out there. We could touch somebody's life tomorrow on a recording we did three years ago because it just hit home. It's, it's so rewarding. Like that part, the, the community feedback is really the, I guess the ritual there is, is, is the open communication.

It is, it's about letting our audience know. We talk about really Vulnerable stuff. We talk about very heated stuff sometimes and the amount that our audience is willing to share with us about their experiences and about how we've impacted them. You know, it's it's so rewarding. Whenever we have a really good book club discussion, it's usually people disagree with each other.

And that's, that's what's cool about it. You can build community by just like getting into like different opinions. Okay. So my question was about like how we're talking about watching Mallory evolve and her reading journey and just how that can be that difficult part of life is learning how to evolve and allow ourselves to change and grow.

So there's Question kind of came from Jay, but I'm expanding on it, okay? Because his question was a little Jay? I'm loving Jay's investment in today's conversation. Yeah, he wanted to know if you thought Stephen King has lost his touch over the years. I was like, that's mean spirited. No! Not in the spirit of Ritual Sisters.

But yeah, do you have a thought? Um Artists grow. Artists change. Artists adapt. Um, it's really interesting that The Long Walk is a story of his that he published under Richard Bachman, which is the pseudonym he published. A few pretty dark stories under. But he wrote a book called The Long Walk. It didn't get released.

For like years and years and years after he wrote he wrote it in college It was so it's literally one of the first novels he ever wrote But it didn't get published until far later because it was it was an allegory for Vietnam It's a very very good book a hundred boys on a death march Basically, so you read some of the the darker stuff And you can watch his progression to a lot of people have commented that it's the the Bill Hodges trilogy when Mr.

Mercedes came out was kind of the new New era because it was a lot of more crime thriller stuff And I just think that that is I want Stephen King to write what interests him Because if he tries to write what we want Stephen King to write, it'll be like somebody trying to write a Stephen King book.

You know, like, I might as well get GPT to write me a Stephen King book if I'm gonna have him write something he doesn't want to. So, uh, but what I do love about the way he writes is like, for instance, he's leaked that he's working on the third book. In a series, he had a collaboration with Peter Straub, the Talisman series.

The first book is the Talisman, the second book is the Black House, and it follows this character, Jack Sawyer, who in the first book he's a child, the second book he's an adult, but there was always going to be a third book. And Peter Straub passed away last year. And so there was a lot of, you know, sadness in the community of like, you know, we're not going to get that book.

Like, it's just that that's the end of Jack's journey. And Stephen King has hinted that he's picked up the notes that him and Peter had had back and forth. And it sounds like he's doing it. It sounds like that's what he's working on right now. And I'm excited. I think that's, I feel like for people who think he's gotten away from it, that's going to be a return to form for, for that kind of audience.

I'm so hyped. Maybe you could say more about this. I have this vague memory when he wrote, um, Doctor Sleep, which is essentially the sequel to The Shining. And I think some people felt disappointed by the vibe because it's The Shining is a very visceral, immersive experience and Doctor Sleep is more of like a, almost like a character study in a way, kind of exploring this person's like, journey.

For sure. And I, I think he said something like, You always remember, like, a good scare. Yes. But it's okay for something to be different than that. The thing that I think about, especially The Shining and Dr. Sleep, Uh, The Shining is another one of my favorite books. Jack Torrance, I Shit on the Kubrick movie so much because that's not Jack Torrance Jack Torrance is a he's a sympathetic character He is he is an abusive alcoholic But he doesn't want to be like it like you heard it here first Josh

CM also refers to Annie Wilkes from misery as a protagonist so we've we've decided like those are our two like anti heroes where it's like I I want to root for Jack in book Jack so, so much because in the book you can see how much he wants it to not be this way, but he's, he's an addict. No force could stop the overlook from pushing it over the edge.

Like that's the, that's the sadness. That's the tragedy of Jack Torrance here, whereas the shining is about the alcoholism escaping the alcoholism. Dr. Sleep is about generational trauma. It like that's that's the the big shift like you the reason it's so different is because the message is so different I in my opinion, I think people thought it was going to be more straight up horror than the fallout like what is what is the adult life for a child that experienced that and then In unexpected ways, the book is very smart about leading other generational trauma storylines for the general theme.

It does a very, very good job. And I think that kind of goes back to what we were talking about with, like, celebrating after parties. You know, it's like, ritual kind of can help you to say, I really enjoyed this one thing, and I can let it be that thing. And then I can let that go and let The next thing be the next thing, and appreciate it for what it is.

All good things end. That's how we have them.

All right. Josh is an incredible dad, so he had to go and help out with Mallory. So we're gonna wrap up, just the two of us, and we're gonna talk about the rituals that come to mind for us after that conversation. We are definitely inspired. I'm so inspired by even just the depth of Josh. Talking about not only the books he's reading, how he's integrating the books, and also just all these different hats he has worn in his lifetime.

Yes. Completely blown away. Jaw on the floor.

Alright, did you have a ritual that came to mind for you, Ellie? One that Michelle, you kind of brought up, you and Josh were talking about it, and it really zings something for me, is when I'm reading our book club books, I'm often reading it just like another book I read on my own, and I'm realizing, oh my goodness, that's kind of a missed opportunity given that we do meet with our book club community once a month, and so I think what I want to implement for my ritual is you.

The next, so our, it would be our March book club book, even though I think I'm going to have to listen to the audio. So I'll have to figure out how to take notes. But as I'm listening to the book, being really intentional about, Ooh, I'm going to have a note section on my phone and I'll write down a thought on a character or a theme, how it's resonating for me in my personal life.

Cause I think when I show up at book club, Well, I don't know what you all would say to this, so I'd be curious to get everyone's feedback, but for me, it feels like I take more of a listening approach, and then if there's something that really felt big for me, I will say it, but I bend more passive, and not on purpose, I think it's just Maybe that's just how I'm showing up, and this conversation with Josh today really inspired me.

I want to be more engaged in our book club community, so that's what's coming up for me. So what is the ritual that you'll do? The ritual is every time I'm listening or reading the book club book. I'm at least jotting down one thought that I want to bring forward to book club and it could be really simple, but I think I need to do it each time I'm listening or reading to just get in a habit to let my brain know I want to bring this up in a greater audience.

And like you were saying, Michelle, have conversations where we're not always agreeing. And for me, as you know, being a peacemaker, that can be hard for me. But I think you're right. Our most engaging book club meetings have been where we've often really disagreed as a group. Yeah. And I think maybe for listeners that aren't actively engaged in a book club, maybe find one.

Okay. And that's, you know, anyways.

Okay. So for listeners that aren't engaged in book clubs, yeah, you could think about finding one. Maybe you could ask a friend to do a buddy read with you. That can be one way where it's just like. A one off thing or just like getting online like on Reddit. There's some subgroups around or yeah, some threads that I don't know the Reddit lingo.

Sorry, but it's such a great resource. Michelle, I'm glad you're bringing that up. Yeah, so I don't think it doesn't have to be every book that you read. But even just like once in a while reading a book with that intention of like. What am I thinking about this that I would want to share with someone else and like getting online and posting about it.

I also wanted to bring up what Chels told us she did with her friend because with her friend Brooke, because I think I've never done this, where they did, they went on vacation, but they read a book together. So like they would read a certain chapter to pass it, but they take notes as they went. I'm like, that is so cool.

I want to do that on a future trip. I've never done that before. Mm hmm. Yeah, that's cool. Okay, for me, I was thinking about rituals around, like, I liked this idea of reading as a way to process what stage you're at. So I was thinking about, could be both, it could be either before you pick a book, kind of like the ritual around picking a book, or ritual around reflecting afterwards.

So before maybe thinking about, you know, where am I at in life right now and what do I want to connect to? Do I want to return to an old favorite and maybe see how it lands for me now at this different stage in life? Do I want to, like, expand myself and, like, try a genre or an author that I've never read before and just see how I feel about that.

So kind of, yeah, I'm thinking about that piece before you read the book. Hmm. I think that's gonna be so powerful, Michelle. Like, just to dive in a little bit, for, like, March or April, is anything calling to you as, like, Where you are at and thinking about that. And I just thought another idea I had for picking a book might be like if you're entering a stage of life, you know, like say you're becoming a parent or like we're about to like launch this podcast, you know, maybe asking people like how.

You know, Josh was talking about reading that book about grief as his family member was going through grief. It might be interesting if you're going through that stage of life to find somebody else that has been through it and see if they had any books that they connected to during that stage of life.

I love that. Ooh. And then that brings in that community piece where even if you're not in a book club or aren't connected in that way. It's such a way, yeah, to kind of find that connection piece. Ooh, that's good. And then for after reading, maybe, again, I just thought about this, but we, we talk about parts language a lot, um, which is kind of just generally speaking, it's just kind of this idea that we have different parts of ourselves that we can tap into.

And I think maybe thinking about when I read this book, what part of myself did it resonate most with? Ooh, oh, I love that. And maybe even, like, journaling from that part's perspective about what that book meant. Or if that part's language doesn't work, it could be, like, what age version of myself did that resonate most with?

Hmm. Okay, I'm excited to report back to each other around these things. Wow, this was such an incredible conversation today. I'm so, so glad that we had it. Reading is such a big part of our lives and I think for a lot of people, reading, whether you're an active reader or not, I think reading can be such a helpful tool, like a lot of people name that as a good coping skill and a way to connect with other people, so lots of really interesting ideas about how reading can be a more intentional part of your life.

I am so grateful for today and just can't wait to hear from listeners about their own journey through reading and what stood out from today. Take care, Ritual Fam. All right. Talk soon. Bye. Bye.

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And don't forget to go check out Dairy Public Radio. I know that you're feeling inspired to read some Stephen King after this, so you're gonna wanna check them out. So we're at. Whatever you are, have a magical time. Goodbye!