You Could Make This Place Beautiful with Maggie Smith

Annmarie Kelly:

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[Music Playing]

I remember a few years when I went to four or five weddings every summer. I remember trying to calculate who I'd run into at each one to determine whether I could get away with wearing the same dress to multiple ceremonies.

I was once of an age where it seemed like everybody I knew was getting married. Those years were quickly replaced by invitations to baby showers, and to birthday parties, and bar mitzvahs.

But I'm not that age anymore. I have gone to more funerals than weddings recently. I've written more cards than I can count to friends who've lost someone, who've had a death in the family, or who are going through a difficult separation or divorce.

And I've realized that I have a template to follow for weddings, for parties, and even for funerals. I know what to wear, what to send, and how to show up. But I haven't entirely figured out what to say when two people I love are ending things.

On the one hand, other people's marriages are none of my business. On the other, we all want to be there for our friends. We want to let them know that even though their marriage isn't any of our business, their heart is, our friendship is.

And whether they're with someone or not, separated, divorced, or somewhere along that often really emotional path, eventually they will get through it and feel themselves again and find themselves again on the other side. But sometimes it's still hard to know what to say.

If you're someone currently struggling with whether to stay or go, the poet Maggie Smith's new memoir, You Could Make This Place Beautiful, it's for you.

If you're someone close to a friend or family member whose relationship is on rocky ground, Maggie Smith's new memoir is for you.

And if you're simply someone who knows how to look for love among the ruins, who sees new growth in the ashes, Maggie Smith's memoir is for you. This book is about the possibility of finding yourself again.

Maggie Smith is a poet, writer, editor, and teacher who's published several books of poetry and prose, including Good Bones, Keep Moving, and Goldenrod.

In 2016, Maggie's poem, Good Bones went viral internationally. To date, it's been translated into nearly a dozen languages, interpreted by a dance troupe in India, set to music by multiple composers, and read Lincoln Center by Meryl Streep. Public Radio International called Good Bones, quote, “The official poem of 2016.”

Maggie's poems and essays have appeared everywhere, including The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and The Best American poetry. Her memoir, You Could Make This Place Beautiful is out now, and is already a New York Times bestseller.

When she's not writing, teaching in an MFA program, or editing books for other poets, you can usually find Maggie hanging out with her two favorite human beings, her son and daughter in her hometown of Columbus, Ohio.

Maggie Smith, welcome to Wild Precious Life.

Maggie Smith:

Aw, thanks for having me.

Annmarie Kelly:

It is great to finally meet you. I know you've been creating wise and lovely words for many years, but despite the fact that we both live and write in Ohio, here in the heart of it all, I don't think I really befriended your work until the publication and viral popularity of the poem that kind of puts you on the map, map, map, even though you were writing before.

So, it was called Good Bones, and for people who haven't read it yet, you're just going to love it. And I'm going to put it in the show notes.

But I wonder, Maggie Smith, if you would tell us about your writing journey before that poem, after that piece that caught the attention of the world. Tell us about that.

Maggie Smith:

Yeah. I mean, I've been writing poems since I was a teenager, so this has sort of been — I mean, I joke that it's like the only thing that I'm good at, so of course I was going to keep. Once you find something that you feel like yourself doing, you want to keep doing that thing. And so, for me, it was writing.

So, pre Good Bones … like if we're going to divide my life into two distinct stages, there's before Good Bones and there's after Good Bones.

So, before Good Bones, I studied creative writing as a college student, it was my major. I went and did three-year MFA at Ohio State, and I published two books with independent presses ahead of the poem, Good Bones going viral.

And so, it was a part of my identity, but I wouldn't say it was something that a lot of people necessarily knew about.

So, pre Good Bones, I could be walking with my kids in the neighborhood and I was Maggie pushing the stroller.

And post Good Bones, a lot more people knew that I was also, a poet and not just a person who pushed a toddler in a stroller. And I've published several books since the poem went viral, including the book Good Bones.

And have sort of left my poetry bubble and moved into prose in the last few years, which has been fun. And I think probably introduced me to different readers who aren't as sort of poetry centered as people as I am. So, that's the short, short version.

Annmarie Kelly:

Yeah, no, I love that. I'm a member of a few book clubs and I was thinking about why haven't I encourage them to read? Because I have Keep Moving and I have Goldenrod. I was like, “Why haven't I reminded them to read Maggie Smith?”

And you're right about introducing to different readers because there are folks who read poetry. I'm one of them. But there are also, folks who don't, maybe they had a bad experience with their 10th grade English teacher, who tied a poem to a chair and then they had to beat it with a stick. Who knows?

So, I think that you are going to find new readers and more of them with this brand-new memoir. So, it's called, You Could Make This Place Beautiful, which for folks who've read Good Bones will know where that line comes from.

I read that your new memoir has been called intoxicating. It's a meditation on marriage, on motherhood, on healing, and the power of learning how to come home to yourself. And this is all true.

And it also, talks about divorce. I happen to be of an age where I have many friends, multiple friends whose marriages are coming to an end. I see them in it and experiencing so many big complicated feelings that you so dexterously capture in your book.

There's just so much beautiful permission here. Your anger, you're sad, you're nostalgic, you're exhausted, and ultimately, you're okay.

And I found myself wondering as I read it, was writing this book in any way healing for you?

Maggie Smith:

It was, although not in the ways that I expected because isn't life like that? I mean, I think I approached the writing of this book thinking that the healing would come from thinking deeply enough into this time in my life to solve it for myself.

I really sort of naively believed that if I spent enough time, and enough words, and enough pages, and enough mind, and enough heart on my adult life as a subject, that I would come away from this book feeling like I understood it. It's a real reckoning with the past, I think, to write a memoir.

And it was healing to write it, but not because I got all the answers or solved the experience or like could sort of put it down in a way, once I got to the end of the book. I think it was healing because the process of writing it helped me understand myself better.

Not necessarily all of the events that I'm writing about or all of the other people's choices that I'm writing about, or any of that. Something about getting to say all of these things in one space helped me see the places where they touched.

Annmarie Kelly:

We have this idea that I can only read stories that are exactly about me. And it's actually very fascinating that we can read stories that are about truth and love. Then it doesn't have to be a story that the plot doesn't have to be the same, but the feelings and the emotions very much are.

And I do think it will offer healing. And this is not a self-help book, it's a memoir. But I do know women in particular who are going to come to it with questions like, “How do you know when it's time to stay and work on the relationship? And how do you know when it's time to say enough is enough?”

And I'm not asking you to be everyone's therapist, I'm asking you to speak for you. Speak for all people, but from your perspective. You're writing about the end of this relationship, a relationship where there was love and there are children.

And how did you know when it was time to stop trying to save it and start trying to end it?

Maggie Smith:

Hmm. In some ways I didn't know. Like in plenty of ways, I didn't know. But I think looking back on it now, maybe the measuring stick … and this is such a low bar. Like the bar is sometimes so low, but it's like, can I be myself? Can I be my full self, my full messy artistic, imperfect self in this relationship?

And I think these are questions we should be asking ourselves forever. Not just in romantic relationships, but with friendships, and in professional partnerships, and in all kinds of whatever the sort of like ecosystem is.

Can I show up as myself and be welcomed as that person, and accepted, and supported as myself, as is, scratch and dent?

And if you don't feel like you can be, then it's probably not a situation that's going to help you feel good about yourself and grow.

Yeah. I mean, and again, that's such a low bar. I mean, I joked after my divorce that my type … like someone asked, “Well, what's your type? Are you going to date? What's your type?” And I was like, “My type is someone who smiles when I walk into a room.”

Which is such a low bar, but like wanting to have someone be happy that you're there. That's like … so, if you feel like you don't have that in your partnership with your husband, boyfriend, wife, roommate, partner, boss, employee, if the person is just not happy to see you when you walk into a room, it's probably time for some sort of reevaluation.

Annmarie Kelly:

Yeah. And that seems like overly simplified, but it actually is a test that we don't all pass. And I was reading this book about the end of this relationship and thinking about this is all taking place when your star has ascended. Not many poems travel around the world like that one of yours did.

And what we want for the people we love is for them to flourish, doing what they love. We just want to see them doing the thing, and other people see them doing the thing. And we want to point and say, “Look, she's doing the thing so well.” And have other people clap. And for there to be music playing.

And I want to go back in time and I want to give you that. We don't always get these do-overs, but I'm hopeful that as you continue writing, that you'll get that. That the world is looking and saying, “Wow, great job there.”

And that I hope the people who love you are saying, “Yeah, absolutely. Go you.” Because it is a low bar, but that's a blessing and a wish that we want for each other.

Maggie Smith:

Oh my gosh. I will take that blessing and wish. Thank you.

Annmarie Kelly:

Yeah. Well, you still live where you always lived. You still live in the city, down 71 from me here in Cleveland where you once lived with your partner. You walk along in the parks that you once frequented together. You drive down streets where your old apartment is.

And you say, quote, “In all these places, I loved that person. I loved him. Where does that go?” And I love this question, Maggie. I've never really thought about it. But where do you think the love goes?

Maggie Smith:

I don't know, maybe it gets sort of like repurposed and redistributed and doled out in other ways. I mean, maybe it just dissipates into the air. And it's like when someone's been in a room and sprayed perfume and then you walk through after them and you catch a little bit of it in the air.

And so that when you go through those spaces where you spent time with that person, you catch a little bit of that essence, but then you move through it and it sort of blows along.

I honestly have no idea what happens to it. I mean, it seems sort of in equally impossible that it's just gone and that it's somehow still here.

Annmarie Kelly:

Yeah. Love is shifty like that. I like this idea that we recycle it or that it’s essence is just around. I remember being positively overwhelmed when we opened our wedding presents. I was just like, “Oh my gosh, look at all the … oh, my, how will we ever …” People gave us cash, and crockpots, and fancy glassware, and utensils, and a thing to hold champagne.

And I remember thinking that we would never be able to pay them back. Like we'll never be able to do for that particular aunt or uncle, like the cost of this in free babysitting, I'll never be able to make it up. I had this real transactional feeling about it.

And now, decades into my own marriage, we have broken every one of those plates and most of those glasses. And we have lost — I don't know where those forks went, but they are not in my house anymore.

But along the way, we have been to other people's weddings, and baby showers, and housewarmings, and bar mitzvahs, and we haven't paid back the same people. Like that transaction, I am still in debt if I were to measure it that way. But we've paid it forward and around.

And I feel like maybe loving people is like that and that love is fluid. And we hold it for a time in our pockets, except when a time when I see that you need it and so, I give you the love from my pocket. And now, you have it, except magically it's also, still in my pocket.

How amazing is that, that it's not math, that we can spread it and share it. And even somehow you write about this that we call it heartbroken ness, but I don't know, even that is like the heart doing what it needs to do. To love big and full.

Also, means that you're open to hurt. And that's all in there, that a heart that's loved before is also, more likely to love again.

Maggie Smith:

Yeah. And there's no scarcity, like there's plenty. And no matter how much you give, there's always more. It's sort of like room in the mind like that. Like no matter how many things you think or remember, you don't get full.

And the same thing goes for that metaphorical heart we all have. There's always room, like it's never actually full. I love that idea.

Annmarie Kelly:

I had a math teacher and I confess, I didn't understand most of what he said, but he did say that no one could have all the fives. He was always saying, “No one can take all the fives. There's enough fives for everyone.” And I like thinking about that, that those fives were also, love.

Because this book is so full of love. It is on the one hand about a relationship that's ending, but there's so much love in here. I mean, you talk about your kids, you share your children with us, and I am in love with these little humans who get to circle the globe with you.

The way that they filter in and out of this story, they are like simultaneously little gumdrops and guardian angels. And also, they say those kinds of things that kids say.

Your then six-year-old son says, quote, “I know I have a mom who loves me and I have a dad who loves me, but I don't have a family.” Oh my, these small, tiny humans run away with our heart.

Oh, what was it like to live through this time with these little kiddos? Did they carry your burden? Did they warm your heart? Did they change you as a writer? Talk to me about your kids in this book.

Maggie Smith:

Yeah. I mean, my main concern in the book was getting to share my experience of mothering them, but not sort of like sharing their inner lives in the book. So, that was sort of my line, was some of these stories will be theirs to tell someday.

And so, again, if this is a tell mine, I'm telling it from the perspective of being their mom, but it's like the gift of my life is getting to be their mom.

And I tell them that all the time. “Like I'm the luckiest, like of all the people on this earth that I get to see you every day. It's like I don't even know what I did. It makes me so lucky.”

And so, as much as I wish that they hadn't gone through the divorce of their parents, like our little unit has been such a source of joy for me. They sort of just make all the things possible. Like I don't know how else to say it. Like they really make all the things possible.

And if I didn't have kids, would I still be a writer? Yes. I would just write about other things. It would just be packaged slightly differently. But it's so much of who I am as a person is because I'm there. I'm their person. And that, of course, is going to come out on the page.

Annmarie Kelly:

Oh, it's beautiful. And you guys are … I know that again, I'm of an age where women, I know it's mostly women that they're just talking about is this marriage going to last? What about the kids? What about the kids?

I'm not suggesting that this was easy for all of you, but over and over again in this book, I see you guys roller skating. I see you baking. I see you doing crafts. I see you snuggling and watching Animal Planet. I see you loving them through this, and they're okay. And it's beautiful.

Maggie Smith:

Yeah. I mean, it's not something I would wish for them. Like along the way, and I write about this in the book, like people will say, “Well, you sure have taken these lemons and made lemonade by writing a book.”

And it's like, “Well, actually, I would like to return the lemons because it's not just that there are books because of this.” Like I would've written books about something else if I'd had a different experience.

And these are lemons that weren't just handed to me. They were also, handed to our children primarily, but they were also, handed to other people in our lives.

Like when a marriage ends, the ripples travel throughout both families. And so, on one hand, it's like I wouldn't wish this on anybody. But on the other hand, I think we've made the best of it and we're still ourselves.

And you're right. I mean, we're okay and most days better than okay. Some days okay is what you can shoot for and I'll take it.

Annmarie Kelly:

I think our daughters are similar in age if I'm doing the tracking right. So, anytime you've got a daughter anywhere near middle school, everybody is doing the best that they can at any given time, it's a whole lot. I'm not sure she's going to appear in public with me this week. I'm not sure. We'll see.

Maggie Smith:

We'll see.

Annmarie Kelly:

So, listeners can't see this, but I am a post-it girl. I'm often reading in bed at night, and I'll find a post-it or sometimes a Kleenex or it's just like whatever I've got, if I want to circle back to something lovely or haunting or profound.

And I got to the point where I was literally post-iting every page of this book. I was laughing at myself and running out of post-its because I'm tearing them in half. Anytime a poet writes prose, I'm leaning in because you guys, man, I'm there for it. You write staggeringly insightful, beautiful, evocative things.

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You say that, “This is a story about magical thinking. I've become a student of my own pain.” You tell a story of the Valentine's and you say the house was full of hidden Valentine's. It looked similar, but not the same. There was no way home, but through. And you have this idea of us as nesting dolls.

Nesting dolls, like those matryoshka, right? I'm picturing the doll within a doll.

Maggie Smith:

Yes.

Annmarie Kelly:

Will you talk about people as nesting dolls? I've never heard this before and I don't know why I haven't heard this before, because it makes so much sense.

Maggie Smith:

Yeah. I mean, it's just something I thought of, like as far as … and it kind of goes back to the idea that your brain is never full. That there's always room for something else in there. Even though we carry all of our memories inside us, I think we also, carry all of the previous iterations of ourselves inside us.

So, inside 46-year-old me is 41-year-old me, and 35-year-old me, and 12-year-old me, and 21-year-old me. And sort of like a nesting doll. And also, that our relationships are kind of like that, like within, in any iteration of a relationship, we're carrying all the previous versions of that relationship as it grows and changes.

And one thing I did, (I think in this book and that it's a poet thing) is like trying on a bunch of different metaphors to try to understand some of these experiences a little bit better for myself, because that's really my currency.

Like if I can come up with a metaphor for something that helps me communicate it to myself, if that makes sense. And so, that was my way of kind of understanding how even now, I'm carrying all of these earlier versions of myself inside.

That's almost like a document. You know when you like save a different version of a document. You can save over, or you can save a new version and-

Annmarie Kelly:

I never save over. Oh my gosh.

Maggie Smith:

You never save over?

Annmarie Kelly:

Never.

Maggie Smith:

You can't, because you might have to go back to an earlier draft and reinstate something or figure out what revision did you kind of start to veer off the path. And so, you always have to be able to retrace your breadcrumb trail. And so, I don't save over either. I number drafts.

And I sort of think of human life like that too. Like as we grow and change into like a sort of revised version of ourselves, all the old versions are still there. They're still documents in the file. We don't save over ourselves. We just carry all of that experience and memory with us forward.

Annmarie Kelly:

That's beautiful. I loved, loved, loved thinking about the writing of poetry, like these little matryoshka dolls that are nesting. I love thinking about ourselves, that there is that's still soft voice inside of us, but it's like three nesting dolls back.

And there's probably a word for the kind of repetition you employ in this book where you repeat a line, or a title, or a story, but it's the same and somehow different. I just call it like poet repetition. I don’t know.

Maggie Smith:

I don’t know that there is a term. It's like the term is me with a bunch of printed out pages and colored markers and trying to kind of assemble something.

What I find satisfying in poems, both as a reader and as a writer, is when the same line, or word, or phrase, or image comes back later and is slightly repurposed. Like there's some sort of even slight transformation that has happened in this image, phrase, word, term, whatever. There's something about that that I find really appealing.

And so, that happens in the book, because I of course wrote this book as a poet. Like I don't really know how else to write a book then as a poet, even a book of prose.

So, I was still employing all of my sort of poetic strategies as far as patterning and repetition, and image, and sound, and all of those things in this book. I just had a much larger, like a lot more real estate to work with.

Annmarie Kelly:

Yeah. Well, for me, as a reader, it became a kind of heartbeat. This is like steadiness. So, you've got the tiny words in a page where you say, “Like a friend says every book begins with an unanswerable question, then what is mine?” And you say how to change.

But then that repeats. This heartbeat of that line repeats that unanswerable question. Then what is mine? How to live with the mystery. Then what is mine? How to heal. Then what is mine? How to remain myself. It was just this heartbeat that throughout the book …

I remember the first time I encountered a repetition. I'm like, “Oh, maybe I lost my place because again, all my post-its, I must be on the wrong page.” But I went back, I'm like, “Oh, no, no, no. This is the same but different. This is the nesting doll. This is the poetry repeating.”

Again, the book comes, the namesake for the Good Bones poem. That line, “Though, I keep this from my children.” I've seen this in your work before.

Were you always the kind of person who gazed at the same thing from different angles and looked at it in a different light? Have you always had poet eyes, do you think?

Maggie Smith:

You found the breadcrumb trails?

Annmarie Kelly:

Oh, yes. I marked a lot of them to the point where then I could no longer see the trail because I kept marking them. I have clumsily read lines from your book today, just out of enthusiasm and exuberance. And folks will excuse and forgive me for that.

But I'd love it if we could hear you read, if you wouldn't mind, a page or two from this book, because I would love to hear it in your voice.

There was one in particular I was hoping to hear, because I think it's gorgeous that you write a book that's among other things about divorce. And then towards the end of a book, we get a poem called Bride, which is just so lovely. I wonder if you would indulge me and if you'd be willing to read-

Maggie Smith:

Of course.

Annmarie Kelly:

… that poem to us.

And guys, while Maggie is finding the page, I will say that if we asked her to read every gorgeous sentence, we would be here all day, which would be totally fine with me. But other people get to talk to Maggie with this book. But you guys, it is just so beautiful.

Maggie Smith:

I mean, luckily, I do read every sentence of this book on the audio version. So, if someone wants to hear it instead of reading it, that's available. Although I actually, I think it's probably easier to follow the breadcrumb trail visually than it is by listening.

Annmarie Kelly:

I think you might be right, because I listened to Goldenrod. I always read and listen, I do both. But I listened to Goldenrod first before I read it, and I was so disappointed in myself for missing. I'm like, “Wait a minute. Was that in the audio for …” It absolutely was.

But we listen different and a listened to poem is different than a read poem. That is totally true. They're the same words, but I received them different. There are more evocative and different images. Yeah, they do hit different.

Maggie Smith:

Yeah, it is a different experience. I like to go to a poetry reading and follow along. Almost like those like old storytelling records I had as a kid that would kind of ding when you had to flip the record to the other side.

That's my ideal reading experience is still like the Peter Pan storytelling record that I had when I was six. I haven't outgrown that somehow.

Annmarie Kelly:

That's excellent.

Maggie Smith:

Okay, this is Bride. “How long have I been wed to myself, calling myself darling, dressing for my own pleasure. Each morning, choosing perfume to turn me on. How long have I been alone in this house, but not alone. Married less to the man than to the woman silvering with the mirror.”

“I know the kind of wife I need and I become her. The one who will leave this earth at the same instant I do. I am my own bride lifting the veil to see my face. ‘Darling,’ I say. ‘I have waited for you all my life.’”

Annmarie Kelly:

Ah, thank you so much.

Maggie Smith:

My pleasure.

Annmarie Kelly:

See, even I noticed something just there when you read it that I hadn't postmarked, that I hadn't posted it, but the, “I do.”

Maggie Smith:

On its own line.

Annmarie Kelly:

The, “I do,” on its own line, Maggie.

Maggie Smith:

Yep. See, you see the secret sauce now.

Annmarie Kelly:

I am licking it off my hands. Fantastic. Thank you for being willing to read that. And I do encourage folks to get both the audio and the hard copy book because it's almost like a song between the two. The poem becomes almost a song when I hear you say it.

Although speaking of songs, did I see you write about mixtapes? I follow you on a lot of different threads and I don't remember where I saw it. You're a mixtape teenager. That's not me calling you old. That's me calling you the same. You're a mixtape teenager, aren't you?

Maggie Smith:

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I'm absolutely Gen X to the core.

Annmarie Kelly:

That actually is something spectacular about us. And we don't realize it because we all take it for granted. But like we made them and took them back. We wrote on them. You could only maybe fit … I mean, maybe you got fancier mixtapes, but I tended to get the ones that fit 10 songs. It was like a 10 song.

And I didn't have all the CDs, so I had to tape them from the radio and like the double boombox. So, some of mine had like, “Coming to you live. W …” Like because I didn't have all the songs.

Maggie Smith:

Yeah. Or the first like three seconds are missing because you were trying to find a blank tape to pop in and like couldn't get there by the start of the song. Oh, yes. All of that. It's part of the charm.

Annmarie Kelly:

One of the most embarrassing things I ever did mixed tape related is, there was a girl down the hall who became my roommate and one of my bestie friends.

Shout out to Bina. But before all that, I borrowed her Garth Brooks tape so that I could tape I've got Friends in Low Places onto a mix tape for somebody else.

And you had to put it in one in order to tape it on the other. And when you pressed record, that went from one to the other. But if you mixed them up, you managed to tape blank space onto and over the song, which is what I did.

I ruined her cassette of I've got Friends in Low Places and just taped over it with blessed silence. Ah, but it's just a whole thing. I could talk about mix tapes all day.

But do you remember some of your go-to songs that you loved to put on a mix tape or that you would've liked to have received on a mixtape?

Maggie Smith:

Well, I have to say first, that one sneaky thing that I would do, especially to listen to music that my parents didn't find appropriate was you used to be able to put a little bit of transparent tape along the bottom of a cassette.

And that way you could tape over anything if you covered the bottom center with a little bit of gift wrap tape. So, that it looked like I had a tape of like it could have been Amy Grant, but really it was the Violent Femmes.

Annmarie Kelly:

Babe. Babe.

Maggie Smith:

Right. Yeah, I did, I wrote about this on my Substack recently. And I said that like everybody had a stable of very short songs because you would like often have maybe two minutes at the end of a tape and you wouldn't want it just to be blank. So, someone had to fast forward through or flip and rewind the other side.

And so, you would have these like a little stable of very short songs, tonally different. So, if you ended on something poppy, you could put in something quick or vice versa.

And I think probably every mixtape I ever made in high school had the slow UK surf version of Pixies Wave of Mutilation on it. Which if I were to make mixtapes for people now, that song would still be on every mix tape because it's still one of my top 10 favorite songs of all time.

Annmarie Kelly:

I'm impressed that you had taste like that because I'm fairly certain that if I were to look at … I definitely remember one that was like songs you love to love, songs you love to hate. Like one side was one and one side was the other.

I am fairly certain that the Phil Collins or … although I would still buy, every little thing she does is magic like that. Just like some of those songs would be very tired.

Maggie Smith:

Well, I don't know. I love ‘80s new wave and my kids and I listen to that stuff all the time. So, if you put on any song that was popular between the years of like 1979 and 1986, my kids probably even know all the words because that's our household soundtrack. No shame.

Annmarie Kelly:

I love it. Well, when we're doing dishes, definitely, we'll be listening to U Can't Touch This or something, and Bon Jovi. And we'll be doing dishes trying to make a chore better. That's great fun. I just wanted to know that I saw you and felt very seen by that.

Maggie Smith:

I feel seen.

Annmarie Kelly:

We always close with just some fan favorites. Some quick multiple choice questions to just get these little snapshots of our guests. This is just sort of a lightning round. Yeah. These few first ones are multiple choice. You just pick one. Okay?

Maggie Smith:

Okay.

Annmarie Kelly:

Alright. Coffee or tea?

Maggie Smith:

Coffee.

Annmarie Kelly:

Mountains or beach?

Maggie Smith:

Mmm, forest. Can I choose secret answer C? I'm afraid of heights and I don't love deep water.

Annmarie Kelly:

We will write down forest as answer D. Done. Dogs or cats?

Maggie Smith:

Dogs.

Annmarie Kelly:

Prince or Talking Heads?

Maggie Smith:

Both. I refuse to choose.

Annmarie Kelly:

Donna Summer or Dan Fogelberg.

Maggie Smith:

Oh my gosh. These are two records I have on the shelf next to me right now. I have multiple Dan Fogelberg records that were my parents and I have definitely Donna Summers on the radio. I guess I'd have to go with Fogelberg because it's a deep bench with Fogelberg.

Annmarie Kelly:

I mean, if you've ever run into your old lover at a liquor store-

Maggie Smith:

And grocery store.

Annmarie Kelly:

I mean, like come on. I had not thought about Dan. My parents had that same record and when my father passed away, all those records came to us and I had not thought about the word Fogelberg in years until I saw it in your book.

Maggie Smith:

That's hilarious.

Annmarie Kelly:

This is another multiple choice. John Darnielle singing Picture of My Dress or Kermit the Frog singing Rainbow Connection?

Maggie Smith:

That's just not fair. John Darnielle is awesome, but also, like a puppet frog with a banjo. Like I feel like Kermit's never going to know if I didn't pick him. So, I'm going to go with John.

Annmarie Kelly:

For folks who didn't follow that Twitter story … again, as a follow of yours, I felt like I was getting a glimpse into the story behind this story. It's The Mountain Goats for folks who don't listen.

You exchanging these tweets with someone who then goes on to write a song about your idea of taking your wedding dress all over to places. I just thought that was amazing. It was a great story.

Maggie Smith:

It's insane. Yeah. I mean, you really don't think when you tweet something snarky about your wedding dress and reference Weekend at Bernie's as a movie in said tweet, speaking of Gen X.

So, that someone you like incredibly admire who's one of like the best songwriters working today, is going to like tweet you back. Like that would be a … I don’t know what that song would be. Well, maybe I'll bang it out today, because I've got some time and then the next thing you know, it's on their record.

Yeah, I mean, Twitter is a weird space. And sometimes it can be a hard place to be, but like in my experience, magic also, can happen there.

Annmarie Kelly:

And 100%, that story was just such a great story. I have another multiple choice for you. The actor Maggie Smith's performance as the Dowager Countess in Downton Abbey, or the actor Maggie Smith's performance as Professor McGonagall in Harry Potter.

Maggie Smith:

I'm going to go with Downton Abbey because her level of snark-

Annmarie Kelly:

Epic.

Maggie Smith:

… in that show was so terrific. I mean, she was great in Harry Potter. I get a fair amount of Harry Potter fan mail via email. Not as much Downton Abbey fan mail. It's like the fans of that show can understand that I'm not the same person.

But I think there are enough young fans of Harry Potter that they're not really figuring out that she's not a 40 some year-old poet who lives in Ohio. So, they just send the email or letters.

Annmarie Kelly:

I wondered about that. I wondered how much … like if I were named Keanu Reeves, would it be fun if I got fan mail about like his performance in Speed 2? If he was even in that, but-

Maggie Smith:

Maybe. Maybe it would be. Yeah, it might be. But yeah, I actually love her in Downtown Abbey and her character's name. Her first name, if you remember is Violet, which is my daughter's name.

Annmarie Kelly:

Oh my gosh. That's your first daughter's name.

Maggie Smith:

Yeah. So, it’s like a lot of things converging for that particular role.

Annmarie Kelly:

I like that. More poetic repetition. Lovely.

Maggie Smith:

Yeah.

Annmarie Kelly:

Alright. Are you an early bird or night owl?

Maggie Smith:

Well, I used to be a night owl and now, I am an early bird.

Annmarie Kelly:

Children sometimes make it so.

Maggie Smith:

Yeah. I also, think just 40s. Like I'm too old to stay up.

Annmarie Kelly:

I know. I'm getting less fun at night.

Maggie Smith:

A hundred percent.

Annmarie Kelly:

Jam a clock earlier and earlier.

Maggie Smith:

Mm-hmm (affirmative), like 5:00.

Annmarie Kelly:

Oh, I have a few more here. Are you a risk taker or are you the person who always knows where the band-aids are?

Maggie Smith:

I definitely always know where the band-aids are and I take calculated risks, I would say.

Annmarie Kelly:

I like it. This is a fill in the blank. If I wasn't working as a writer, I would be a …

Maggie Smith:

Oh my gosh. I mean, if I had an answer, I might be doing it. I don't know. I mean, my other jobs are teaching and editing, so I would probably be perhaps teaching full-time or working in publishing full-time if I weren't a writer.

Annmarie Kelly:

If you weren't working as a writer, you would work with writing.

Maggie Smith:

Yeah, I think it's always going to be something writing adjacent. Yeah. As I said, I don't actually have any other talents, so this is pretty much it for me.

Annmarie Kelly:

Nice. what's something quirky that folks don't always know about you? A like, a love, a pet peeve? That thing that annoys you or that thing you love?

Maggie Smith:

My favorite genre of film is horror.

Annmarie Kelly:

Really?

Maggie Smith:

Yeah. I love zombie movies. I love any — I mean, it can be a slasher film, it can be a creepy independent movie, it can be zombies. I love zombies. I love horror movies.

Annmarie Kelly:

I don't think I would know that at all. Don't they-

Maggie Smith:

Probably not.

Annmarie Kelly:

… make you afraid of your house.

Maggie Smith:

Yes. And I'm also, afraid of the dark, so it creates a lot of fun. Like well, I guess the laundry's just going to mildew because I'm not going down there for a couple of days to get it out of the washer. Yes.

Annmarie Kelly:

Okay. That's hilarious. Do you have a favorite, like if you were to recommend, “Oh, if I had to watch it again and again, my favorite horror movie is or one of my favorite films.”

Maggie Smith:

Well, the trick is, if they're really scary, I don't want to watch them again. So, I would recommend the really scary ones, but they're not ones I want to keep watching. Like I love The Babadook.

Annmarie Kelly:

Oh, good God.

Maggie Smith:

It's really hard to watch, so I don't know that I want to spend time rewatching it. Or something like Hereditary I loved, but I don't know that I can spend time rewatching it.

But I am doing a sort of syllabus of horror with my daughter right now, because she really likes horror. So, we're working our way through Hitchcock and some of the classics.

And we just watched The Shining and then Psycho, and she liked both of them. And I still really appreciate both films. So, if the people haven't seen The Shining … and who hasn't at this point? But it's like flawless, honestly.

Annmarie Kelly:

Is that the kids in the hotel?

Maggie Smith:

Mm-Hmm (affirmative).

Annmarie Kelly:

That made me afraid of hallways and children?

Maggie Smith:

“Play with us, Danny.” Yes.

Annmarie Kelly:

Oh yeah. Stop it now. This is a family show. Oh, no, that made me afraid of children and hallways.

Maggie Smith:

And big wheels and weird carpets and … yeah, that's Kubrick at his best.

Annmarie Kelly:

Good Lord. Alright. No, I wouldn't have known that about you. That's great. Okay, so, two more. What's your favorite ice cream?

Maggie Smith:

Probably, coffee.

Annmarie Kelly:

I talked to Elizabeth Lesser many months ago, and she and I agreed that we love coffee ice cream. But why don't they make decaf coffee ice cream? Like wouldn't that be … I mean, like I want coffee ice cream at night, but I don't want it to keep me up.

Maggie Smith:

Oh, I don't let that get in my way. I just power through.

Annmarie Kelly:

Alright. Respect. Last one. If we were to take a picture of you happy, doing something you love, what would we see?

Maggie Smith:

Oh, probably like having a dance party with my kids, or like a road trip or something with them. Like just talking and laughing, listening to music, wherever we are, probably.

Annmarie Kelly:

That's a wonderful image. Oh, Maggie Smith, thank you so much for making time with me today.

Maggie Smith:

This was fun. Thank you. I love seeing that very post-ited book that just like warms my heart so much because I am the same reader. I'm a dog year person, and my books just look terrible when I've loved them well. So, that means a lot.

Annmarie Kelly:

Oh yeah, no, I do love, love a book.

I think this is a quote from a previous one you wrote that quote, “The ending of one thing is also, the beginning of another. What is the next adventure? There's room enough in this life with its many endings, its many beginnings for things you could not have imagined last week, or last year, or 10 years ago. Keep moving.”

That's another of my wishes and blessings for you today. Here's to this adventure, the one that you're on right now, and to the next, the adventures you see, and those you've not even yet imagined.

Maggie Smith:

Ah, cheers.

Annmarie Kelly:

Absolutely. Thank you for that blessing that you wrote and I just read back to you.

Folks, Maggie Smith's most recent book, it's a memoir. It's called You Could Make This Place Beautiful. But all of her books, my goodness, you will be … if you have not discovered Maggie Smith yet, you're in for such a treat.

You can find these books at wherever books are sold at an indie store near you.

To everyone listening, we're wishing you love and light wherever the day takes you. Be good to yourself, be good to one another. And we'll see you again soon on this wild and precious journey.

Wild Precious Life is a production of Evergreen Podcasts. Special thanks to executive producers Gerardo Orlando and Michael DeAloia; producer, Sarah Willgrube; and audio engineer, Ian Douglas.

Be sure to subscribe and follow us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

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