00:00I still look at my husband, and I still see him the way we were when we were 20.
00:05But at the same time, I know that we're not.
00:07And I'm so grateful for that huge chunk of time that we've had together.
00:14A friend of mine once, she said a very funny thing.
00:17Somebody said to her, how did you stay married so long?
00:20And she said, not getting divorced, which I think is very funny.
00:23But for me, it's really about commitment.
00:26There's something so beautiful about that, about the commitment, about the fact that
00:31you get married and you are choosing each other for the rest of your lives.
00:37That's the intention.
00:38That's what you want to do.
00:39So I think that's a really beautiful thing.
00:41You're not the same person you were when you got married.
00:44Like who you are physically, who you are emotionally, spiritually is very different than who you
00:52are 10 years later, 20 years later, 30 years later.
00:56If you're lucky like me to be married 38 years, it's really the ability to grow and change
01:04and evolve together and support each other and all those things that you do over time.
01:10I love that.
01:12I will tell you, this is a deep secret.
01:15Shared bathroom.
01:22It's very good.
01:24That's where you download everything.
01:26That's where you download the day.
01:28You laugh about what you're doing in the mornings.
01:31You're thinking about what are you doing today?
01:33Where are you going to be?
01:34Great.
01:34I'll meet you there, whatever.
01:36Okay.
01:36That's the humorous answer, but it's actually very true.
01:39And then also, I do think it's shared values.
01:43You have to be able to communicate to each other the things that are changing in your
01:48life also, and also the things that are still staying the same.
01:52You're always working together for the greater good.
02:00I read an interview and it was saying people don't know what it is that they want.
02:09And if you know what it is that you want, you can take the steps to make those things happen.
02:15And I always had a real discomfort with even wanting anything.
02:21Like it always felt to me like I had enough.
02:25I had so many blessings.
02:27I had my health.
02:28I had my family.
02:29I had my kids.
02:30I had my parents.
02:31It felt egregious to want something else.
02:34And I kept thinking about that.
02:37Like, why is it so hard for me to want something?
02:40And I thought, I'm just going to play a game with myself.
02:43What is it that I want?
02:45And I really could not come up with it.
02:49It was scary.
02:49And what ended up happening was that I started playing that actor's game, you know, the what
02:54if game.
02:55And the what if game was, well, what if I wanted something?
02:58What if I allowed myself to want something?
03:01What would that be?
03:02And it was music.
03:04And then that combined with this amazing songwriter, Cara Diaguardi, who I had met doing Chicago
03:12the Musical years later.
03:14We didn't do it at the same time, but I met her and she said, what is it you want
03:19to do?
03:20And I, I, I've told this story and I will tell this story till the cows come home because
03:24it's, it's really like the most amazing thing that someone did for me.
03:29I said, well, Cara, I would love to be a songwriter like you, but I, I can't.
03:33And she said, why?
03:34And I said, because I don't play an instrument.
03:36I don't read music.
03:38She goes, neither do I, but do you have something you want to say?
03:42And again, it was that moment of like, yes, I have something I want to say.
03:47She said, okay, I'll write your first songs with you, which she did.
03:50And that opened up the world of, of songwriting.
03:53The heartbeat that keeps pounding like a drum.
03:57That's the sound of a woman.
04:01What makes it deeply personal is because it's telling different phases of a woman's life,
04:08particularly my life, my co-writer's life, Amy Wodge.
04:11It's specific to only things that not just I have gone through, but my girlfriends have gone through.
04:19So many women I know have gone through.
04:21I'm a, a, a person who is in the public eye, but I'm a pretty private person.
04:27And so for me, it's a lot of just opening up in ways that I really haven't done before.
04:35And sometimes in music, you can say things that would be harder to say if you were just trying to
04:41talk about them.
04:43After everything I've done, there's a jury of just one, and it's me.
04:52Why now?
04:53Because I feel like I've only just really gotten to the point where I myself am comfortable using my own
05:00voice.
05:00It's taken me a long time to get there.
05:02And I think I was always on sort of like the verge of my mom's generation, which was very traditional.
05:09And then this generation of incredible women who were out there fighting for women's rights.
05:14And then I was sort of stuck in the middle, fascinated by what these women were doing ahead of me,
05:20and also very much engaged with my mom's generation and her values.
05:25And so I was always kind of straddling both of those things.
05:29And now I just feel like I can say who I am and share the stories and the things that
05:36are important to me.
05:37She worked for years, now there she is.
05:44There's a quote that was really important for the album that I would say was probably one of the quotes
05:52that influenced me a lot.
05:55And it was this quote from the sculptor Michelangelo.
06:00I kept it on my bulletin board for a really long time.
06:02And it was this quote that someone had asked him.
06:05They said, how do you carve these beautiful, beautiful statues out of these massive chunks of marble?
06:12And he said, I see the angel in the marble, and I carve until I set him free.
06:18And that really resonated with me because it felt as if that is the experience of becoming a person, becoming
06:26a woman.
06:27I think there's so many identities that we have over the course of our lives.
06:31You know, anybody does.
06:32Sometimes if you come in, you know, first you're like a sweet little girl or a sassy teen or, you
06:38know, an aggressive, you know, worker.
06:41I don't know, whatever the things are.
06:43You're a good wife.
06:44You're a good mother.
06:45You're a good friend.
06:46I think that's true.
06:48I don't want to get rid of any of those things.
06:50But those are labels that are sort of external.
06:53And this album was more an exploration of, like, what's going on underneath all those identities and all those women
07:00that are part of this album.
07:02Inside your chest beats the heart he handed down.
07:11There is a song that I wrote on Bigger Picture called The Heart He Handed Down.
07:15It's about my dad and his journey escaping from Bulgaria and escaping from a labor camp and making his way
07:22on a ship to New York, where he ended up leaving the ship and making his life in America.
07:31And I thought, wow, what an amazing person this was.
07:37You know, the song is called Heart He Handed Down because he had so much strength and so much courage.
07:44And he was able to sort of envision a life that he wanted for himself.
07:50I thought, wow, you know, wouldn't it be amazing if Chet came in and sang harmonies on this song?
07:58And he did.
07:59And he's got such a beautiful tone in his voice.
08:03And it's so tender.
08:05And so he's singing harmonies on that song.
08:07And you just can't give it up.
08:13I love his voice.
08:14I would do something with him in a second.
08:17Maybe we'd have to do a rap.
08:19Maybe we could do a cover of Eminem's Cleaning Out My Closet.
08:26You said, I know you're Mr. OPP man.
08:28You're PP man.
08:29Won't only see me, man.
08:30It took me two months to learn that song and gave me an enormous appreciation of how hip-hop is
08:39written and the different sort of rhythms and tempos.
08:43And also, there were things in there I just didn't know what they meant.
08:48So, you know, I had to know what OPP meant.
08:50You know, like, look it up.
08:52I'm not going to tell you.
08:52It was like Shakespeare to me.
08:54It was literally like learning Shakespeare because it was like a different language.
09:01And I learned it the way you would learn Shakespeare.
09:04Almost like two lines at a time so that I could just keep building on it until I could do
09:09the whole song.
09:10It was so much fun.
09:11I had to learn it for a movie.
09:13That's why I learned it.
09:14A movie called Boy Genius.
09:20I read that in the script and we're like, really?
09:22You're going to make me learn this song?
09:24Really?
09:25But I'm so glad I did.
09:26It was so much fun.
09:31When you carry a baby like I did and you give birth to that life and then you nurture that
09:40life, I nursed both my kids, you really have this extraordinary awe for what your body can do and what
09:52it has done.
09:53And how it's there for you and it's there for others, right?
09:58And that was incredible.
10:01And even though your body changes and it shifts and it might look different, you have such an appreciation for
10:08it.
10:08I remember distinctly just being amazed at what it could do.
10:15And then when I was diagnosed and had bilateral mastectomy, it was a very different relationship because these parts of
10:24your body that had been there for you in such a beautiful way were gone.
10:29And I'm very grateful that there are things nowadays in modern medicine like reconstruction and implants, because in my mom's
10:39generation, if you had breast cancer, that was it.
10:42There was nothing.
10:43And you would try to find a way to fill out your shape.
10:47You were left with sort of like a shadow.
10:49It was interesting to look at my body in that way and see it, like understand what is missing, but
11:00also that what my body could do to keep me healing and to keep me healthy and have that appreciation
11:11for actually going, wow, I've just gone through this major thing.
11:18And yet, my body is still working for me and it's still making me healthy and wants me to be
11:26healthy and wants me to be here.
11:27That is extraordinary to me.
11:29I think that's really incredible.
11:33So I like to say that I've finally gone Hollywood now and I have some implants.
11:37It's pretty good.
11:43I have a very strong faith.
11:45I really had to believe when things were tough that I would be okay.
11:52And sometimes you have a vision for what that is and that will stay private to me.
12:02But I think it's really important to really believe and have faith that things will be okay.
12:09There are so many times when things are out of your control and that's so scary and it feels so
12:16terrifying.
12:20I really had to just believe things would be okay.
12:25My mom used to crochet and she could make beautiful things and all of that is just made with string.
12:31And that's what it feels like to me, like all of the experiences that I've had that have led me
12:39to this point are part of every stitch and every hook that pulls through that cotton, right?
12:55And so I just feel like I'm able to see more of the blanket now than I used to be
13:03able to see.
13:04I'mabilesty.
13:05I'mabilesty.
13:06I'mabil beetje.
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