Showing up with Glennon Doyle: "If you do the next right thing, eventually it all comes right."

On the second Monday in March, I went to hear Glennon Doyle read from her new book, Untamed. It was a magical night. The audience was packed shoulder-to-shoulder, filling the pews of St. Ann's Church in Brooklyn Heights.

This reading and film-screening was meant to be the first event in Glennon’s national book tour. Glennon had written about falling in love with her wife, the soccer player Abby Wambach. She sat in the front row, and when Glennon walked onstage, Abby was the first to spring to her feet, applauding. We all followed.

And, I remember that date--March 9--because it was the last time in 2020 that I would gather in real life, in a room full of people.

Two days later, Glennon canceled the tour.

There are so many people like Glennon: authors, artists, and performers who were scheduled to have their big debut. Their TED talk. Their opening night. Their album release. And at Hello Monday, it’s got us thinking, where does this year’s art go?

So this is the first of a two-part series on the lost art of 2020. We’ll throw in a couple of bonus episodes as well. I talked to a bunch of creative people about how they’re getting by, what happens to their work, and what’s changing for them in the midst of this pandemic.

To start, I called Glennon to ask her about canceling the tour. To hear our conversation, you can download the episode here. Then, please, share your own thoughts and tag them #HelloMonday so I can jump into the conversation.

Here are some highlights….

On canceling her book tour: "I think a lot of us are walking between two selves: there's the self that can see how much harder some other people have it and can worry about the world and can think about how much we have to be grateful for. And then there are the selves that are just heartbroken over projects that we thought we would launch."

On slowing down during quarantine: “You're left with the thing you were trying to distract yourself from in the first place, which is like your own self and your own humanity and, and the truth of life, which is that we are always very vulnerable.”

On the impact of the pandemic: " I think we're going to come out of this more connected and more tender and more human than we went into it."

On publishing cadence: "I publish a book once every five years. That's it. I can't do it faster because I feel like I never want to write a new book until I become a new person and that takes a while."

On making the decision to cancel her book tour: "I think that everybody who is doing any sort of project in the world right now realizes that what's happening right now is causing this huge shift. Everything is falling away. All of our plans. All of that stuff. And it's just like, okay, how can we show up for each other right now. Not our product. Like how can we really connect and get people through the trauma of this?"

On her book's message: "We have been trained to look outside of ourselves for expectations about how we're supposed to create the life we create; the family that we create; the relationships that we create; the companies we create; and the governments we create. But I think that this part of my life is teaching me that didn't work. I did all those things. I was a good girl. I was a good woman. I was a good Christian. I was a good wife and I was a good mother. And I was freaking miserable...You have to define what is good for you."

On what it means to be good: "If you're defaulting to somebody else's idea of what's good, then it's always going to be a cultural idea of what's good. And for women, it is always going to be in one way or another: disappear, be quiet, get smaller, stop making us uncomfortable."

On what happens when quarantine is over: "This one moment of hope I've been thinking about is how amazing it's going to be when there's that day that we [are] able to go out and like soak in the sun and let our children run around and touch each other and hug and gather and dance. That's going to be so amazing. We're going to appreciate each other in ways that we maybe never have. We've always taken it for granted. And then I think because we're human beings that will probably last about 12 minutes."

The Unexpected Art of 2020

LA-based photographer Saam Gabbay celebrated his birthday in March by driving to the homes of people he would have invited to celebrate with him. He brought along two camera bodies, a drone, and a couple of GoPros. The result is a beautiful video and portrait series that captures something of the longing and isolation of this time...and something even more significant about our connections.

I want to hear from you…

What is the most important thing you didn't get to see or be a part of this spring? Show us what you've got. Tell us about it here, and I'll feature your work in future newsletters. Drop us a line at [email protected], or post on LinkedIn, using the hashtag #HelloMonday.

And, If you enjoyed listening, subscribe, and rate us on Apple Podcasts – it helps new listeners find the show.