[gentle music]
A small note before we begin. This is a
personal podcast. I'm telling these
stories as I remember and understand them,
from my own life and perspective.
When other people wander into them, I'll
protect what belongs to them. And while
much of this story happens inside a real
inn, these are my words, not the official
voice of the property, its owners, or
anyone else who works here.
All right. Come in. It's already warm.
There are Sundays when a house feels used
up. Not sad. Not empty. Just used.
The coffee has been made several times.
The dishwasher has had more conversations
with me than most people. Somebody has
left a glass somewhere a glass does not
belong, a towel is hanging from a chair,
and there is a light on upstairs that
nobody needs.
And eventually the house settles. That is
usually when I notice how tired I am.
So this is a Sunday Special. The regular
rhythm here is Tuesday. New episodes come
when I have something worth bringing to
you, but when they come, they come on
Tuesday.
I have had this podcast for approximately
five minutes and I am already violating my
own policy. This feels on brand.
[a low hum]
I have been trying to find a graceful way
to say that this year has been hard. I do
not think there is one. It has been hard.
It has also been extraordinary.
I keep waiting for those two things to
cancel each other out. They do not. A year
can hand you something beautiful and take
something from you in the same motion.
You can be proud and disappointed.
Grateful and furious. Certain and
completely lost.
You can have the best year of your life
and still need to sit on the edge of the
bed for ten minutes, because putting on
socks has become emotionally ambitious.
I am learning this. I have learned quite a
lot this year, actually. Some of it
willingly. Most of it through the
traditional educational method of being
forced.
I am thirty-one. I had assumed that by
thirty-one there would be some
administrative confirmation that I had
become an adult. A letter. A card. A small
certificate, perhaps.
Instead, people simply keep asking you
questions as though you know things.
Sometimes important questions. Sometimes
they put you in charge. Nobody checks.
This is alarming.
There are ways I have grown up enormously
this year, and ways I am still growing,
and for once I do not think I need to make
that sound prettier than it is.
I am still becoming. That is true. I am
tired. That is true. I am proud of what I
have made. Also true. And I have had to
let go of some things I thought would
become part of my life. True again.
Maybe growing up is partly learning that
several truths can sit at the same table
without one of them having to leave.
[fire crackling]
Still, by Design. taught me something
about stillness. Good Little Innkeeper has
taught me something about truth. I did not
know they were going to be different
lessons.
When I wrote Still, by Design., I was
writing very close to beauty. Not
prettiness. Beauty.
The kind that happens when somebody puts
coffee beside you without asking. The
sound of people downstairs before you are
ready to join them. A fireplace. Fresh
snow. A room somebody took the time to
prepare. A person remembering how you take
something.
The tiny signals that say you have been
noticed.
Still, by Design. believes in those
things. So do I. I think I always will.
It believes healing hides inside ordinary
rituals. A meal. A walk. A room. A second
cup. The decision to remain somewhere long
enough to notice yourself changing.
I needed that book when I wrote it. I
still need it.
But then I wrote Good Little Innkeeper.
And that book looked at the same house
with the lights turned all the way on.
That is different.
Beauty survives the light. Fantasy does
not always.
There is a sentence underneath Good Little
Innkeeper that has followed me for months.
This is a story about two people
projecting entirely different meanings
onto the same dream.
I think I had to write an entire novel to
understand that sentence.
[a low hum]
Because I am very good at meaning. I can
give almost anything meaning. A room. A
conversation. A job. A look. A Tuesday.
Probably a spoon, if you leave me alone
with it long enough. I am a writer. This
is occupational.
But it is also personal. For most of my
life, if I loved something, I did not
simply love it. I imagined what it could
become. I could see the future version
before the present one had finished
introducing itself.
Sometimes that is the best thing about me.
It is how I build. It is how I write. It
is how Galena House began.
I can walk into something unfinished and
see it completed. I can see the lamp
before there is an outlet. The book before
the pages exist. A community before
anybody has gathered. Warmth before the
fire is lit.
That is useful. It is also dangerous.
Because imagination can begin
impersonating evidence. And I have done
that.
There have been times when I thought
effort meant agreement. That loyalty meant
a future. That usefulness meant belonging.
That because I was giving everything I had
to something, the thing must be giving
itself back to me in the same language.
That is not always how it works.
Sometimes two people can stand inside the
same room and believe they are building
entirely different houses.
That realization has been one of the
hardest parts of this year. I do not say
that angrily, and I think that matters.
I am not interested in becoming angry
because something did not become what I
imagined. I am interested in understanding
why I needed it to. There is a difference.
[fire crackling softly]
When I set out to do any of this, I came
from love. I know that about myself. The
books. The house. The work. The podcast.
The ridiculous number of things I have
built, because apparently hobbies make me
nervous.
It came from love. That does not mean I
was always right. I want to be careful
about that. Good intentions are not
immunity.
You can mean something lovingly and still
hurt someone. You can want the best for a
place and still misunderstand what the
place needs. You can care for somebody and
still ask something from them they cannot
give. You can be trying very hard and
still be wrong.
This is deeply inconvenient. I would
prefer intentions to function as receipts.
Look. See. I meant well. Refund, please.
They do not.
Part of growing up has been learning to
say both things.
I meant that with love. And I was wrong.
Or: I meant that with love. And you
experienced it differently. Or: I meant
that with love. And it still did not work.
Those sentences can live together.
For most of my life, I thought that if
someone misunderstood me, the
misunderstanding became my responsibility.
I would explain. Then I would explain the
explanation. Then, if necessary, I would
prepare supplemental materials.
I am extremely dangerous with a PDF. Give
me one emotional conflict and access to
good typography, and suddenly we have an
appendix.
This is funny. It is also exhausting.
Because I believed there must always be
one more sentence that would finally make
another person see exactly what I saw.
Writers are especially vulnerable to this.
We believe in revision. If a sentence
fails, we write it again. If the reader
does not understand, we clarify. If the
scene does not land, we restructure it.
This works beautifully with manuscripts.
It does not work with people. People are
allowed to leave the page with a different
interpretation.
That sounds obvious. It has taken me
thirty-one years.
[fire crackling]
And this is where I have been building my
own version of something people call the
Let Them Theory. I know the phrase already
exists. I am not claiming to have
discovered human autonomy from a room in
Colorado. Mine is a little different.
Mine is not, let them do whatever they
want, because you no longer care. I care.
Probably too much. I hope I always care.
Mine is: let them have their version. Let
them.
Let them remember it differently. Let them
believe you were foolish. Let them think
you wanted too much, or too little. Let
them believe the project was one thing,
when you knew it as another.
Let them interpret the silence. Let them
misunderstand the sentence. Let them say
no. Let them leave. Let them remain
unconvinced after you have explained
yourself clearly and kindly.
Let them have their version. And then do
the thing I have not always known how to
do.
Do not move into it.
That is the part. You do not have to live
inside somebody else's interpretation of
you. You do not have to decorate it. You
do not have to make yourself smaller so it
becomes accurate. You do not have to spend
three more years presenting evidence to a
court that was never actually convened.
If you owe an apology, apologize. If you
hurt someone, listen. If you were wrong,
say you were wrong. If there is something
to repair, repair it. But once you have
done what belongs to you, let the rest
belong to them.
That is not indifference. I think it might
actually be respect. Their version belongs
to them. My life belongs to me.
I wish I had learned that earlier.
Although if I had, Good Little Innkeeper
would be forty pages long and extremely
boring.
So perhaps we call the last few years
research. Expensive research. Poorly
supervised. But research.
[a low hum]
Good Little Innkeeper has been on my mind
a lot lately. It is finished.
That is strange to say. A book takes up so
much internal space while you are writing
it that when it is finished, there is
almost an echo. There it is. A complete
thing.
And now it needs representation. Which
means I am about to participate in one of
the more absurd rituals we have invented.
I have written an entire novel about love,
projection, hospitality, belonging, power,
and what happens when two people occupy
completely different versions of the same
dream. And now I have to send a polite
email.
Hello. Hope you are well. Attached please
find my soul. Thank you for your
consideration. Publishing is very
dignified.
But representation happens to be a perfect
laboratory for the thing I am trying to
learn. I can write the best book I know
how to write. I can make the pages honest.
I can revise them, prepare them, send
them.
And then somebody is allowed to say no.
Let them. That is hard for me to say
without immediately adding, but wait until
chapter nine. No. Let them.
I do not need every person to recognize
this book. I need the right person to
recognize it. Those are entirely different
goals. One requires me to convince the
world. The other requires me to keep
knocking until one door opens.
I know something about doors. I have spent
a large portion of my adult life handing
people keys. I am learning that not every
locked door is a tragedy.
Sometimes it is simply not your room.
That idea would have devastated me a few
years ago. Now I find it almost
comforting.
[wind]
Because I am tired. And I think the world
is tired too. I do not mean that
theatrically. Everything simply feels very
loud.
Everyone is available all the time.
Everyone can be reached. Observed.
Expected to respond. There is always
another notification. Another opinion.
Another thing you were apparently supposed
to know happened six minutes ago.
We carry an enormous amount of the world
around in our pockets. And then we wonder
why we are exhausted.
I do not want Galena House to become
another loud room. I want it to become the
opposite.
It's all right. That's the ice machine. It
does that at night. The house talks to
itself. I've decided to find it
companionable.
[fire crackling softly]
That is what has been changing for me
lately. I used to think Galena House was
something I was building. I am not sure
that is true anymore. I think I am
building places for it to appear. There is
a difference.
A book can be one. A podcast can be one. A
table. A room. A newsletter. A scone
handed to somebody halfway up a mountain.
The thing itself is not the building. The
thing is what happens between people for a
little while.
I have said before that I did not build
it. I am here to enhance it. I understand
that sentence differently now.
Enhancement is not control. You do not own
the thing because you cared for it. You do
not own a place because you loved it. You
do not own another person's experience
because you tried to make it beautiful.
You simply add what you can. Warmth.
Attention. Language. A chair in the right
place. Coffee at the right moment. A
little light. Then somebody else comes
through.
That is community.
[fire crackling]
And lately I have been thinking about a
community that can travel. That matters to
me.
For most of my life, I thought belonging
was a location. Georgia. Montana.
Colorado. A house. A room. A person. I
thought somewhere out there was the final
place, the place that would explain
everything before it.
I do not believe that anymore. I think
home can travel. I think a room can exist
between two people who are nowhere near
each other.
Somebody might be listening to this while
driving through a place I have never seen.
Somebody might be folding laundry. Sitting
alone in a hotel room. Walking home.
Sitting in the car for five extra minutes,
because they are not quite ready to go
inside yet.
And for a little while, we can be in the
same room. I like that.
No reservation required. Nobody has to
check in. You do not even have to be
charming. It helps, obviously. But it is
not required.
That is the community I want. Not one
where everybody agrees. Not one where
everybody interprets me correctly. God
help us. Not one built around me at all.
I want a place where people can come close
to something human for a little while.
Where somebody can say, I am tired too.
Or, I have done that. Or, I thought love
would guarantee the ending too.
And then feel a little less strange. That
is enough for me.
I am not here to fix people. I spent
enough years attempting things for which I
had no license. I would like to retire
from several positions.
World Savior. Director of Other People's
Understanding. Chief Executive Officer of
What You Meant. The hours were terrible.
No benefits.
I am keeping Innkeeper. Writer too. Those
seem manageable. Most days.
[a low hum]
I do not want the difficult parts of this
year to teach me to become harder. That
would be the easiest lesson.
Something disappoints you, become cynical.
Someone misunderstands you, stop
explaining anything. Someone leaves, stop
trusting. A dream changes, stop dreaming.
No. I do not want that.
I want to become more discerning without
becoming less tender.
That is much harder. I want to keep
caring. I want to keep noticing. I want to
remember how somebody takes their coffee.
I want to see the person standing half a
step outside the conversation. I want to
make things beautiful, because beauty
matters to me.
I want to believe in places. I just do not
need them to save me anymore. That may be
the difference.
And when I look back at the person who did
need that, I feel differently toward him
now. I used to be embarrassed by earlier
versions of myself.
The boy who wanted too much. The person
who kept moving. The person who mistook
being useful for being safe. The person
who thought that if he made himself
indispensable enough, belonging would
finally become permanent. The person who
could build an entire future from one kind
sentence.
I feel for him now. He was trying very
hard. He was not stupid. He was not weak.
He was learning. Sometimes publicly, which
is rude of life.
And I do not think I need to punish him
anymore for not knowing what I know now.
That may be part of my Let Them Theory
too. Let your old selves have been wrong.
Let them have wanted things that did not
happen. Let them believe people who
disappointed them. Let them write the
embarrassing texts.
Especially the texts. God. Let them send
the texts. They already did. There is
nothing we can do now. Let them.
Then become someone who does not need to
send the next one. That is growth. Not
deleting the old person. Not pretending he
never existed.
Just sitting beside him and saying, you do
not have to explain it again. I
understand. I am here now.
That feels very Still, by Design. to me.
The stillness between things. Not a grand
answer. Not winning. Not being perfectly
understood.
Simply noticing what belongs to you. And
what does not.
[fire crackling softly]
This year has taken things from me. It has
given me things too. I have a finished
book. I have work that matters to me. I
have people I love. I have a voice I am
finally allowing to sound like my own.
I have made mistakes. I will make more. I
am tired. I am becoming. And I am still
here.
There is something very comforting about
that sentence. Still here. Still making
things. Still setting the table. Still
putting coffee down in front of somebody.
Still believing a room can be warmer
because we passed through it.
I just no longer need everyone who passes
through the room to agree about what
happened there. Let them have their
version. I will have mine. And somewhere
between the two, there is probably the
truth.
I do not need to drag it into the hallway
tonight and make everybody inspect it. It
is Sunday. We are tired. There will be
time.
Tomorrow something will need doing.
Somebody will arrive. Something will be
unfinished. I will probably find a cup in
a place a cup has no business being. And
life will continue.
That is enough.
[fire crackling]
I am Avery Lane Maxwell. This is Galena
House Audio. A Sunday Special.
Good Little Innkeeper is looking for
representation. I am looking for a little
sleep. I think both of us will find what
we need.
Until then, let them have their version.
You keep becoming.
[silence]
Thanks for listening. This was made at
Galena House, in Frisco, Colorado.
[music swells softly]