Emily Z. G.: I just feel like the moment for a story that basically relies on a girl's emotional intelligence to save the world. It feels very exciting to me, and I think these kind of ideas around masculine and feminine, not in a gendered sense, but in a archetypal and existential sense. We're witnessing the battle between those things occurring right now culturally, and I think the story has everything to do with that.
Intro: You're listening to the MILF Podcast. This is the show where we talk about motherhood and sexuality with amazing women with fascinating stories to share on the joys of being a MILF. Now here's your host, the milfiest MILF I know, Jennifer Tracy.
Jennifer Tracy: Hey guys. Welcome back to the show. This is MILF Podcast, the show where we talk about motherhood, entrepreneurship, sexuality, and everything in between. I'm Jennifer Tracy, your host. Coming to you this last week of May, 2019. WTF, I don't know. It's just amazing. And yet my nine year old feels like summer break, which is three weeks away, is agonizingly far away. And to me, it'll just be here in the blink of an eye.
Jennifer Tracy: So today, it's the last day for me to announce the gift for the month, which is save the children. You can go to their website and donate to them directly, or you can write an iTunes review for MILF Podcast, and I will donate $25 per iTunes review.
Jennifer Tracy: So there's that. We have our first live event coming up in Los Angeles, July 24th at 8:00 PM. That's Wednesday at Dynasty Typewriter. Tickets are on sale now. You can go to dynastytypewriter.com. It's $20 if you the pre-buy them. It's $25 at the door. But if you really want to come, I would not wait. I'm expecting a full house. So it's going to be a really fun show. I'm going to have four MILFs who have been previous guests on the show, and we're going to talk about sex after kids. And just sex in general.
Jennifer Tracy: And there might be some pole dancing involved in the show, and other things. So I really hope you guys can make it. That's going to be such a fun night. And what else can I tell you?
Jennifer Tracy: My writing course starts June 17th. This is the first one of its kind that I've released. It's a six week writing course that takes you from your story idea, to a fleshed out outline in six weeks. And I've really been enjoying working with my students in the free classes they offered. So sign up for that at jennifertracy.com. Today's guest is Emily Ziff Griffin. Emily came to me through our mutual friend Robin, who's also an amazing author, who now lives in Baton Rouge. But I met her when she was living here in LA. Emily, I just didn't know her. I took the referral from Robin and I'm so glad that I did because what a treasure, what an absolute treasure this woman is. I didn't even know anything about her.
Jennifer Tracy: I went to her house to interview her, and I found out that she was a very accomplished film producer. Then when she decided that wasn't right for her anymore, she decided to write. And she really made it a priority in her life. And her husband supported that and supported her in doing that. She wrote this beautiful book called Light Years, and I've had the pleasure of reading it since the interview, and it's absolutely gorgeous. I highly recommend it for any age. It's a YA, but I mean I loved it. But I also love why novels in general, many of them. So that's not to say, but it's written from the perspective of a young adult. It's phenomenal. I really love it.
Jennifer Tracy: There'll be a link to that in the show notes of where you can buy that on Amazon, as well as Emily's links and things. And it was just a delightful conversation. I really loved talking to her about all things artistry, and motherhood, and marriage, and just being a working woman in this time. I really hope you enjoy my conversation with Emily Ziff Griffin.
Jennifer Tracy: Hi Emily.
Emily Z. G.: Hi.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh my God. Thank you so much for coming on the show.
Emily Z. G.: Thank you so much for having me. This is such a treat.
Jennifer Tracy: This is really exciting. And having me in your beautiful home. I love this neighborhood by the way.
Emily Z. G.: It's an interesting neighborhood. I come from New York, so I might as well be dead living here because it's so sedate.
Jennifer Tracy: It's very suburban.
Emily Z. G.: Very suburban. But it's very beautiful. Everybody takes very good care of their plants and flowers. So ...
Jennifer Tracy: I thought you were going to say children.
Emily Z. G.: No, I don't know. There aren't as many children as you might think. There are a lot of older people. I think this neighborhood goes back a long way and it hasn't been hipster gentrified yet.
Jennifer Tracy: Which is cool. You can tell it's just authentic.
Emily Z. G.: I like that except that there's nowhere to get good coffee. So there's pluses and minuses.
Jennifer Tracy: I know. And as I was walking upstairs to get into your office, I saw a jar full of coins and I can only guess that that was a swear jar. But then I thought-
Emily Z. G.: No.
Jennifer Tracy: Okay.
Emily Z. G.: It actually was an attempt to trap leprechauns on Saint Patrick's Day. My children have been for the last few years, intent upon trapping leprechauns. So this year, they put scotch tape on a bunch of coins and put them all on the stairs hoping to stick the leprechaun's feet to the coin.
Jennifer Tracy: That is incredible.
Emily Z. G.: I know. It's very cute.
Jennifer Tracy: Well they'll have try again next year.
Emily Z. G.: They will. They will. They'll come up with something, you know.
Jennifer Tracy: Okay. So you're from New York originally?
Emily Z. G.: Yes.
Jennifer Tracy: Grew up, born and raised.
Emily Z. G.: Born and raised in New York City.
Jennifer Tracy: And then where did you go from there? 18 hits, boom. Where do you fly?
Emily Z. G.: I go to Providence, Rhode Island to Brown University. Which I hated initially, and went through several months of, "I don't really need to go to college. Okay. I'm going to be a photographer, and I just don't even need any of this." Which is really just that I was used to being a big fish in my pond, and now I was with 5,000 other people who were really accomplished fishes. And it was really, I think destabilizing.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Emily Z. G.: So I left after my first year, and I went to art school in Boston.
Jennifer Tracy: Where in Boston? I went to BU.
Emily Z. G.: Oh, I went to the Museum School.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh nice.
Emily Z. G.: Yeah. Just for a year. I intended to transfer forever. And then the thing about art school is that, well at least for me. It felt very narrow. It felt like you're talking about art, you're looking at art, you're with people making art. And there aren't a lot of external influences. And I think I didn't know what I wanted to say as an artist, as a creative person. I think I still was in a lot of fear around being creative, and I didn't have my voice yet.
Jennifer Tracy: What do you think the fears were? Just because I'm so familiar with that. Having been coming out here to be an actress and finding my way to being a writer now and working with writers. If you can-
Emily Z. G.: I think the fears were both being seen and the vulnerability of like people really knowing me. And then that leads to the subsequent fear of failure. Of just like, I'm not actually talented or good enough, or worthy of anything. And once I fully reveal the truth of who I am, that might be the result. And then what? Then I have to be what? A bank teller. I didn't know like what the alternative was.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Emily Z. G.: But I ended up going back to Brown after that year. And then I discovered film, which I hadn't really considered as a path and in particularly film theory, like really looking at how putting two images next to each other creates meaning. And that was thrilling. That was the first I feel like, maybe not the first, but definitely a big aha. And I decided I wanted to work in film and visual storytelling.
Emily Z. G.: But again, I was afraid to say I wan to be a director or a writer even. I said I want to be a producer, because that felt like the very safe background version of being creative. So that's what I did, and I pursued that and moved back to New York after I graduated. And then started working in the movie business.
Jennifer Tracy: So you went straight from college and started producing films? Or you started them in film school?
Emily Z. G.: I did produce them in college, to some extent. Although the program there was very experimental, it was not Hollywood filmmaking at all. And I moved back to New York with my ivy league degree in art semiotics thinking oh great, I'm going to have no problem just waltzing into the film industry and getting a great job. And of course, I didn't know anyone and I didn't really know how the business operated. I was at a real loss.
Emily Z. G.: It took me several months to find a job, and I spent that first summer doing all kinds of temp work and odd jobs. I ended up answering phones at a hedge fund, and the president of the hedge fund had a cousin who was a movie producer and that's how I got my first job.
Jennifer Tracy: I love it.
Emily Z. G.: And I always tell that story to students because I worked my butt off at the hedge fund. I was a diligent phone answerer and I organized their office supply closet. I cared. So this guy took an interest in me, and helped me get a job. So I worked as a producer's assistant, and then from there I worked as a talent manager's assistant. And that was very challenging. It was a very challenging work environment. She was very difficult. But she was brilliant and she taught me a lot, and she also managed the actor Philip Seymour Hoffman. And so I met him through her and I went to work with him. I started as his assistant. And then we started a production company together and we worked together for 12 years, until he died.
Jennifer Tracy: I did not know that.
Emily Z. G.: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: Wow. Okay. So my gosh. So you did a lot of, because he worked incessantly until he died.
Emily Z. G.: He worked incessantly.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Emily Z. G.: We had a company that was designed to make ... our mission when we started was to make films that he would not act in. It was to give him another path for his creativity. And he loved working with writers, and he wanted to direct. And then we made three films, all of which he acted in the first of which was Capote.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Emily Z. G.: And then the film that he directed, Jack Goes Boating. And then a film toward the very end, which I am a producer on and was there for. But I feel, it wasn't the thing that we developed.
Emily Z. G.: Yeah, so it was a long. And there were many projects, many, many projects over the course of that time that we developed and just never managed to make. And we did develop a lot of television. So it was my extended graduate school.
Jennifer Tracy: I was going to say that's where you probably learned how to do everything producing as a producer.
Emily Z. G.: And as an artist. I think I learned everything about how to approach the life of an artist, or I shouldn't say the life. How to approach artistic endeavors.
Jennifer Tracy: Wow. So 12 years, and then Philip died.
Emily Z. G.: Yes.
Jennifer Tracy: And that's a huge loss. Were you married yet at that point?
Emily Z. G.: Yes, I was married. I had my first daughter. I actually had my daughter, I would say right when he relapsed and he started drinking. He was doing Death of a Salesman, but I didn't know that at the time. But he was doing Death of a Salesman on Broadway, and she was born in January. I think I found out a couple months later that he had started drinking.
Emily Z. G.: And then that was 2012 that my daughter was born, and he died two years later. And it was really maybe a year after that, that I started to realize that things might not turn out okay for him. I started to really accept that ... I didn't know what was going to happen.
Emily Z. G.: So I started to think about what was next even before that. I had to. And I think that had he not died and even if he had not taken this turn in this other direction, I think our time together would have had to change anyway. It was a long time. And as much as I gained from it and learned from it, it was quite stifling in a way because it allowed me to hide in a sense. It allowed me to do the same thing that I did in college, and that I did by choosing the path of producing, which was to deny my own creative self.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Emily Z. G.: In service of his.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Emily Z. G.: And I started to realize that. And I think once you start to realize that, it's just a matter of time before your need and your ambition overshadows your fear.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Emily Z. G.: Your need to create. And so I decided to write a book, which in retrospect was probably the least intelligent way to learn to start writing. I always have to remember I did do some writing classes. I did some screenwriting classes with a wonderful teacher named Francine Volpe for a while, but I didn't have any formal writing training.
Emily Z. G.: I had a story that I had always wanted to tell, which is about another loss, which is my father dying when I was a teenager. So yeah, I decided to write a young adult novel loosely inspired by that. And I had started that before he died. And then when he died, it shifted. It just opened up the world in a way. Because even though by that point, we had just dissolved our company and we had made an agreement about all the various projects and how we were and weren't going to work together going forward. We were kind of done in a way, but we still had projects together and I still felt very tethered to New York. And then when he died, it was like okay. I was just in this very other worldly, liminal state of uncertainty, which ultimately was really empowering and great. I didn't know what to do. And that walk through the wilderness was really great.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Emily Z. G.: And that year was an insane year. I had a miscarriage in January. He died in February. I got pregnant with my son in March. My husband turned 50 in April. I had been doing this very long yoga teacher training, which I did only because I was like I need a spiritual conduit of some kind when all of this is happening. So I finished that in May.
Jennifer Tracy: This was all in New York?
Emily Z. G.: This was all in New York. And then in June, we went to a wedding. My husband and I came out to Sonoma for a wedding, and we started talking about moving out here. It was the first time where I think he opened up to the possibility of that, and for me too because I had always been like, "Well no, Phil's in New York. I have to live in New York. I can't live in LA."
Emily Z. G.: So we started talking about that in June. Nothing happened in July, it was weird. And then in August, we came out here for a week. And on the way home, I bought one way plane tickets for October 1st.
Jennifer Tracy: Wow.
Emily Z. G.: And then in September, my husband's mother came down with this rare thing called Guillain–Barré syndrome, which basically left her in the ICU and paralyzed from head to toe except for one eyelid.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh my god.
Emily Z. G.: She made a full recovery, but she spent 40 days in the ICU with a family member 24 hours a day with her. It was so insane. So that happened in September, and then we moved out here and in October. And then my husband got a job. I remember we came out with no jobs. We had nothing. We had no place to live, no job, no school for my daughter. I was seven months pregnant.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh my gosh. Wow.
Emily Z. G.: And then he got a job in November, and December 1st my son was born. So I always just ... that year was insane. It was such a trial by fire in every way possible. Incredible highs, incredible lows. Just the full spectrum of human experience in a way. The whole time I was trying to write this book.
Jennifer Tracy: I was going to say, so where was the book in this?
Emily Z. G.: Yeah, I was trying to write the book and I was probably a third of the way through it by the end of the year. I remember lamenting to a therapist I had in New York about how, "I'm just not getting to the book." The book really felt like everything rested and rode on this book. My whole future was riding on this book, because I really didn't want to produce anymore. I didn't feel that I had been successful as a producer actually. And I believe that that's because I'm not supposed to be doing it. And even now, I'm still doing it in a way that I know I'm not supposed to be. So that to me is just a matter of time.
Emily Z. G.: But I knew that even then, and so I have to do this because this is my ticket out of this life that I know is not. So I felt a lot of pressure. And then also financial pressure because I had no income. My husband got this job, which was a great job for him. It's turned out to be his dream job, but it's a nonprofit. We were having a second child. So there's all this pressure, and I remember worrying about this with this therapist and she was just like, "Look, you have to trust the right timing of things, and you have to trust that there will be a moment for you to write this book. It is not this moment. You've moved your family across the country, you are giving birth to eight another human. Your mother-in-law almost died. You have to allow for these other things, and you have to trust that that's okay." Very hard for me to do.
Emily Z. G.: But my son was born. And then six weeks later I got a babysitter come four days a week. Then we had a little bit of money saved and it was basically like okay, we're investing this money in this book. That's what we're doing.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Emily Z. G.: I had a first draft at the end of March.
Jennifer Tracy: Wow, that's awesome.
Emily Z. G.: And it was not very good. And I was working with these women who are book packagers, who are like producers for books. And they had helped me shape the story, and they had a professional editor that they hired to edit the books that they were doing. She was amazing. She gave me this 10 page document of notes that were just devastating initially. And then as my husband pointed out, he was like, "She's teaching you how to write the book." And I was like, "Okay."
Emily Z. G.: So I worked, and I worked, and I worked, and I revised, and I revised again. I gave it to someone to read, and I took notes from them. And I wrote another draft, and another draft, and another draft. And eventually sold the book and finished the book. It came out a year and a half ago.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh my God. What's the name of the book?
Emily Z. G.: The book is called Light Years. Yeah. And I'm so proud of it. Its everything I wanted it to be. And when I started it, it was like if I finish this, I win.
Jennifer Tracy: Yes.
Emily Z. G.: And I still feel that. And then it was like okay, if I publish it, I win. And then it was like if I get some good reviews, I win. So the bar kept rising. I learned how to write by doing that, and through all the people that were charitable enough to give me feedback.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Emily Z. G.: Everyone thinks writing is such a solitary process, which it is. But then ultimately, I think it can be if you open up the door to collaboration, to input. That's how I had to approach it.
Jennifer Tracy: Absolutely. And at a certain point, you can't see the story just by yourself with the same set of eyes and heart that is writing it.
Emily Z. G.: That's right.
Jennifer Tracy: So that is magnificent. So then you sold that, published it, it's out in the world and on the shelves. That's exciting. Was there a next step for you after that within the world of writing, of YA?
Emily Z. G.: Yeah. I'm turning it into a TV show, which is very cool.
Jennifer Tracy: Amazing.
Emily Z. G.: Deeply gratifying because it's allowing me to deepen and expand the story. That's the funny thing about publishing a book is that then, it exists in what feels like this very final form. So now I'm getting to reimagine certain things, and change things, and deepen things. It's like this spiral of discovery around what the story really is.
Emily Z. G.: It hasn't inherently changed. The big picture of what the story is, is still there. Both on a thematic level and a narrative level. But it's just deeper and deeper, and richer and richer, and more and more layered. And that is just so cool.
Jennifer Tracy: How exciting, and how thrilling to be able to dive into that story. And I want to ask you and back up for a second. So this is the story of, a fictionalized story of your father's death when you were a teenager. So the character is going through that.
Emily Z. G.: Yeah. So my dad died of AIDS the summer before I started high school. And he was a gay man. He was sick for five years before that. It was very traumatic and challenging, needless to say. So I always wanted to tell some version of that story. It took me a long time to figure out. And actually, I think what I went through with Phil's death really informed how I told the story of my father's death. In the sense that the way that I view, so the main character of the book, her name is Louisa. The way that I view her journey and the story, she's a very interesting girl.
Emily Z. G.: She has a form of synesthesia, which is a real neurological condition wherein some people's senses actually overlap and get muddled. So Kanye West actually has synesthesia. There are a lot of famous artists over time. Van Gogh is said to have had it. Dostoyevsky, many notable people.
Emily Z. G.: And so for a lot of people, they will literally when they hear a certain musical note, it will have a color that they will see when they hear that sound. And there are a lot of different ways it manifests. For my character, it manifests through her emotions. Conceived of this version of synesthesia wherein when her emotional state is particularly heightened, her senses go into this chaotic disarray. She becomes bombarded with these sensory misfires. It's very debilitating for her. And what it means is that at the beginning of the story, she has learned really to control her feelings completely and totally so that she can function.
Emily Z. G.: And she has a mother who's very scientifically oriented and very rational, and really believes that she needs to control this, that this is vital to her success and her future. And she's internalized that as well. And that's how she is. And what happens in the story is a virus appears and starts killing people all over the world. This insane pandemic. And her father gets sick. And she finds herself on this cross country journey with her older brother, her brother's best friend who is also her love interest. And then this girl. This mysterious, cool older girl.
Emily Z. G.: She's in pursuit of a way to save her father. And then she ultimately discovers that there's more to this disease than anybody actually knows, and that there are certain ways in which she is particularly able to discern that and to uncover the truth behind it. And that of course all has to do with this condition and with her emotional self.
Emily Z. G.: I don't want to give away all the things that happened, but the real arc of her narrative is ... then there's this idea that she's somewhat of a messianic figure. She's somewhat of a Joan of Arc kind of figure. Her arc really has to do with her learning to synthesize these two parts of herself. She's a brilliant intellect. She's a computer coder. That's another element of the story. Very brilliant, left brain thinker. But then there's this other piece that she's denied for a long time that then comes into play just as significantly.
Emily Z. G.: That was my journey too. And it was my journey in writing the book, and in opening up to a certain way of seeing existence, and life, and the world, and spiritual awakening of sorts where I understand that there's more to all of it than we tend to think day to day as we're just worrying about our school lunch and our car payment or whatever. Yeah. And that really is how she conceived of it is that our emotional selves are actually this ... they are a form of super power, and we are in a culture where particularly for girls and women, that's long been denied. Yeah. I think amazingly since writing this, the world has risen up to meet some of these ideas in such a great way, which is particularly why the TV show excites me because I just feel like the moment for a story that basically relies on a girl's emotional intelligence to save the world, feels very exciting to me. And I think these kind of ideas around masculine and feminine not in a gendered sense, but in an archetypal and existential sense. We're witnessing the battle between those things occurring right now culturally. And I think the story has everything to do with that.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Emily Z. G.: I find that very exciting.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh my God, I'm going to go home and order it right now.
Emily Z. G.: I've got a pile of them over there. I'll give you one.
Jennifer Tracy: Really? Will you sing it? Oh my God. It's such a beautiful story. So many things. Congratulations. I know how hard it is to write a book. I've written one, and I'm writing my second one. And I watched Robin, our shared friend go through her journey. She's also an amazing writer. The story that you just so brilliantly laid out, beautifully. How long did it take you from when you started writing the book, when you really started writing.
Jennifer Tracy: And by the way, I also want to just say, and this is so important. The fact that you'd had that really difficult year up until when you moved out here and then your son was born. And your husband probably together I'm assuming. You didn't say that, but I'm inferring that. Made the decision together of, "No, we're going to take this money and invest it in my work, my creative writing." That is so awesome. And that is something that I didn't grow up with and I didn't have early in my marriage in a way.
Jennifer Tracy: A, I wasn't asking for it. I'm not blaming my ex husband. We're now amicably divorced, and he's lovely and we're friends. I didn't have the moxie to stay. I didn't even know that I wanted to write a book then. So that's part of it. But I love that commitment of, "Oh no, this is the investment I'm making." Not only because you had a fire under your ass financially, but it was just-
Emily Z. G.: Well I give him 100% of the credit for framing it that way. Because all I thought was, "Oh my God, we're running out of money. We're going to run out of money. We're going to run out of money. Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God." And his thing was, "It's okay. It's just money, and you need to do this. So we're going to do it." Which was not comfortable for me at all. It was definitely not a case of me being like, "I believe in myself. Let's invest this money in me." It was more like, "I need to write this book." And him being like, "It's cool. It's fine."
Jennifer Tracy: I mean that is-
Emily Z. G.: [crosstalk 00:30:07] which is pretty awesome.
Jennifer Tracy: That's real partnership really to support you, and the family, and the children. It is hard to balance this, all this stuff. It's so hard. That's why I started this podcast was to interview. I'm like how the F do you do it, how do you do it, how do you do it? And the fact is it's all different. But to have that support of each other, and I'm sure you support him in the same way. That's really magic sauce. That's great.
Emily Z. G.: It's good. It's part of why we came out here too because we were in New York and he was doing commercial real estate, and he was really unfulfilled. He's such a brilliant visionary thinker, and it was just not using even half of his potential. And even though we came out here with no idea what he was going to do, it gave us the ability to just upend append to the script completely and find something else. Which he then magically managed to do in a way that is the best use of his skillset, and his interests, and all of that.
Emily Z. G.: So yeah, I think you have to be willing. I think that's been a really great lesson for us. I remember him saying to me when we first started talking about moving out here. He was like, "The fact that I have resistance means we have to do it. Because I don't ever want to be in a life where change feels impossible."
Emily Z. G.: It gave us that thing of we can always move, we can always change. We can always do things that we didn't see coming. And I think we're very similar. We just decided to move our kids out of their private school and put them in a charter school, which brings up all kinds of stressful and status things, all kinds of things. For us it was like no, we can make these decisions and we can make these choices because they're the best thing for us in the moment. And they may work, and they may not work. But we're not going to be locked in by fear.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah. And you can always change your mind.
Emily Z. G.: 100%.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah. That's the beauty. We have the liberty here, at least in this country to change our minds.
Emily Z. G.: Yes. 100%. And just to know that we have no idea what's coming. That's a thing. I think people make so many decisions out of a false perception of permanence. If there's anything I've learned, and I think only in the last couple of years have really started to embrace the fact that even the good things. The bad things are not going to last forever. Neither are there good things. So just don't get so caught up in any of the swings of the pendulum.
Jennifer Tracy: Do you feel like your yoga practice and learning that helped you with this piece and put it in your body?
Emily Z. G.: Yeah. That's one thing that I have lost in Los Angeles and having the second child is my yoga practice. Which is a heartbreaker in a way. But it's also okay. I think it's like that too. I'll come back to that at some point and it's fine. I don't feel this thing of oh my God.
Jennifer Tracy: When you still have all of that in you, so when you go back to the mat, it'll be there.
Emily Z. G.: I think that yoga was the way into a spiritual life for me, because I always have struggled with having a spiritual life, but I've always wanted one. I remember as a child, my closest friend who lived down the street when I was very young, her father was an episcopal priest. They would go to church every Sunday to his church, and I would secretly angle to get invited over for a sleepover on Saturday night so that I could go with them to church. And we would spend the entire time doodling in church brochures. I wasn't even enraptured by the scripture or anything. But I had a desire for faith, even though I didn't have it. I always wanted to be a believer, or wanted to be ... I was deeply upset that my Jewish father did not insist that I go to Hebrew school. I was like, "Come on guys, please force this on me. I want it."
Emily Z. G.: But I also struggled with it because I also came from a very intellectually rigorous school, and upbringing where people who believed in God were idiots kind of thing. So I had a lot of that too, to overcome. And it was really yoga. And my husband was very deep to yoga when I met him.
Jennifer Tracy: That's how you guys met, in yoga?
Emily Z. G.: No. It was a good story actually.
Jennifer Tracy: Okay.
Emily Z. G.: No. But we didn't meet any yoga. But he brought me to yoga for the first time. And it was Jivamukti, which is a studio in New York that is very high on teaching, on spiritual teaching, on Dharma teaching. It's not-
Jennifer Tracy: Kundalini?
Emily Z. G.: No, it's not Kundalini. The class begins with 15 minute Dharma talk, and that talk is then woven through the entire 90 minute practice. It's not just a workout class. And I remember just thinking like this is the whole thing because there was this physical way in. So it was like, "I get that." I had been a dancer. So if I'm balancing on one foot with an arm and a leg in the air, and you're talking to me about gratitude, or you're talking to me about equanimity, or patience, or any number of things. I get that and I can connect the dots. And I found that so satisfying. So then that was the access point I think for then being able to just get into those ideas with or without the physical component.
Jennifer Tracy: So how did you guys meet? I want to hear the whole-
Emily Z. G.: Go ahead and take a sip of water. So one of Phil's closest friends was the designer Cynthia Rowley.
Jennifer Tracy: Okay.
Emily Z. G.: And I became friendly with her over the years. And another friend of mine, we had done a charity event for Phil's theater company. And one of the auction items at this event was a private shopping party at Cynthia's store in the West Village. And my friend Elizabeth bought that at the Auction, and organized this shopping party. It was a November evening. She had invited me to go and I was, I had broken up with someone a couple months before that devastated me.
Emily Z. G.: So I was still in that state of nothing's going to work out ever, and I'm going to be 30. All of that. And I was like, "I have to go to this fucking shopping party, and it's going to be all women drinking champagne and eating cupcakes. And I'm going to want to punch every Sex in the City, want to be fucking girl at this thing."
Emily Z. G.: But I went anyway. Cynthia was there, and I was trying on this pair of purple leather gloves that had gold zippers on the wrist. And they were so sexy and cool. I was just like, "These gloves are so dope." And she was like, "I know they're great. My friend just bought those for this woman that he's dating." I was like, "I want to date that guy. He bought these for her? I want to date him." And she was like, "That's a great idea." And I was like, "Well not if he's dating the glove girl." She was like, "No, no, no. That didn't work out. That didn't work out. I don't think he's seeing anyone." And she disappeared and ran upstairs to her office, and came back five minutes later and she had printed out a photograph of him on the beach with a couple of kids. And I recognized one of them was Cynthia's daughter but the other ones I wasn't sure who they were. I was like, "Okay, he's definitely very handsome fellow." But I was like, "Are these his kids?" Because my list of deal breakers was somebody who has kids.
Jennifer Tracy: Right.
Emily Z. G.: And she was like, "No, no, no, no, no, no." She was like, "I think though he does have a son, but I think he's older, he's grown up." And I was like, "Well how old is he?" Because also on my list was anybody over 40. No. And she was like, "I think he's in his early forties." And then we were talking and she's like, "Also, she doesn't drink." Again, all of these things. I was like, "Forget this, this is a terrible idea." But he was attractive enough, and you don't really say no to Cynthia.
Emily Z. G.: So I was like, "Okay, fine. Tell him to send me an email." So I went home and I googled him. I found this article about him in the New York Times that was about his apartment that he had renovated. Very small, little 600 square foot studio apartment in Chelsea. But he had done this renovation, and it was so beautiful. The way that he had gone to six different architects to interview them with piles of images of drawings he had done of buildings in third grade. But then also Andy Goldsworthy images. All of these beautiful, it was very soulful. It was a very soulful interview. I remember reading that and going like, "Oh my God, I'm totally going to marry this guy. This guy is the guy."
Emily Z. G.: And then I kept looking and realized that he had gone. I found him, I guess on Facebook and I realized that we had gone to the same school, which is this private school in Brooklyn Heights called Saint Ann's. And I was like, "That's wild." We were different ages. He's 14 years older than I am. So we didn't know each other, but we determined we had lived on the same street our whole lives and we had gone to the same school our whole lives.
Jennifer Tracy: That is crazy. Oh my God, that's so romantic.
Emily Z. G.: It was very romantic. But then we met. We had our first meeting, we went for coffee. And it was the most, it was like a business lunch. There was no-
Jennifer Tracy: No chemistry?
Emily Z. G.: No chemistry initially.
Jennifer Tracy: Were you both just afraid do you think?
Emily Z. G.: I was afraid. I was very nervous. And we had had this series of email interchanges that were amazing, that were just funny, and witty, and interesting. I already was so smitten with him. And then I think meeting him, I was very scared.
Emily Z. G.: And again, in the same way that I was hiding. I spent so much time hiding and I think he was a little bit like, "I like you, I know that there's something to you, but I can't really get past." I thought I was cool and aloof and sexy and he was just like, "You're emotionally unavailable. It's not cool. I'm too old for that."
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Emily Z. G.: Right?
Jennifer Tracy: Because how old were you at the time?
Emily Z. G.: I was 29.
Jennifer Tracy: 29. Okay.
Emily Z. G.: Yeah, I was 29.
Jennifer Tracy: Which isn't that looking back, doesn't that seem so young now?
Emily Z. G.: Oh my god.
Jennifer Tracy: I think of myself at 29. I got married at 30, and I was probably too young in some ways.
Emily Z. G.: I have friends who've been with the same guy since college. And I'm like, "Are you fucking kidding?"
Jennifer Tracy: Wow. Yeah. I applaud them.
Emily Z. G.: That's crazy. Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: So you had this awkward first date.
Emily Z. G.: Then we had a few awkward first dates, or a few awkward dates and then basically decided to be friends. I was like I'm ready to totally be your girlfriend. And he was kind of like, "I don't think that's what this is." I was like, "Fine. I guess that's fine. Sure, we'll be friends."
Emily Z. G.: But then we started hanging out all the time, and we had all the same interests and he loved to go see modern dance, and he loved to go to the museum, and he loved to run and I was training for the marathon. And we ended up running the New York City marathon together. And we started writing a movie together, and we just started hanging out all the time. And then I started going to therapy. That was the other thing. I was like, "Okay, I think it's time for me to go to therapy and figure out why."
Emily Z. G.: Because that was my thing was people who are unavailable to me in some way or another because really I was unavailable to everybody as well. So that was also a big piece of it was me actually doing the work that I need to do.
Jennifer Tracy: That's awesome. Plug for therapy. We love therapy.
Emily Z. G.: Yes.
Jennifer Tracy: That's such a great love story. And so now how long have you been married?
Emily Z. G.: We've been married for, it'll be nine years this fall.
Jennifer Tracy: Congratulations.
Emily Z. G.: Once we got together, we got married the next year basically.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah. And how old are the kids?
Emily Z. G.: Seven and four.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh my gosh. You got your hands full. But that's so great. That's fun though because they're more independent.
Emily Z. G.: They're starting. I see the light at the end of the tunnel. And I have two good friends that just had a third baby. I could never do it. I got a dog instead, which I also thought was ... in the beginning, I kept complaining about it to my friend Sarah. She was like, "Nobody told you to get a dog. Nobody told you. I don't want to hear it. Nobody told you. You're an idiot."
Jennifer Tracy: She doesn't have a dog?
Emily Z. G.: No, she has two children. She was like, "You're a fucking idiot."
Jennifer Tracy: I have two rescue dogs, and they are the loves of my life next to my son. My son's an only child.
Emily Z. G.: How old is your son?
Jennifer Tracy: He's almost 10. He'll be 10 in July. And so for him to have pets is really nice because he doesn't have any siblings. He has a 25 year old half sister from his dad's first relationship, but she's 25. She's doing her thing.
Emily Z. G.: My husband has a 34 year old son.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Emily Z. G.: Which is crazy.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Emily Z. G.: They know each other obviously, but it's not the same.
Jennifer Tracy: Let me check the time. It always goes so fast. Your story is so fascinating. I cannot wait to read your book. I'm so excited. And when is the TV show coming out? Are you in pre-production, or what stage are you in?
Emily Z. G.: I just set it up with MRC Studios, which we haven't announced that. So hey, it's my announcement. But yeah, so it hasn't been sold to a network yet. I'm writing the pilot right now. But I have really great, it's a really great team of people. It's the producer of A Star Is Born, and the creator of The Affair. It's a really awesome group of people.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh my God, it's going to be incredible. I can't wait to tune in. I will binge watch it.
Emily Z. G.: I know. I'm in such a rush. And everything takes so long. We pitched it in October. And yesterday, all the deals finally got done.
Jennifer Tracy: Congratulations. That's huge.
Emily Z. G.: Thank you. But I was like, "That's six months of just deal making."
Jennifer Tracy: Then now you're in this phase. But it always happens, and you know this from production. Once day one of production, it's like a bullet train. It's like now we've got to finish, we're losing light, we're over budget. Oh my God. Can I take a breath?
Emily Z. G.: I know. Well I'm so ready. I'm so ready. I was like, "I want to shoot this this fall." And everyone thinks I'm completely psychotic. I'm sure that that's the case, but I'm also like, "Watch me write the first five episodes in the next two months. Just watch it happen because I'm going to do that. And then you'll all be like huh." I just feel very determined about it, mostly because I think it's such a story for this moment. I want it to be in the world.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah. It is as the book, but also to have it ... like you said, with the television show you can explore in deeper crevices of the story and the characters in a way that in prose is different. I'm excited for you. I'm so excited for you.
Emily Z. G.: Thank you so much.
Jennifer Tracy: And do you still have help with the kids so that you can still write?
Emily Z. G.: They are in school.
Jennifer Tracy: So you use that time, that's your time to be ... like right now?
Emily Z. G.: Right now.
Jennifer Tracy: So you're giving me an hour of your creative time?
Emily Z. G.: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: Which I'm so grateful for.
Emily Z. G.: I love to talk about my work and meet other smart, badass moms. It's such an honor to be in this orbit with you. Because yeah, I think as you said. It's like we're all trying to figure out how to do it. So I've gleaned so much from the things that I've heard here and there. And especially now, I got this dog. So I've been walking this dog a lot. And I listen to MasterClass. Have you heard of MasterClass?
Jennifer Tracy: Oh of course.
Emily Z. G.: Yeah. And I fully credit, I did Shonda Rhimes' MasterClass and there was a moment in that where she talks about how the choice of actor often changes your conception of a character. They have quality as an actor that somehow informs the character. And I got interested in this actress to play Louisa. And one of her skillsets is singing. She's an incredible singer. And that gave me the idea to actually have the way that Louisa manages her condition be through vocalization. She wouldn't call it singing, but just through vocalization. Which is just fucking awesome. It's added this incredible dimension to how I see this show.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Emily Z. G.: So I fully give Shonda Rhimes ... if you're listening Shonda, thank you. So yeah, I don't know. I'm constantly hungry to be learning from other people who are doing the same kinds of things, and how are they doing them, and what do they have to share. It's such a gift in the digital age.
Jennifer Tracy: It really is. I had a close friend call me today and she's like, "I want to start a podcast. How do I do it?" She has a topic, she's interested in it and in people's stories about it. And I said, "You get a recorder and you start recording." She's like, "But, but, but," I said, "You get a recording, and you start recording, and you ask questions. That's just it." I'm just interested in women's stories of who they are, how they became that, what the through line was. And we always weave in different directions. It always helps other women, and other people. And men. We have male listeners too.
Emily Z. G.: So cool.
Jennifer Tracy: Anyway. All right, so we've come to the time in the interview where I ask you three questions I ask every guest, and then we do a lightening round. Yeah. So what do you think about Emily when you hear the word MILF?
Emily Z. G.: I developed a TV show with this producer many years ago, and I feel like I remember him referring to me as a MILF at one point. I remember being proud of that. I remember thinking yeah. In retrospect it was totally degrading and inappropriate. But I don't know, I guess I think of this traditional acronym meaning. I feel a sense of yeah, I kind of want to be that. I do want to be a mother that somebody would like to fuck because otherwise what's the alternative? But I like your definition much better in a way too.
Jennifer Tracy: Thank you. What's something you've changed your mind about recently?
Emily Z. G.: My kids' school. And I think that has to do with prioritizing certain things that we all claim to want to prioritize. And then in our secret private lives, don't. So the idea of them being in a school with kids who come from different backgrounds who don't look like them in a school, that is actually not just saying that they embrace that, but is actively day to day talking about that and integrating it into the way they teach and what they teach like that. Feels very important, very exciting. And yeah, it required this very big leap from a lot of things that have given me a comfort for my whole life. I went to private school and found it really important to my existence and my survival. And I think just letting go of some of those assumptions and the perception of those safety nets, I think for my own kids. It feels kind of like a big deal.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Emily Z. G.: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: Awesome. Awesome. How do you define success?
Emily Z. G.: I just read this great quote. Okay. So my daughter's really into gymnastics. She's obsessed with gymnastics. So we've gone to pretty much every single UCLA women's gymnastics meet this season. Which if you have a young daughter, whether she's interested in gymnastics or not, or frankly a young son and you live in Los Angeles, please, please get tickets next season. It is incredible. These women are incredible. They are so just powerful. It's a special thing. But the coach of this team who been the coach for 25 years or 30 years, she's retiring at the end of the season. And she just came out with a book, which of course I bought and I've been slowly quasi reading it bedtime.
Emily Z. G.: Anyway, she has a quote from John [Gooden 00:53:09]. Sorry, John Wooden, the UCLA basketball coach who was her mentor. The quote, I'm not going to paraphrase it correctly. The thing that sticks out to me is that success is peace of mind. And he said something about, and knowing that you did your best to be the best version of yourself that you could. But what really sticks with me is this idea of success is peace of mind.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Emily Z. G.: And for me, piece of mind has to do with this idea of leaving it all on the field. And I think for many years in my earlier life, I didn't do that. I did the bare minimum, and I had a lot of success with things, "success" with things without a lot of effort. But those things were never satisfying, because they never felt like full expressions of my capability. That peace of mind of I couldn't have tried harder or given it more. And not in the sense of trying to force things, or manipulate things, or manage and control everything. But just in the sense of full expression.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah. And giving yourself. That's to me when you would describe your book, which I can't wait to go order on Amazon and then devour it when it comes. Is the vulnerability that I can even just hear and having spent the last 56 minutes with you, I can feel that there's that vulnerability born out of your life experience and the wisdom from that. And that's what makes such a compelling story. That's what makes a page turner because we are with that person, that character going, "I felt that." Maybe not that exact set of experiences, but I know that feeling of being afraid or being ... and that's why it's so healing and exciting.
Emily Z. G.: Yeah. I think you could also say success is authenticity, right? It's being authentic. You don't have regret. That's where the peace of mind comes in. You're not bogged down by regret or any kind of negative feeling because you've been your-
Jennifer Tracy: You played full out. Yeah. I love that. Okay, lightening round. Ocean or desert?
Emily Z. G.: Ocean.
Jennifer Tracy: Favorite junk food?
Emily Z. G.: Cheetos.
Jennifer Tracy: One of my faves. One of my faves.
Emily Z. G.: So good.
Jennifer Tracy: Movies or Broadway show?
Emily Z. G.: Movies.
Jennifer Tracy: Daytime sex or nighttime sex?
Emily Z. G.: Nighttime.
Jennifer Tracy: Texting or talking?
Emily Z. G.: You know, texting. I have to say I'm sorry, I'm one of those people now. I just really enjoy texting.
Jennifer Tracy: Me too. I'm talked out. Between my son and then-
Emily Z. G.: I also live in, I'm a writer, so I actually like writing.
Jennifer Tracy: Composing. Yeah. I'm the same way. Cat person or dog person? As you have your sweet little angel cat next to you.
Emily Z. G.: I've never liked dogs, and I got one. It was the same way with children. So I'm going to say both.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, I like that leap. You're leaping. You're not sure, but you're leaping.
Emily Z. G.: I hated other people's babies, and I love my children. And I hate other people's dogs, and I really love this dog.
Jennifer Tracy: Have you ever worn a unitard?
Emily Z. G.: Shit. I don't think so. My body is not really built for unitards.
Jennifer Tracy: Even in dance?
Emily Z. G.: Well, okay. Yeah. I guess in dance. I don't think so though. I feel like that was not a go-to for me.
Jennifer Tracy: It was more leotards, or sweats? I don't know. Did you do modern dance?
Emily Z. G.: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: Okay.
Emily Z. G.: Yeah. So you could wear whatever. Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: Okay. Shower or bathtub?
Emily Z. G.: Depends on the day. I like a good bath. But I take a bath rarely.
Jennifer Tracy: Because it's a time thing.
Emily Z. G.: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: Ice Cream or chocolate?
Emily Z. G.: Ice cream.
Jennifer Tracy: On a scale of one to 10, how good are you at ping pong?
Emily Z. G.: Four.
Jennifer Tracy: You were about to give yourself a six or a seven?
Emily Z. G.: I was going to say six. And then I was like, "That's not true. That's definitely not true." Four might be a stretch. I don't know.
Jennifer Tracy: What's your biggest pet peeve?
Emily Z. G.: People who are not themselves.
Jennifer Tracy: If you could push a button and have perfect skin for the rest of your life, but it would also give you incurable halitosis for the rest of your life, would you push it?
Emily Z. G.: No.
Jennifer Tracy: She's curling up her lip and twisting her nose.
Emily Z. G.: No.
Jennifer Tracy: Superpower choice. Invisibility, ability to fly, or super strength?
Emily Z. G.: Fly. I hate airplanes.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh God. Yeah. I didn't use to, but I really do now. It's unfortunate, because I want to travel. Would you rather have a penis where your tailbone is, or a third eye?
Emily Z. G.: Third eye.
Jennifer Tracy: What was the name of your first pet?
Emily Z. G.: Buster.
Jennifer Tracy: What was the name of the street you grew up on?
Emily Z. G.: There were a few. Willow Street.
Jennifer Tracy: So your porn name is Buster Willow.
Emily Z. G.: Oh yeah. Yeah, it is. Totally.
Jennifer Tracy: That's like gangster.
Emily Z. G.: Yes. I really enjoy that. Buster Willow.
Jennifer Tracy: Buster Willow. We could write a whole mini series just about Buster Willow.
Emily Z. G.: I think that has to happen. That's very special.
Jennifer Tracy: Emily, thank you so much. This was amazing. You're amazing. I can't wait to read your book.
Emily Z. G.: Likewise. Thank you. Thank you.
Jennifer Tracy: Thanks so much for listening guys. I really hope you enjoyed my conversation with Emily. Join me again next week for episode 50 you guys. Let me just say that again. Join me next week for episode 50 of MILF Podcast. Where I've turned the tables and Jackie MacDougall, the beautiful and lovely Jackie MacDougall of Forty Thrive. If you haven't checked out that podcast, please do. Jackie interviews women over 40 about all things women over 40. She's just an exquisite human being, and a wonderful podcaster and author of that genre. She actually teaches people how to do and launch podcasts. So we decided for my 50th episode that she was going to interview me, and that's what's going to next week's episode. And then I interviewed her, and that's going to be on her podcast this same day. What? I find this very exciting, even a little bit titillating.
Jennifer Tracy: All right, tune in next week, you guys. I love you so much. Keep going. You're doing great. You really are. I promise. Don't believe anybody else, especially that nasty gremliny voice in your head that tells you otherwise. You're doing fucking great. Bye.