Failure Throwback: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

29:48Oh, that's enraged me. I'm going to be emailing him. Oh, I was so annoyed. I thought, really? And then he goes on and on about how I just thought it was such an important opportunity for you to come speak at this conference. And I usually contact very famous writers and they write me back personally. But with you, I had tried two times. I didn't get any response. And the third time, you then had your agent respond to me. And so I felt personally, I think he used the expression fobbed off. And I thought, who the hell are you? Like, I don't know who you are. But again, it made me think about, I mean, people have these conversations about expressions that can often feel overused, like male privilege and white privilege.

30:31And sometimes it can seem in some ways even overdone. But I remember thinking, reading his message, this is it. This is exactly what so many women and so many black women talk about when they talk about that they're just nuances of respect and nuances of dignity that just are not afforded them because they're women and because they're black women. I was just taken aback by this man. But I'm really happy that I wrote that reply. And I know that I would not have done it had I not been grieving. I'm happy that you wrote that reply too and when you talk in this way about the relief of the worst having happened and grief pushing you to do things that you might not do otherwise I'm reminded of my own experience which is very different from yours and I don't seek to compare it at all but I've had three miscarriages and when that happens it took me a long time to realise that what I felt was grief and it was okay to say that because I felt it wasn't justified because they weren't fully formed people but there was an element of relief and I've always felt so bad about it and the element of relief was because the worst had happened I was so worried about the worst happening then it happened and I thought well thank goodness I don't need to protect these beings anymore I'm not capable of doing that and I just think you've touched on something so profound there.

32:00Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that, Elizabeth. Oh, you're so kind. Thank you. I'm so sorry. Yeah, I remember my cousin had a miscarriage and only through her, just her agony, did I start to see. I think that the minute, you know, a pregnancy is wanted and loved, I just feel like it becomes a person in a way. When I had my daughter, and in a strange sort of way, It's not the same thing, but desperately wanting to have a second baby and going through horrible IVF. Oh, I'm sorry. That didn't work. Yeah. And it's a grief and anger, at least it was for me. And my anger was directed at all kinds of things.

32:46At nature, because I thought, why do women have to have such a fucking hard time? At my husband, who was wonderful in every way. But, you know, I think when you're, I felt I was so pumped full of hormones that nothing he did was good enough. And I was angry with myself. I was angry with my body for in some ways failing me, you know. So did you have my view? Because there's a, you know, sort of the two week wait. Yes. When you're, so every single twinge in my body, I thought, what does it mean? Yeah. And I kept notes. I was like, there's a twinge at my left side. And then I would go online on these boards where women were writing about their experiences.

33:31I was obsessed. I'm like, that woman says she got pregnant and she had a twinge. So that's what it means. And then the horrible day when you realize, no, it hasn't worked. I felt myself mourning my embryos as though they had given the baby a name. And sometimes it was sort of I felt that there were people who sort of felt like, you know, yeah, I mean, it's sad, but maybe you're making too much of it. and it kind of adds to the grief, that feeling again of loneliness when the people around you don't really get what you're feeling. My experience is that it can be incredibly lonely. I cannot thank you enough for sharing that and I feel really moved hearing you speak and hearing you as you always do put the truth of an experience into words and I'm so grateful to you for doing that and I'm so sorry again that you had that experience of IVF And I know exactly what you mean by those fertility message boards, because everything in fertility medicine can either mean the best thing or the worst thing.

34:30So that twinge can either mean you're pregnant with triplets or you are destined to miscarry now. It's such a head fuck. It really is. And so surely you can understand my rage at nature, because I thought, why does this thing have to be so? So, I mean, honestly, and often I think even the reproduction, I mean, the idea is that we're sort of bending towards constantly keeping the species alive. Why then does it have to be so bloody difficult? Why do women have to suffer so much? Sometimes I think, my goodness, even childbirth, why does it have to be this violent animalistic process that often has consequences for a woman and her body?

35:10I mean, obviously, I know that there's some women who've had wonderful pregnancies and the baby sort of floats out and everything is fine. but that certainly wasn't my experience. I'm angry with him too. And I feel like we should talk about how, you know, how it's actually kind of awful sometimes. Your belly is a mess, your breasts are ridiculous, your back is aching, your vagina has lost shape. I mean, okay, I think I'll stop now. Oh, well, I'm sorry, that was my fault. We've gone off on a slight tangent but returning to your beloved father, before we move on to your next failure I would love you just to say what he was like I mean it comes across very strongly in notes on grief but I'd love you just to share a thought or two now to our listeners about the kind of man he was oh he was reserved quiet so when he died people who knew him, who contacted me, used words like calm, strong, quiet, integrity, honest, simple.

36:15Those words really captured him. But as a father, he was very present. I was always struck by how my father remembered things. If he told my father something, he remembered. He listened. He allowed his children to be who they were. And for his time and place, that actually was quite remarkable. and he was so steady. You know, he didn't drink, he didn't smoke, he didn't go out. My father was a nerd, yes, but also a kind of, he was a stable and stabilizing force and we had a lot of laughs. He also had an incredible sense of humor that was often quite dry and he was a fantastic storyteller. So I heard so much about my past, my history, you know, his father, his father's father.

36:57He just gave me this really rich and beautiful sense of where I came from. And I think it's part of the reason that I feel so comfortable in the world, because I know where I came from, because I know the stories of my grandfather and my great grandmother, who, by the way, was called a troublemaker in my hometown because she just wouldn't accept a lot of the really misogynistic traditions and ideas. And I like to say that my feminism, such as it is, came from my great grandmother. It didn't come from reading any books. It came from my great grandmother. But my father, he was also a deeply kind man.

37:32In addition to his sense of humor, he was very curious about the world. But also at the same time, there was something about him that was sometimes, I thought, quite delightfully childlike. You know, I remember once we were in my hometown and I was watching him watch a goat. So there was a goat sort of wandering around in my grandmother's compound. And my father took such delight in the antics of this goat. The goat was a bit hyper. But my father, I was just watching him take such delight in it. And I was so moved by that. You know, the same way that he would watch the news, he loved Sudoku. So he spent a lot of time doing his Sudoku.

38:11But he also really liked to watch Animal Planet and would say things like, these baboons are fascinating. And he would. And I just found that really lovely. It's so lovely. So lovely. Let's talk about your mother, who sounds equally lovely. And my favourite story about her is the one about her father writing to her at school. Tell us about that. So my mother, my mother was born in 1942 at a time when girls just were not educated. And if they were, it was to become junior teachers. But her father was different. He was determined that she would be educated. He wanted her to go to university, which was just not normal.

38:55And my mother did well in school. So she was in secondary school. Her father was a businessman and he lived in Cameroon outside Nigeria. And my mother was in a secondary school, in boarding school in Nigeria. And so her father would write her letters. And her father, I think he had a primary school level, Western education. And so most of his letters to her were in Igbo, our language. But one letter he wrote to her was in English, and it started with, my dear son. And so my mother read that and thought, oh, you know, she thought her father had made a mistake with son and daughter, the English words.

39:32Because actually in Igbo, there isn't a distinction. The word for child in Igbo is gender neutral. It's unwa. Is it? That's fascinating. Yes, it is. Yeah. So often people who are new to English will often mix up son and daughter because in Igbo, there isn't a distinction. My mother then says to her father, you know, Papa, actually the word his daughter. And he said to her, oh, I know. I know exactly what son means. The reason I wrote dear son is I want you to know that you're everything a son would be, and you can do everything that a son would do. And my mother would tell the story. And I just thought how, because what he really was doing is that he was affirming his daughter.

40:17And he recognized that he lived in a wall that was so heavily sort of male focused and male dominated. And for him, the way to affirm her and to let her know that she was completely worthy and completely valid and was to say to her, my dear son. And my mother says that this for her was such a point of pride and everywhere she went, she told people the story. When you chose your failure to save your mother as your second failure, does it feel like a different kind of failure from the first, the failure to save your father, or is it part and parcel of the same guilt? No, it's very different. And the reason it's different is because the circumstances of my mother's death are still particularly painful and difficult for me.

41:03There was an element of medical malpractice. My mother did not get the care that she should have. She was on the basic education board of my home state, Anambra, and she loved her job. And after my father died, we had said to her, maybe you should quit the job and just come and just be with your children. And she said no, because she said the job actually gave her much needed distraction. So she spent time inspecting schools and she was part of the group that would revise the curriculum of primary schools across the state. And so she was at work on Friday and on Sunday she died. On Saturday, she felt unwell.

41:42She went to a hospital, started feeling better the next day. But the doctor then decided to transfer her to another hospital, which was a terrible hospital. And we did not understand the reason for the transfer. And two hours after the transfer, my mother was dead. And when I went to see the doctor, he said to me that because he suspected that my mother had COVID, he did not test her, but he suspected she had COVID. And so he didn't want her in his hospital. And so he just transferred her. And there was no preparation for her at the new hospital. I mean, it was so shoddily done and so quickly done.

42:18And two hours in, my mother was dead. Oh, gosh. I mean, my mother was sitting up and talking and laughing a few hours before. And so I feel so angry with myself because I remember thinking when this doctor sent a text message to my sister saying, I want to transfer her. I remember thinking when I saw that text message, this doesn't sound right. And I really regret that I didn't push back, that I didn't call the doctor and say, no, you cannot do that. But again, because in general, we like to be respectful of people who are helping us. So he's giving my mother care and we are thinking you're doing the best thing for her.

43:01and my sister who's a doctor who's in the U.S. is also particularly sensitive about the sensitivities of Nigerian doctors who often a Nigerian doctor in the U.S. or in the U.K. can sometimes feel a bit superior so we kind of just didn't want to make him feel that we were being disrespectful of his um oh I don't know his expertise you know he was recommended to us as really the best doctor these parts and that kind of thing and two hours later my mother was dead and I deeply deeply regret not pushing back I deeply regret really not saving her I just feel that um I'm so sorry I'm so sorry it's so cruel and it's so unjust and I the fact that it would have been your father's birthday as well I just I my heart breaks for you and your family it's just so unfair the unfairness of it is so acute I sometimes feel that I'm living in a in a novel whose plot I don't believe I mean the quote was where you would never write no never and if somebody wrote it I'd be like this is just complete nonsense I'm so sorry it was his birthday we had planned that we would do a zoom call my siblings and my mother and that we would just you know talk about daddy because he would have been 89 and instead it's the day she dies and it's just really been I mean so it's been much harder for me processing even accepting that my mother is gone just because of how it happened and yeah of course of course I don't even know how you're functioning in a world that has just totally dismantled itself in front of your eyes.

44:53I just, it's unfathomable. It really, really is. Thank you, Elizabeth. I just, I haven't actually talked about this before. I think, you know, thank you for talking about it. And I also think it's a very beautiful thing to do because it's very important when we lose our loved ones that we keep talking about them. I know that you were raised Catholic. Is there any comfort in this trauma to be had from faith? You know, I have a very complicated relationship with Catholicism. But since my parents died, and this longing for answers, right, and I've actually found myself going to Mass. and I've had long and very useful conversations with two sort of Catholic priests, a Catholic priest and a Catholic bishop, who are just really intelligent, thoughtful, reasonable people and who are not sort of tied down by dogma, which often helps because if you're talking to people of faith, as they are, but also people who are willing to entertain questions about just the basic foundations of that faith.

46:12There's something about it that can bring a kind of comfort. So I've actually found myself in Mass. And what I did was I went to the church that my parents went to. When my parents would be here visiting me in Lagos, every Sunday they would go to church. I wouldn't. So I've now gone to mass at the church that they went to. And just being there, imagining them sitting in a corner, as I'm sure they would have, I found it comforting. And how are you functioning day to day? What is getting you through? There are days when I don't function at all in a strange and bitter way. Because grief is familiar now from my father, I've come to accept that whatever it is that I'm feeling is what I'm feeling.

46:57So there are days when I'm just full of rage. There are days when I cannot get out of bed. But there are days when I think I'm fine. And I've started to paint my fingernails because my mother painted hers. And so now it's become really important to me that I paint my fingernails. My mother was very partial to red. So I'm doing a mix of red and pink and orange. And I find comforting things of that sort. I have her handbag in my study here. and just having that, her things are still in it. Her little bottle of perfume, her lip gloss, her pack of Kleenex, her inhaler because she had asthma. I have them and they're here with me and they've kind of become necessary objects for me.

47:38And also just family. I have my siblings, all of us. I feel so heartbroken for my siblings. We're all just really trying to just keep going and we keep telling ourselves, mommy and daddy would want us to keep going. So we lean on each other quite a bit. You know, sometimes my brother and I spend hours on FaceTime. We laugh and we cry, you know. And then there are days when my friends come over and we have dinner and we have lots of wine and I'm being my outrageous self and asking them about their favorite sex positions and everything seems normal again. And then the next morning I wake up and I cannot stop crying.

48:15I went to the website that I think you and your family have put up in tribute to your parents. And there was an anecdote on there saying that once during a routine medical checkup, Grace was told that doctors had discovered a growth that needed further investigation. But before she learned that it turned out to be a false scare, Grace told you, I have lived a full and happy life. Yes. Does that bring you comfort? Sometimes, yes. Yes. I hadn't told my siblings that when she said that but after she died I told them and it gave us a measure of comfort. Some days more comfort than others because I think that the way in which my mother died has shaped our grieving.

49:04Yeah. But I do try and remember that because she said it sort of very calmly and very quietly. And her point was, if they say that I need to have surgery, I'm not having surgery. That's sort of what she, you know, her whole thing was. And then she said very quietly, I've lived a full and happy life. And it actually broke my heart to hear that. And I kind of shut her down. I said, no, mommy, I mean, you can't say that. Don't say that. Don't talk as though you're something's going to happen. But in some ways, I'm also grateful that she said that. I mean, I'm grateful to know that she thought about her life like that.

49:36And I think she did have a full and happy life. Is it very trite of people to suggest that your parents are now together again? Yes. I mean, yes. Because, and you know, I mean, there is something to be said for, my mother changed after my father died. My mother's light dimmed incredibly. She was very courageous and brave for us, but she'd become a different person. You know, her best friend was gone and our whole lives had been mommy and daddy. And suddenly there's no daddy. And my mother really changed. There's kind of a limpness to her spirit that hadn't been there before. And then she started to talk about death much more often.

50:16So there is something to be said for at some level, she maybe didn't want to stay on too long without him. I think it happened much sooner that even she would have wanted and in such horrible circumstances. So when people say they're together now. I think my first point is, but we don't know that, do we? I mean, I think that sort of the unknowability, we don't know what happens when people die. People who approach death through sort of lenses of faith, there's still an unknowability because nobody knows what heaven is like if there is a heaven, right? So we can have faith that there is, but we don't actually know.

50:53So what if, I mean, who knows what if, and this is actually a really terrible joke, but it just came to me. What if heaven also has patriarchy and men and women are in different sections and women are in a slightly less illuminated section? No, that's a bad joke.

51:10Maybe heaven is what each individual conceives it to be. And it feels like your mother and father would have similar takes on what heaven is. This is what I want to tell myself. I think I'll share this with my siblings. I think maybe one of the questions that I have that led me to wanting to attend Mass again is that I think there's a part of me that deeply and desperately wants to know that they're together and that they're fine. I mean, I'm sure that this is what happens to most people who lose loved ones. You kind of want to know because that part of us, that human part of us that dreams and loves and that part of us, our consciousness that's so sort of alive, it's difficult to think of it just becoming nothing.

51:54I have a lot of questions, I think. And yeah, so when people say that, yeah, my first reaction is to think, oh, stop. What do you think is the single most powerful thing you have learned about grief that if someone were going through grieving right now, you could tell them? Um, I think I would say whatever you're feeling is normal, because sometimes you're going to feel things that surprise you. Grief has so many layers. I sometimes would feel guilty on my good days. So the days when I find myself laughing and talking and just, you know, sort of being quote unquote normal, I would at the back of my mind start to feel guilty because I would think, you know, dad is gone and mom is gone and you're actually talking and laughing.

52:44and sometimes I would feel as though it meant that I was trivializing this terrible thing that had happened to us and so for anybody grieving what I would say is you're actually not trivializing it it's all part of the process if you've loved someone and you've lost them they're going to be emotions that you expect and they're going to be emotions that you don't expect and I think just keeping your mind open helps because then if it's possible to reduce the burden of guilt that you have, then that's worth doing. Jim Amanda, thank you so much for talking about something so painful. And I think it just speaks to the core of you, which is truth telling.

53:25There are so many people who would have come on this podcast and chosen a different failure to protect themselves. And the act of generosity that you have given to us is really astonishing and such a tribute to the woman you are and to the people that your parents were. So here's to James and Grace, and thank you so, so much for talking about that. Thank you. That's very timed.

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55:29your third failure is your failure to write as much and as quickly as you want to so tell us about that has that always been the case or is it because you've got so busy being a global icon over the last few years yes it's really because i sort of wake up in the morning i put up my global icon hat and off I fly on my witch's broom. It's not always been like that. I've been obsessed with fiction writing for as long as I can remember. And when it's going well, it's the only thing that matters. But what I've found in the past, I'm going to say 10 years, I like to attribute this to age. I feel like when I turned sort of 33, things went downhill drastically.

56:20I don't know what it is, but I beat myself up about this and I spend way too much time stressing about not writing, which I think probably also then contributes to not writing. But I often want to write and it just isn't happening. I find it more difficult to get into my creative zone. I do think that really, honestly, success gets in the way sometimes. You know, and I feel very grateful to be read, to be published. It's one's dream happening. But what then comes with it sometimes comes with the territory. I mean, even just sort of having to do public things, which I often don't mind doing. But the thing is that it does get in the way of going back into your creative space.

57:01I'm a person who needs silence and space. Sometimes people will say, oh, just do it for an hour and then you can go back to writing. But that's the problem. If I do something for an hour, I cannot get back to my creative space. It's just almost impossible for me to. And it's a source of just great frustration. Because it's not even just about I want to publish another book. It's also really what writing does for me personally, mentally and emotionally, that when I write fiction, I feel transported and really happy, just really happy. And so I miss that and that I cannot write fiction as often as I want to and as quickly as I want to.

57:42I'm just so bloody slow now. It's incredible. And when I was younger, I think I sort of used to just, you know, really churn out these stories and hate half of them. But still, I was churning them out. But now, now, good Lord. I mean, you have become a mother in that time. So has that also had an impact in terms of what you can carve out for yourself? Yes, absolutely. Yes. When I had my daughter, I felt that pregnancy not only made me significantly less intelligent, something happened to my brain. I also think this is something people should talk about more. I felt, I just felt really dense when I was pregnant.

58:18And then when I had the baby, there's just so much going on. And I had so much anxiety, which I don't usually have. Until then, I wasn't really a person familiar with anxiety. But suddenly I was, I felt like I wasn't doing anything right. But my gosh, you cannot latch on to breastfeed. Oh my God, I failed, you know. So it was just really not a fun period. And so there's no way I could possibly write because I just wasn't in that creative space. And since then, your time becomes limited. And I say this as a person who just has one child. I mean, I know that there are women who have five children and who are also creative.

58:54And I think goodness. And obviously, also recognizing that child care and the responsibilities of it, just because of the way gender norms continue to function, invariably are the mother's responsibility. And even when you have a partner who's very present and very committed, like my husband, my husband is a fantastic father. But the first year in particular, because just biology dictated that I would have to do more because I was breastfeeding her. And then we had complications because she then had a protein allergy. And so I was told that I couldn't eat a lot of protein. So I had to change my diet, which meant eating horrible carbohydrates and becoming slow and sluggish and just awful.

59:38But I was determined to dress feed her for eight months because I felt that otherwise I would fail her, which I know now not to be true. So all of those things, I think, contributed to my being so removed from my creative self that going back to it took some time. And when you said earlier that when you write fiction, it's transporting and it's where you're happiest. Do you not get the same thing when you're writing nonfiction or when you're writing a TED talk or a commencement speech? Is it a different thing? Oh, yeah, it's very different. It doesn't really transport me much as I would like it to.

1:00:16Nonfiction just feels a lot more sort of utilitarian to me. I'm trying to persuade or I'm trying to change your mind or I'm trying to raise questions about something. And so there's a sense in which my nonfiction for me just feels a lot more self-aware and I kind of know what I'm doing. And so because of that, there is a sense of mystery in the way that there is for me when I'm writing fiction. And that wonderful sense of mystery and a kind of journey, I think, I'm going somewhere, I kind of know where I'm going, but also I kind of don't, is what fiction does to me that I love. And nonfiction doesn't do that.

1:00:54And are you a writer who, when you're writing a novel, it has to come to you? Like there's no timing that you can control in terms of the idea that comes into your life? Or yes, is that the case? Yeah, absolutely. Yes. I have writer friends who sort of have plans and it's all... Are they men? Yes.

1:01:22Thought so. You know, it's so interesting. I hadn't thought about this. Yes, yes, they all are. And I've just never had that. You know, sometimes I find myself feeling a kind of very petty envy because I think, well, you know, it would be helpful and nice not to kind of rely on this sort of more amorphous sort of intuitive thing. But I don't know that I really mean that because I also do like my process. I think that's also part of what makes me so happy when I'm writing fiction. It feels sometimes like a gift that you have to do something with. And obviously one is not in control of when one gets a gift, right?

1:02:02That's what it can feel like sometimes. And do you know, I mean, you say that you don't play how much as music to my ears, but do you have a vague concept of where your character is going to end up through the course of the novel? Or is that a gift that you give yourself as you're writing it? I usually start off with a vague idea. I kind of know. So, you know, I start something and I kind of feel like I know this character and what's going to happen. But sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes what I intend to happen to a character doesn't end up happening to a character. Sometimes it does. But I find that the few times when I have tried to force my fiction to do what I wanted to do, it just doesn't work.

1:02:41I'm just never happy with it. It just doesn't feel right. you're such an amazing writer and I don't want to put you under pressure but I'm desperate for the new novel because as an author myself I mean not of your talent or magnitude but I am frequently asked what my top five novels are of all time and Americana is always in there I just love it so much and it's one of those books I can remember so vividly where I was when I read it the feeling it left me with it's just exquisite and your next idea will come to you when it comes to you and we'll all be so grateful for it but yes you don't need to feel guilty about it I'll try I want to ask you something I don't know why I want to ask you but I just do and it's completely random but I really want to know what you think of Kim Kardashian

1:03:37i'm just gonna put it out there what only because i'll tell you where it comes from because i just love your take on everything and i happen to be someone who reality television has got me through some really dark periods in my life and so i'm i'm a big defender of it and and kim kardashian seems so representative of so much for so many people and is very divisive. But I just know that you'll have a good take on it. And that's why I want to ask you. I actually don't because I don't know. I feel like I don't know enough about. So it's interesting to hear this about reality television sort of, you know, as therapy, right?

1:04:16In some ways. Because I have actually just never watched reality television. And the idea of it, I just really find to be. Honestly, I just think to myself, this would be an utter waste of time. why would I want to watch these people? I mean, and hearing it talked about, because you cannot escape it. I mean, I know I have friends who really love the real housewives. And apparently they're housewives of all kinds of places. Yes, I'm one of those. And they talk about these things. And I just think, my God, I don't care. I really don't know enough about what reality television was. I remember speaking once to some young women in the US in high school and asking them, What is your life like?

1:05:00You know, what are the pressures that you have? What stresses you out? Really, the subject was kind of beauty standards and body image and that kind of thing. And one of them said, it's really hard for us, black women in particular, because we will never be like, it wasn't Kim Kardashian, though it was her younger sister. Kylie Jenner. Kylie Jenner. Yes, I think. Or the Yeltsin. Anyway. Anyway. But I remember thinking, my goodness, so that, I don't know, it just stayed with me. And I know, obviously, the question is about Kim Kardashian. But I think for me, it's also sort of, how are young women being influenced by beauty standards that require putting things in your lips and whatnot?

1:05:40It's just not my, yeah. I don't know, I felt really bad for those young women. And I thought, this doesn't sound very good. One of the things that I really love and value about you is that you are a feminist who enjoys fashion, as anyone who follows you on Instagram will be only too aware of. And it feels like you understand the power of fashion, but as an expression of individuality rather than you must all wear this or look like this and you must all inject your lips with filler. Yes, yes. So I've always felt very strongly about, I mean, just in general in life, very strongly about diversity and difference.

1:06:16That not only should we not all be the same, but that if we were all the same, it would be so boring. I think one of the things that social media has caused in the world is a narrowing of what is considered beautiful. I have nieces who are in their early 20s and I'm always struck by how when we're all gathered as we were for my mother's funeral and afterwards, you know, we all spent time together here in Lagos and, you know, they would dress up and go out. And I was always struck by how similar they all looked. I mean, you know, how dressing up, how sort of the cool look invariably involved long weave, you know, long talons for nails, long lashes.

1:06:58and I just thought it would be nice if one of them had that and another had, you know, I mean, I think it also, it feels very unimaginative and not, I don't know. And I sometimes feel that inside of some of those young people, they don't really want to be like that. I feel as though the individualities that become, I don't know, subsumed by this larger pressure of needing to conform to something. And I like fashion. I like style. I don't much care to be told that this is the in thing for this season, therefore wear it. Because I just think, no, I think it's a stupid silhouette. So no, I won't wear it.

1:07:35As many of the silhouettes are. And don't get me started about how clothes are cut, not for women with breasts such as myself. But yeah, I think I'm starting to ramble. No, you're not at all. I just threw you a massive curveball of a question. Well, Kim Kardashian, right? I mean, I'm not supposed to say I'm not Kim Kardashian. Well, I think she has, I've seen pictures of her children. And she has lovely children. I think that's one thing I can say. They're very sweet. They're very sweet. I am so appreciative that you have come on this podcast, made my dreams come true, because you were on my dream list of guests when I started out, and been such a profoundly eloquent, generous, lovely, funny guest.

1:08:20And thank you so, so much for talking to us about the things that really count. It was incredibly moving for me and I love everything that you do. Thank you so much for coming on How to Fail. Thank you, Elizabeth. Thank you.