Is This My Story to Tell? with Megan Vos

ABOUT THE EPISODE

Our very first Mother Writer, and guest on this new iteration of the podcast, is Megan Vos. This is Megan's third appearance on the show, but the first time I've spotlighted her as a writer in an episode. During our new Motherhood in the Wild segment, Megan shares her thoughts about all things Halloween as we recorded around that time; and my inner firstborn child comes out to give you all a quick PSA before we dive into our chat all about how to navigate writing about other people – especially our children. In our conversation, Megan shares the differences between her writing and publishing experiences and what has felt most aligned with her writing and parent values. This episode is for you if you have ever asked yourself, “Is this my story to tell?”

TOPICS DISCUSSED

• The ways consumerism has made Halloween more stressful and guilt-inducing

• How Megan navigates writing about other people, especially her kids

• Why it’s essential to know the differences between writing and publishing 

• How your social media content can be a guide for what you are willing to share in writing

• How Megan navigated writing about tough content that was based on her own experiences 

• An excerpt from Megan’s most recent Motherscope story, “Less Rocky”

MOTHERHOOD IN THE WILD

In this week’s segment, we discuss the commodification of Halloween and the burden this ends up placing on mothers, as well as a reminder to get up to date on our health exams.

RESOURCES MENTIONED

• “Storytelling, Truth-Telling and Liberation with Ashley C. Ford” - Brene Brown’s Unlocking Us Podcast (May 2021) 

• “Less Rocky” by Megan Vos - Motherscope (Dec 2022)

• “Rocky” by Megan Vos - Motherscope (Aug 2022)

• “A Theory of Sprawling Holidays: Welcome to a Weeklong Halloween” by Anne Helen Petersen - Substack

• Body Work: The Radical Power of Personal Narrative by Melissa Febos

• Listen To Your Mother Show

• Megan Vos on Medium

WRITING PROMPT

What is a story you would write if you didn't have to worry about how other people would think or feel about it? Inspired by Megan's own experience writing a novel last year, go ahead and write it -- without any expectation of publishing it.

• CLICK HERE TO READ A RAW, UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT OF THIS EPISODE

  Jackie Leonard 00:04
  Hi, Megan, welcome to the podcast. Hi. Welcome back to the podcast, I should say, because this is your third time, but we are going to be talking about something new today. And for those first who don't know you, can you introduce yourself?
  
  Megan Vos 00:22
  Yes, my name is Megan, and I am a writer and a mom. And an educator and I live in Colorado, I have two daughters who are, when this comes out, I guess one will be almost eight, or will be eight, maybe by then. And my older daughter is 11. And I write mostly nonfiction, about parenting and about some about my own childhood. I also have moved a little bit into writing more fiction in the past year or so. And I also produce a show called listen to your mother, which is a local show featuring a local live show featuring writers writing about different aspects of motherhood. And we do that every year around Mother's Day. And I'm also the community coordinator of Mother scope, writers club. So I'm wearing some different hats these days.
  
  Jackie Leonard 01:25
  So I'm glad you shared a little bit about who you are, as a writer, I want to follow up and ask is there I know you said you're moving toward perfection? Is there something that you've been working on recently, like a writing project or something that you're trying to finish or close to finish that you're working on right now that you want to share? About a little bit? Yeah, so
  
  Megan Vos 01:45
  last year, I wrote a draft of a middle grade. So for ages eight to 12 novel that was based on my own experiences as a child when my parents got divorced. And I was sort of trying to answer the question, What book would I have wanted to read when I was 11. And I have a draft that I feel fairly good about. But I've been struggling to finish it lately. I think partly, it's just that I'm busier than I was this time last year. And also maybe partly that I think part of that project was both creative, but also really personal. And I think doing that writing allowed me to really shift some relationships in my own life. And sometimes I wonder if maybe that was the purpose of that. And if maybe, maybe I'm not going to work on it anymore, which, in a way, I think, oh, my gosh, I spent so much time on it. But I think maybe the purpose was different from what I thought, but maybe I will keep working on it do.
  
  Jackie Leonard 02:55
  Yeah, I I struggle with that, too. I think sometimes I anticipate if I write something, I have a vision for where it's going to go like what I'm going to do with it. And I like what you said about maybe I just needed to do it for that time period. And it was for for myself, like some sort of personal processing that you needed to do. And that was it. That was what it was for. Not saying that will be what happens to it. But even if that is all that it is, that is an accomplishment. That is something really rewarding. And I have to train myself more and more to see my writing in that from that lens. So I love that you. Yeah, I like that. You mentioned that. All right. So we'll get more into writing in later into our conversation. But before that, I wanted to start off our new episodes of the revamped mothers go podcasts, sharing a little bit about where we see motherhood in the wild. And, and my reasoning for this was, I feel like with social media, and with our writers club that we both are a part of. I often am speaking to the choir, we're all moms, we're all writers, many of us are advocates for mothers are aware of a lot of the you know all that's out there right now I'll talk to you about the injustices around motherhood and how much more support we need as moms in the United States and beyond and all of that. So a lot of times things that I'm seeing and sharing with people feels like the echo chamber a little bit. And I'm always a little taken off guard when I'm out in the wild quote unquote, or reading a news story. That's not my normal place to read things and I see people who are moms brought up or written about or something to do with motherhood, come up and I'm just like, what's like, why are people taught like I forget that maybe Regular world are in the main Charles, these topics are not handled with the same kind of care that we handle them. So anyways, I wanted to explain that to the listeners if you're new, since this is a since this is a new segment on the podcast. So with that all said, anytime a guest comes in, they will have an opportunity to share if they you know, saw something on a TV show or in pop culture or on social media, about motherhood or even in our regular life or real lives about motherhood that they might want to bring up in our conversation. So with all that said, Megan, where have you seen motherhood in the wild that you'd like to talk about today.
  
  Megan Vos 05:46
  So the one that came to mind for me was, I was at our local toy store. And there was a sign that said that if you bring in your Halloween candy, so right now, when we're recording this, it's just a few days after Halloween, and there was a sign saying, if you bring in your candy, then your kid will get a $5 gift card to use towards an item in the store. And then I've been seeing a lot of social media posts to about the switch, which which I know is not necessarily a new thing. But I think it's become more popular in recent years. And I guess the idea is that you, your child puts their candy, like out or under their pillow, and then the switch, which brings them a toy, or I guess like you can take it someplace. And if they're doing it at the store, then they get a gift card. And I think this might be a controversial take on this. But to me the switch, which feels problematic, and a couple of for a couple of reasons. First of all, I think it just highlights sort of the complexity of feeding our kids and of the way that feeding our kids brings up some of our own insecurities around especially around sugar. And that just feels like I think hard for a lot of moms in particular to like, see their kids come home with this big bucket of candy, and then reconcile the fact that they might eat all of that sugar. I also think and this is I think the part of it that feels more problematic to me is that it's just adding one more thing to mom's plates after an especially busy time of getting Halloween costumes ready and organizing plans. And I was just thinking like Halloween, I love it, we have a great neighborhood. And there's like super fun trick or treating. But it's also a lot of work. And especially this year with a Monday morning, it was like my kids had to wear their costumes to school, or I should say, got to wear their costumes to school. And so before it was even laid out, we were like doing Wednesday Addams makeup and doing purple hairspray for my other daughter. And it's I think it feels like switch, which is just another thing that we're supposed to do to make everything magical when it's already a magical day. So it feels like another
  
  Jackie Leonard 08:19
  thing, another task to put on their desk. Yeah. Like realistically to put on the moms to take care of right. You know. I also feel like my husband and I were talking about the holidays, and we were talking about Halloween being a fun holiday because a lot of the pressure that we have, I mean, I know you spoke about all the work that goes into Halloween, for sure. But a lot of the pressure to like buy things and get presents and baskets or whatever the things that you have to do for other holidays is diminished with Halloween Halloween. I know like there are costumes, but you can make costumes. And there's ways that you can kind of work around that holiday and it's very like low cost low upper and you go to different people's houses and get candy and candy itself like you only have to have a little bit of candy for each trigger trigger, right so it's not that expensive a holiday really. But that when you brought up like the Switch switch situation like you switch out the candy for a gift and it's like another holiday that we're trying to like impose gifts being like the goal for that holiday or the gift card at the toy store. Right? It's like this consumerism is like trying to find a way to make Halloween even more like the candy isn't enough. We have to have something else to like, add on to the Halloween holiday. That's the way I kind of was seeing it as you were talking. And yeah, just like you know, can't can't wait. Just enjoy the candy. I don't know. I mean, I know we're like talking, preaching to the choir here a little bit. With regards to the Halloween thing, but I do, I do think that's come up a lot I've seen on social media, like, how to how to, you know, make sure my kid doesn't eat too much candy for Halloween and, and, you know, in the school emails, like don't put candy in their lunches this week, you know, whatever and this and that. And on one end, I understand, you know, not wanting to like, have too much disruption at school or whatever, you know, the concerns are worrying about kids having like sugar crashes and meltdowns. But on the other end, it's like, for one day out of the year, can we kind of let some of that go? And I think, think we don't need more messaging to complicate that in our families. Right. Right. Well, thanks for sharing that. I know like you said, it could be a controversial topic to bring up candy and what we are and how we choose to feed our kids. But I think if I'm not to speak not to speak for you, but I think your emphasis was more on just like putting more tasks and more worry and expectations onto parents than we need. For me, I'm I'm gonna keep mine short. And I didn't necessarily see anything specific, but something on my mind lately that I've been like, kind of attuned to, and I shared with you personally, that Alright, no, I shared it on social media. And I think you saw it. But the writer Julie Powell, who wrote Julia and Julia, which is a movie we both really like and have talked about. The writer of that book, passed away and she was only 49. And I've like read a little bit about it. And she she is some people are saying that it was due to long COVID Because she was having a lot of problems in the weeks leading up to her passing. And like six weeks before that had had COVID or something. And so people were pointing out that, like, heart problems, cardiac arrest is thought to be related to that. And so Julie Powell was not a mother. But it got it's got me thinking a lot about like, how, since COVID, especially, I think a lot of people have taken like a break from getting regular checkups and going to the doctor's and I know, even when your parents are a mom, specifically, you also seem to neglect your health when you do that, or I'm speaking for myself here, but I've heard anecdotally from different moms. Like I haven't gone to the doctor in X amount of years, I just heard somebody talking about that at a restaurant. I overheard them saying like, a doctor's appointment and a few weeks, and it's been a few years and worried about what's going to you know what they're going to find. And so this is just more of like a PSA, I keep seeing all this stuff about the elections coming up, since we're recording right before. You know, early November, we're recording. And so I'm seeing a lot about like, go out there and vote and like people are talking about all the things that they're doing, you know, locally or nationally to help with elections. And I think so much of our instinct as parents and moms especially is to like be involved and do things to help the world. And, you know, this is just like, this is the most advice I'll give, but I just want to say like, for anybody who is late to, you know, get that checkup has been meaning to do it, I just want to encourage you to try to get up to date on all the regular exams and things like that, that we need to do so that we can go out and do the things that we feel motivated to do for other people. Like it just all it's only I mean, it took me you know, two years into the pandemic, almost three years, I think, to finally get back to the dentist, it took me a couple of years to get to find a doctor and do you know, a physical after having my second child and obviously the pandemic played into that, but I've just, I've just heard too many stories about people who are having some health problems, because, you know, there's just been a lot going on, and I just want to encourage people to take care of that. And a lot of times fear is the reason we put it off even more and sometimes what we're worried about is worse than what is actually the case. So anyway, that's what was on my mind what I've been seeing in the wild. And so now we're gonna pivot back to writing. And Megan, today where you wanted to talk about specifically writing about other people and your experience with that in recent years as a writer and what you've found to be what works for you as a writer. Yeah,
  
  Megan Vos 14:59
  it's Interesting that we were talking about my novel, because writing about that made me think a ton about how we write about other people. And that was about my dad. But I mean, more often, it comes up for me that I'm writing about my children and need to sort of think about what I'm going to share about them. And I think when I, when I started, when I was getting ready to record this podcast, I was thinking about a lot about the distinction between writing and publishing, because I think we confuse the two a lot when we say, how do I write about so and so? And really, what we're asking is, what will this person think? Or what will people think of me when I publish a story? But that's not the same question as how do I write about something. And so when I was writing my novel, I made an agreement with myself that I wasn't going to think about how people would receive would receive it, I was going to write it and write it for me. And that's really what I did. And when I look at it, now I can went and sort of tried to look at it a little bit more objectively, with, you know, a years distance from that first draft. And I've definitely worked on it since then. But the bulk of that writing was a year ago, I can really see that I can see that I wasn't censoring myself. And I can see that I wasn't considering an audience when I was writing it. So I think when we think about writing about our kids that that's the first important distinction to make is, am I thinking about writing? Or am I thinking about publishing, because it's so easy to get totally stuck and think, Well, I could never share this and then not write it. And so I think the first thing I would say about that is to just write if there's something that you want to write about, or is on your mind, or that you think there's a story there, you won't know that until you actually sit down and write that.
  
  Jackie Leonard 17:11
  Yeah, I think I like that you were you said that there's like a difference. I think we when we talk about writing, we use the word very broadly. But really, what our concerns often are around this notion of publishing other people reading what we've written a story we've written and having it be about other people. So that distinction is important. And I think they're what I really want to do with this phase of the podcast is focus on the different parts of writing. And because a lot of times, you know, you bring somebody you have a conversation about writing, and you can talk about everything from the idea to it being published. And there's so much that goes into writing that doesn't even have to do with writing sometimes that I think gets glossed over or we forget, or like we just don't know, the details, you spoke earlier about, you know, getting to the end of your draft, and like kind of not knowing where to go from here. And so I'm hoping to like fill in those gaps. And for anybody who feels stuck with writing about a story because of this very issue, like I want to write about other people, or there's other people in my life that I'm going to be bringing up and I don't know how they're going to react to that, or I don't know, if I should be writing about that. Can you share just like a little bit about what your journey, I guess, I would say, to where you're at now has been? Because I mean, just from knowing you over the past few years, I know, you've navigated some of these questions in different ways. So where did that kind of start for you?
  
  Megan Vos 18:54
  Yeah. So in the show that I produced, listen to your mother, I co produce it with one other woman. And before me, there was a different co producer. And I noticed in both of their stories, their their children are older than mine, that they never used their kids first names, and that they they also had told me that they always got permission from their kids to share their stories publicly. And that I think, is probably what's coming next for me because now that my kids are getting older, I want to make sure that they are okay with anything that I'm sharing, especially in front of a local live audience where a lot of the people or people who would know them. But I think when I started producing the show four years ago, that I started to adopt some of those ideas like not using my kids first names and anything that I publish. Um, I also never share anything that's embarrassing to me. That would be explicitly embarrassing to my kids. Like I've started to think about it sort of in terms of what I would share on social media, like, I'd never shared potty training stories or potty training photos of my kids. I would never share a story about something that would be shameful for them or could feel shameful for them. And those are some practices that I've started, just in terms of posting pictures when my kids were little. And one thing that I read, I was looking back, I was trying to find the transcript of this podcast that I used to love dear sugars with Steve almond, and Cheryl Strayed. And I remember Cheryl Strayed saying, I couldn't find the transcript. So I'm gonna paraphrase from a podcast that was years ago, but it really stuck with me, because she said that the main thing for her is to write about what the experience taught them, and to really center their own changing and or her own changing and her own learning through parenting, rather than to say, maybe write a story about here's what my kid did. And it's more, here's what I learned about myself through how I responded to a challenging situation, or an interesting situation, or maybe funny, I mean, it's not always challenging. But to make sure that the emphasis is really on us as parents and as writers and not on the things that our kids do when they're being kids.
  
  Jackie Leonard 21:31
  Yeah, I'm glad you brought up your the resources, or the people who have helped you kind of find some, you know, like, I feel like throughout our lives as writers, as mothers, so much of motherhood and writing, I feel like bleed together, and experiences. But, you know, we're collecting things from other people that we observe that sound like they could work for us. And I like how you said, you know, four years ago, you were around mothers who had older children, and you observed what they did. And some of the boundaries where the limits are the ways that they navigated it, and kind of like, held on to that for a time and started to adopt some things. And as you were talking about what you choose to write, I was thinking to myself, like, oh, yeah, like what don't What don't I post on social media? And then you said the same thing? I think that's really great advice for for moms today, because most most people have some form of social media. And the questions about what should I share of my kids on social media is very personal and unique to each parents and family. But I think every I could say that every parent probably has some sort of, you know, understanding of what they would comfortably share and what they wouldn't, and how they would do that with social media. And so you can kind of adopt that. Probably pretty similar easily over to what you would write because it's kind of like a similar filter. Like you said, I wouldn't post anything that would be embarrassing of my children that you would consider embarrassing, which could vary for other parents. But for you, those were some of the things that you were like, No, that's not what I would do. And so probably, I would say, similarly, you wouldn't write a story about like, some embarrassing potty training situation that for your child, out of courtesy for them. And I like also that you share that. You know, if you're writing your story, you're going to focus on based on show straights advice, what the experience meant for you, or how you responded to it, what you learned from it. I similar similarly, I've seen advice from, like, I'm gonna lose it now. I was listening to it might have been audiobook shoots, I'm not going to remember it. So I just thought of it. But basically, some of the advice around writing about people who maybe you've had complicated relations with, you've alluded to writing about some of that in your novel and things like that. But this person said, you know, when you're writing about other people that you maybe have complicated relationships with or that there's something problematic or whatnot, to write about them, just like just tell, you know, say what they did, and take away some of the judgment. And a lot of times, who they are, will come through, and really that if you're the main character, that's the person you should be focusing on. But what I will say that I liked that you shared earlier was about the difference between writing and publishing. And so you touched on the fact that writing itself is different than publishing your work for other people to read. And so when you were doing In the writing process for this novel, you could tell that you were sort of like you weren't filtering, you were writing it, as you remember that. And I'd like to hear just a little bit about what that experience was like for you. Before you finish the draft, because I feel like after you read over a finished draft, that's a different experience.
  
  Megan Vos 25:22
  You know, I think, writing that novel, and I should say, drafting it, and drafting that novel, made me realize partly just how much I've gaslit myself over the years into thinking, maybe it wasn't that bad. Or maybe it was okay. And I think believing some of the messaging that I got about being too sensitive and being too reactive. When my parents got divorced, messaging I got from my dad and reading it, I mean, writing it, and really delving back into that period in time really allowed me to access I think that 11 year old self and almost like a way to say to her, like, wow, you were right, like that was really, really hard. And what you went through is really real. And it felt especially poignant, because my own daughter turned 11, this past year. And so just looking at it both through the lens of parenting and 11 year olds, and then thinking really deeply about what it was like to be an 11 year old, I think, just allowed me to. It was really reaffirming, I think, of what that time in my own life was like,
  
  Jackie Leonard 26:43
  did you feel like, wow, while you were writing that book and allowing yourself to go there did like, what did you need? Like? Did you just get sucked into it? Which is just right, like, I know, you tried to write in the span of a month. So like, what did you do for yourself? Or what did you notice about yourself, like your emotional state? I mean, share as much as you're willing to, of course, but, you know, how did you navigate that? Because, you know, as you're saying, you were writing about some tough stuff that was based on your own experiences.
  
  Megan Vos 27:14
  Mm hmm. I did get a lot of therapy during that time. And I mean, before and after, I think that's probably why I was in a place where I felt like I could write it was that I had been talking about that period with my therapist. And I realized then that I think that I had sort of mistaken the passing of time for actual healing, and then was like, Oh, wait, like, just because it was a long time ago, doesn't mean that I've actually truly healed some of those old wounds. And so I also, it's funny, a picture type popped up on my Timehop, today of a latte and some flowers, like next to my laptop, and I would really treat myself like I would, I would treat those writing sessions like I don't know, just like a nice time for myself, I also would limit it to the word count that I was trying to reach for the day. I mean, for anyone who's not familiar with NaNoWriMo, the idea is that you write a complete draft of a novel 50,000 words, in the 30 days of November. And I went into it knowing that I wanted to write a slightly shorter novel, which was convenient, because I went away for a week at the end and knew I wouldn't work on it when I was gone. So for me, it was also a little bit shorter. It was like, three weeks of really intensive writing. So I think just knowing also that there was an end was just also allowed me to sort of take care of myself. I don't think I could have written that much and sort of that level of intensity for much longer than those three weeks.
  
  Jackie Leonard 28:59
  Yeah, well, I liked that you mentioned that you, you know made your writing sessions, this sort of that sort of, like you've made it an enjoyable experience, what I find, and I feel like what we're talking about does relate heavily to just this concept of writing about other people. Because a lot of times, obviously, you're writing about yourself and the things that you experience and that opens up a lot of feelings about you know, what, maybe we thought was beyond us, or we have moved past and all of that, but it's because of other people in our lives a lot of times that these stories have so much weight and I think there is a lot of fear and worry and like you said like gaslighting yourself into not writing these stories. And I just know from my own experiences I have. I have all these ideas of things I want to write and I cannot get myself to go there a lot of times because they are heavy and they do deal with other people. And I'm like, well how Oh, can I even manage to approach this, and we shut down. And so finding ways to make it an enjoyable experience, doing it in short bursts, if you know you're finding it's too much, even if you just wrote down 100 words, or wrote down a few, few lines, like that's enough for that session, you don't have to push yourself. And I know, you did a higher word count in this situation. But you also had support and you had things that you were that like you had been doing things leading up to it that helped pave the way for you to be ready to do that. And not everybody is going to be in that situation, when they feel inspired to write. And I recently read a book called body work by Melissa Phobos. And I just pulled up a quote. And I know you didn't write a memoir, but since it was life, about your life experiences. In this in the book, she writes, memoirs, begin his conversations with the self. And so I like, I like that as like a general concept of any writing is any writing that you do is really just a conversation with yourself. And you should be able to, to just sit down and write about yourself and about anyone you want to, without that filter of what are people going to think. And in the later revision processes that we do. We can start to change names, take out details, fictionalized things that need to be fictionalized. So we can protect ourselves and other people if we need to. But I think we have to write honestly first and, and just think of ourselves as our only audience so that it can come out. And I think you're, you're talking about it kind of will help normalize that for people. So thank you. So anything else you want to share about what it's been like for you writing about your kids or other people? Maybe specifically with regards to publishing because I know you have published some things that were more personal and that did have involve other people in your life.
  
  Megan Vos 32:14
  The stories that I publish, I do think even though I do share challenging moments with my kids, I think I'm pretty careful to not make it seem like I'm like I'm essentializing them, or almost whittling them down to like that behavior, I hope that I treat them like full people who sometimes lose it. And I try to treat myself the same way in my writing. Like I write a lot about the times that I've made mistakes with parenting or times that I have not said or done what I've wanted to. And so I was just listening to this podcast this morning about perfectionism. And it was talking about how the antidote to perfectionism is really being fully human and showing ourselves and each other as fully human. So I loved that sort of as a thought related to writing about how, when we do write about and share about moments when we've done something that wasn't our finest reaction. I mean, that that allows other people to say, Oh, wait, I do that too. And I think, of course, I've gotten a lot of great personal benefits from my writing. But I also are not but and I also really love when I share a story. And somebody says, that happened to me too. And that always happens, even if it's not the exact story. I think when you say like, this really hard thing happened. And then I handled it badly, and then it got harder, then that just gives people more freedom to feel like they don't have to be perfect.
  
  Jackie Leonard 34:08
  Yeah, I love that. I got me thinking earlier, when you were bringing up the podcast and all of that about another podcast that I want to shout out, that I listened to. On Bernays Brene Brown's podcast unlocking she had Ashley C. Ford on her podcast. She might have had her on a couple of times now, but I'll link it in the show notes. But it was based on Ashley C, Ford's new book at the time, somebody's daughter and she's speaks a lot to how she approached writing about her mother. And a lot of the stigma around that and writing honestly, but what you were saying earlier reminded me of it because and I think this is Like the one? Well, one of the takeaways from our conversation is, you know, back on yourself, you know, it's like, we're, we're so worried about writing about x person. So like, I'll just use your daughter's, for example. So like, you're worried about writing about your daughters. And if all you're doing is worrying about how you're going to write about them, you're gonna basically inadvertently write more about them, and instead focusing on like humanizing yourself, like talking about how you responded to whatever the situation that they were involved in, will make I think the story more compelling to your audience, because likely, you're not writing to 11 year olds, you're writing to adults. And it also will, like solve the problem itself. Because by focusing on you and your own experiences, you're not centering that person. And so then you don't have to worry as much about like, harming that person by sharing something that might not be yours to say, to tell your story to tell. The other takeaway that I felt was really insightful, from what you shared was the notion of the difference between writing and publishing. So a lot of times, we're worried about writing about other people, when really the worry is more about publishing. And so just write first and then you can figure out what works for you if that piece even needs to be published. And then the third takeaway that you share that I wanted to just use to wrap up our combo is what you shared about what you share on social media being kind of like a good like a guide for what you might be willing to share in writing, because we have those similar, like boundaries with people in our lives. And that is a really helpful tool for what we're willing to share with our kids in our writing. So I appreciated all of those things, and more from you. Before we wrap up, I did want to invite you Megan to share some of your most recent writing, with everyone listening. So feel free to tell us a little bit about it or jump right in.
  
  Megan Vos 37:11
  I'm going to read the beginning of my most recent mother scope, journal submission, which will go live I think, at the end of this year, and it's called less Rocky and it's a companion piece to a story I published in June, or maybe I wrote it in June, published in August either way. That was about a challenging camping weekend. And this piece is called less Rocky and it's about another camping trip in September. I'm just going to read the beginning. It was before dawn maybe 6am. The awkward bugling which I had heard before, but never quite so close and never all night. It reminded me of when we've stayed at our family's cabins in northern Maine, where the loons call to each other all night long. A reminder that you're someplace special, someplace different. We were in Rocky Mountain National Park for our final camping trip of the season. My partner breathed heavily beside me. I poked my head up to see if my daughters had their blankets still, and I spotted two lumps deep in their sleeping bags, heavy blankets on top everyone warm and cozy. I alternated between reading and thinking through this piece in my head one of my favorite parts of the writing process when I let the ideas solidify a bit in my head before translating them onto the page. An hour later, my seven year old awoke. I barely slept because of those elk she told me, but I held hands with dad when I was scared. Her eyes were bloodshot, but a smile spread across her face. As she and I walked to the bathroom our breath visible in the crisp air. We scan the meadow across from our sight, but didn't spot any elk. The night before we'd watched a huge bull walk up the hillside searching for a mate. Back at our campsite my partner and 11 year old were awake to we built a fire and started boiling a pot of water on the campstove the girls picked up the same pretend game they played the night before. And I partner and I wondered as we had many times over the summer, how many times how many more times our 11 year old would play like that. Then we ate packed hopped in the car. And we're home exactly 23 hours after we left our house. Throughout those 23 hours the thought this feels easier than last time ran through my mind. On the surface camping should have been a massive effort that weekend. I'm working part time this year and I no longer have Monday's available to unpack and regroup after Weekend Adventures. My 11 year old left for a two night outdoor Ed trip three days after our trip her first time away from home and we weren't sure how she would do. I had been sick with a bad cold for over three weeks and And finally test positive for COVID, the day after we returned from camping. Plus, it had taken us two full hours to pack that morning, proving once again that the same amount of that takes the same amount of time to pack for a one day camping trip, as it does for a three day camping trip. But despite these factors, the weekend felt dare I say, relaxing, restful, fun. And I'll stop there.
  
  Jackie Leonard 40:26
  All right, so if the story has not gone live, when Megan's episode airs, you will be able to find Megan story at Mother scope.com backslash journal in our journal, it should go live sometime in December. So depending on when this episode airs, or when you're listening, you might have to go search for it besides the show notes, but I'll drop it if it is available. I really love to hear I got to hear a read the whole story myself. And I love that this is a companion piece to your earlier story like you shared about camping and I encourage people to read both when you're able to. Megan, how can people connect with you after listening?
  
  Megan Vos 41:16
  You can find me on Instagram. I'm at Meghan Voss writes, and I also am on medium if you
  
  Jackie Leonard 41:25
  look or medium. Yeah. We'll put the links all there for you. I know I encourage people to read Megan's pieces on the Rocky series, but she has published a number of essays and stories related to parenting and her own life. And so check them out. She's worth a read. Megan, it's always so nice to have you on. I'm sure this won't be the last time. Thank you so much for sharing your story with us.
  
  Thanks for having me. Bye