Reflections on my First Podcast Interview

I was recently interviewed for a podcast! It’s been one of my bucket list items for a long time to be on a podcast. Another one is to host one, but one thing at a time.

I met Ryan Mulkowsky, host of the podcast Some Random Thoughts, as he was wrapping up a chaplain residency at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, and I was wrapping up my internship, preparing to begin a residency there the following fall.

Sometimes people will speak truth, regardless of how you feel about it; and pastoral types will do it gently, in a way that there’s not opportunity for debate or rebuttal - only pondering. Ryan is one such person and I’ve been pondering what he said to me as we were all talking about job aspirations post-clinical pastoral education. “I want to be a chaplain,” I said. “My pastor said I belong in the church, but no way I could ever be a pastor.” Ryan said “you say that now, but you should be aware, every time you say the word ‘pastor’ your eyes light up.”

“How DARE you,” I seethed inside. Joke’s on me I guess!

In case you don’t know me, I am currently a pastor. And Director of Spiritual Care at a senior living apartment complex.

We had a delightful conversation about spirituality, identity, and intersectional activism.

The highlights for me were getting to catch up, and getting to talk about embodiment and identity, before moving into the ways I have found to exist as an activist in the world, which is mostly through reflections on food.

My identity is a moving target - one I’ve tried to pin down since I was little. Adoptees often feel a pull to explore who they are, and some measure of guilt when that pull leans away from all we have to be grateful for, all the love we have found; and thinking about what ifs, who ifs, and why ifs.

I began exploring what having birth ties to Mexican culture means when I was very young. I grew up knowing that I’m adopted, and that my biological parentage is Mexican; and that while I grew up speaking Portuguese in Brazil, in Mexico they speak Spanish. In an attempt to process and hold that, keeping it close and yet at bay, I had a stuffed monkey named Smirnish. When I look back I wonder about his name. A child’s attempt at “Spanish” perhaps.

Smirnish was ahead of his time in both sneakiness and fashion. He was adept at doing naughty things and getting away with them. When something like writing on the walls in non-washable marker happened or some such thing, he would miraculously disappear leaving me to be interrogated. “Smirnish did it, but I don’t know where he went,” was all I could say.

Smirnish refused to conform to gender norms. He wears a blue dress; a gift from the bride in the only wedding I was ever a flower girl for. The bridesmaids and I wore pretty blue dresses and I was NOT about to walk the aisle all by myself, so Smirnish came with me, and clearly needed a dress for the occasion. He like it so much he never took it off. Smirnish came to live with me and Andrew and Reeesee in Denver last summer, after my 40th birth day party. He’s loving it but hates the snow.

As I got older, I began to distance myself from anything about adoption - because I was mostly focused on becoming a concert pianist. But a few years ago, when I led a Spanish language grief support group at the hospital where I was working as Bereavement Coordinator, I began to feel things.

Through research, I learned that infants grieve, and that rifts of separation from a primary caregiver - no matter the age or amount of bonding time- can cause a permanent void.

As a grief support professional, that all made a whole lot of sense to me, and helped to explain why when I start to wonder and process, I have an almost immutable urge to cook Mexican food. When I think about and miss Brazil, the urge is there as well, to make the Brazilian dishes of my childhood, from the taste memories I carry in my heart.

The intersection of grief theory, ethnicity and identity exploration, and cooking form the foundation of my deepest passion: recognizing the ways in which we are all connected - to each other, to the earth, to a creator; and what that really means.

Cooking for me begins with selecting ingredients. When I pick up produce at a farmer’s market or the grocery store, I try to be mindful throughout the process. I like to go to the store on a weekend when I have a lot of time to meander the aisles, choose a piece of produce and admire it, and think about its journey from seed packet to my shopping cart. I think about all the people who have interacted with it before it finally comes to rest in my hand.

My kitchen is the place where I most belong - where I most feel at home. I bring my mindfulness ritual with me into the kitchen as I peel, chop, dice, and prepare to cook. Peels, ends, and stems go in my countertop compost bin, and each ingredient goes into the dish while I gratefully recognize that I will be able to eat and share this meal, and to do so in peace. I gratefully recognize that I have all the ingredients I need to make a nourishing dish, and I have the privilege and luxury of selecting quality ingredients that will support my health.

While all that is going on, I also commune with my grandmothers - Grandmother whose cornbread was the very best in the world, Walsie, whose chicken stew I’m still trying to perfect, and Mammaw, who made the very best mac and cheese and chocolate meringue pie. And with my aunts: Tava whose banana bread still takes me right back to her cozy kitchen every time I make it, Valerie, whose voice I can hear telling me to slow down for a cup of hot tea, as I make her oat and peanut butter bars, and Pat, whose easy blueberry cobbler made with sandwich bread is a staple around here whenever we need something sweet.

I think about our housekeeper in Brazil, Antonia, when I rub a pan with garlic cloves to saute spagghetti in olive oil for a super easy meal, and about how much she loved our family. And I think about my birth family - a biological mother I’ve never met but have named Maria in my mind. An abuela who might have passed down a favorite recipe for chiles rellenos, or a Tia who would take me to get paletas on a hot day.

I think about the way that food is integral to human connection, as well as tied to harm - from inequitable access to Eurocentric beauty standards that instead of praising the richness of cultural foods as a gift, vilify many of those foods as carb and fat laden health disasters. And if you can other a food, its only a hop, step, and a jump to get to a place where you are othering people: people who eat those carby foods everyday are judged as simpletons who have no regard for nutrition when in reality they are communing with ancestors and indigenous wisdom passed down through centuries; a true gift.

Others, who enjoy celebrating the cultural and ethnic diversity in the world through food might be judged in the same way - especially if their bodies reflect anything other than what we have been taught equals health, beauty, and fitness.

My hope is that we can arrive at a place where policing of bodies and food choices falls away and in its place, a true appreciation and admiration for the diversity that exists in the world will help us to remember our deep, inextricable interconnectedness and lead to a desire for the human flourishing of all people.

Be sure to check out Ryan’s podcast, Some Random Thoughts, wherever you listen to podcasts.

Me and Smirnish :)