Speaker 1: This is doctor Wendy Walsh and you're listening to KFI
Speaker 1: AM six forty The Doctor Wendy wallsh Show on demand
Speaker 1: on the iHeartRadio app. Welcome back to The Doctor Wendy
Speaker 1: Wall Show on KFI AM six forty. My guest doctor
Speaker 1: Anthony Reading, psychologist and UCLA professor, an expert on trauma.
Speaker 1: We've been talking about what happens when someone deals with
Speaker 1: this kind of trauma. Doctor Redding, you know, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: I know I'm asking you to relive it again, but
Speaker 1: you know you have lost your own home in this,
Speaker 1: so you are literally in the trauma that you have
Speaker 1: researched and reported on for most of your lifetime. Now
Speaker 1: that you are experiencing it, is it what you imagined?
Speaker 2: Well, I didn't imagine it the all.
Speaker 3: I can.
Speaker 2: It comes in waves and the reliving it comes in ways.
Speaker 2: Certain times, and many people will experience waking or having
Speaker 2: a dream where they think what happened didn't happen and
Speaker 2: everything is intact, and they wake up and regainful consciousness
Speaker 2: and realizing was in the dream and that shock and
Speaker 2: then return. I myself use writing to process. I wanted
Speaker 2: to capture my last few hours in the house because
Speaker 2: over time those memories will become in the stinct and
Speaker 2: I wanted to lay down a memory of what it
Speaker 2: felt like.
Speaker 3: To be there.
Speaker 1: So would you recommend that to people that they write
Speaker 1: the memories of their home, even what it looked like.
Speaker 1: And should they be looking at photographs of the phone
Speaker 1: could of their home?
Speaker 4: Would that be a treatment?
Speaker 2: It could be. You know, I lived in that home
Speaker 2: for thirty years and designed the home it was built.
Speaker 2: I had very special memories my whole life in America
Speaker 2: in that home. There's no one set formula. I think
Speaker 2: it's important not to spend. It's to resume a lifestyle
Speaker 2: even though it change as much as possible, gain social support.
Speaker 2: Look at how both with grief that helpful or constructive.
Speaker 5: We can both visit negative memories and sense of loss
Speaker 5: and also positive memories, and people should be aware of
Speaker 5: their memories and associations are uniformly negative and that a
Speaker 5: sign that there may be encroaching depression, which we want
Speaker 5: to stress as well in treat if that's the case.
Speaker 4: Earlier on, can.
Speaker 1: We talk about early symptoms of trauma versus longer, more
Speaker 1: chronic symptoms or even delayed symptoms that present later. Can
Speaker 1: you help people understand the distinction between those.
Speaker 2: Well, certainly people can be in denial or they can
Speaker 2: have a like in congruous aspects this sort of trauma,
Speaker 2: people need to process it in different ways, but not
Speaker 2: allow them to indulph in to resume some modicum of lifestyle,
Speaker 2: engaging with others, looking at ways of reconstituting, re establishing
Speaker 2: their lives.
Speaker 3: If they have it, can still go.
Speaker 6: To work, that's helpful.
Speaker 2: If they can resume their prior lifestyle, childcare, whatever it is,
Speaker 2: that's going to be helpful.
Speaker 4: Spoke yes, I'm sorry to interrupt.
Speaker 1: I spoke with one woman today who got a call
Speaker 1: from the owner of the Plate studio that she worked
Speaker 1: out with regularly, and they said, will you come back
Speaker 1: in and she said, I can't. I don't have any
Speaker 1: plates clothes, I don't have any exercise clothes. And they said,
Speaker 1: just come stay on your schedule, we'll get you the clothes,
Speaker 1: and that when she got there where everyone had donated
Speaker 1: new stuff for her so that she can maintain at
Speaker 1: least her exercise routine. So this is what you're talking about,
Speaker 1: trying to maintain the routines that you can because it
Speaker 1: gives some sense of control.
Speaker 2: Yes, control and resuming one's life, and of course that
Speaker 2: exposes one positive experience. It's particularly exercise, larity, giogo, meditation.
Speaker 2: Those are all helpful both in terms of the social
Speaker 2: support the fact is positive, but also there's a therapeutic
Speaker 2: in terms of downregulating arousal which occurs in stress loss
Speaker 2: and trauma. That arousal needs to be dissipated and that's important.
Speaker 2: So sleep is important, being able to sleep, exercise, not
Speaker 2: outside with the air quality once again, doing what one can, diet,
Speaker 2: resuming things that one did before, even though it may
Speaker 2: seem different. Of course the quality the mood associated may
Speaker 2: be variable.
Speaker 1: And you talk about protecting young children from parents anguish.
Speaker 1: How can parents do that.
Speaker 2: Well, not to ignore it, certainly, to express their own feelings,
Speaker 2: but to comfort the child by reassuring them that things
Speaker 2: will recover, by getting the children back to what they're
Speaker 2: used to doing, however different it may be, showing that
Speaker 2: everything's going to be all right. It's very important, and
Speaker 2: also enabling the child to talk, not having the child
Speaker 2: protect the parents because they feel a certain spects in
Speaker 2: discussing anything because they see their parents distressed.
Speaker 1: Yes, I loved one of bits of advice that I
Speaker 1: saw that you gave online, that parents should be cuddling
Speaker 1: their children, validating their feelings, cuddling with pets, whatever we
Speaker 1: need to be together in this time. It's brilliant advice,
Speaker 1: Doctor Redding. I know you're gonna hear it from thousands
Speaker 1: of people. My heart goes out to you, having lost
Speaker 1: your home. I do hope that you are surrounded yourself
Speaker 1: with people, family and friends and loved ones who can
Speaker 1: make you laugh from time to time as your brain
Speaker 1: works through this terrible, terrible event. Thanks for being with us,
Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Web You're listening to the Doctor
Speaker 1: Wendy Walls Show on KFI AM six forty Live everywhere
Speaker 1: on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 7: You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
Speaker 7: AM six forty Welcome back to.
Speaker 1: The Doctor Wendy Walls Show on KFI AM six forty
Speaker 1: Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio App. I never thought I
Speaker 1: would be saying that, Thank goodness, Chef Jose Andres and
Speaker 1: his World Central Kitchen is helping people in my own city.
Speaker 1: I see them in Ukraine, I see them in Afghanistan.
Speaker 1: I see them at Hurricane Katrina. I mean I see
Speaker 1: them at big disaster zones, and here is his amazing
Speaker 1: work here in Los Angeles. For those of you who
Speaker 1: are displaced, especially in the Altadena area, I just want
Speaker 1: to let you know that the world famous chef Chef
Speaker 1: Jose Andres, whose charity World Central Kitchen shows up in
Speaker 1: disaster scenes to feed people, is doing it here. Rose
Speaker 1: Bowl lot F from five thirty to nine, serving dinner
Speaker 1: every night for free if you are in need. Saint
Speaker 1: Francis School in La Kenyata, Flintridge from noon to five.
Speaker 1: That's where you can get your lunch. Arco on Fair
Speaker 1: Oaks Avenue and East Woodbury Road in Altadena from one
Speaker 1: pm to five pm every day, at a Jack in
Speaker 1: the Box on North Windsor Avenue in Altadena from five
Speaker 1: thirty pm to ten pm. And a Pasadena City College
Speaker 1: on Colorado Boulevard from five pm until nine pm. There's
Speaker 1: something so important about food, and of course Chef Jose
Speaker 1: Andres will say that it is the politician's who actually
Speaker 1: have to do the long term work. It's not just
Speaker 1: about a meal. Today, let's take a listen.
Speaker 8: We need to remember that we cannot leave these communities forgotten.
Speaker 8: Obviously everybody has to remember them. We need to find
Speaker 8: ways so they can start reconstruction. And obviously when we
Speaker 8: talk about the federal government, that's where the Fed government
Speaker 8: plays a big role. We need to make sure that
Speaker 8: the people that lost their jobs, probably for weeks a month,
Speaker 8: they are not going to have an income, that we
Speaker 8: take care of those people. This is the type of
Speaker 8: things we need to make sure that our politicians on
Speaker 8: one side under the other they're going to start arguing
Speaker 8: on fingerpointing, but working with a smart policy so in
Speaker 8: these events we can make sure that people are taking
Speaker 8: care of is what Wis and Drogitchen does be. Next
Speaker 8: to the people, we activated one hour after the fires began,
Speaker 8: because unfortunately, we have a lot of experience in fires
Speaker 8: and a lot of team members in LA and as
Speaker 8: we saw that the fires keep growings, we keep adding
Speaker 8: more team members, more food trucks, and we're feeding people
Speaker 8: in shelters, we're feeding first responders, we are adapting because
Speaker 8: the situation keeps evolving there by day, and we are
Speaker 8: in every community, in every shelter or in the places
Speaker 8: where the fire trucks gather to make sure that everybody
Speaker 8: is receiving food and water.
Speaker 1: Speaking of food, it is much more than feeding the stomach.
Speaker 1: It is nurturing the soul. My next guest, celebrity chef
Speaker 1: Katie Chin, joins us. Katie, are you safe? Have you evacuated?
Speaker 1: First of all, we are safe.
Speaker 6: Luckily, we did a little mini evacuation Friday, even though
Speaker 6: we weren't in the evacuation because our kids were scared.
Speaker 6: But we made it back to our home and Fino,
Speaker 6: so we are safe and healthy. Well, you were.
Speaker 1: Close enough, you were like a mile away from the
Speaker 1: evacuation zone.
Speaker 6: It would make me go to Yeah, I mean, I
Speaker 6: just think better to be safe.
Speaker 4: And sorry exactly.
Speaker 1: Let's talk a little bit about food and the healing
Speaker 1: power of food. I know you are so generous with
Speaker 1: your craft, having donated your services to so many charities,
Speaker 1: including the Saint Joseph Center here in Los Angeles. What
Speaker 1: is it about food and feeding that becomes so important
Speaker 1: during a disaster.
Speaker 6: Well, it's a way for communities to come together. We
Speaker 6: still all need to eat, we need to be nourished.
Speaker 6: It's a way for people to you know, visit with
Speaker 6: their neighbors. This horrible disaster is happening. But we need
Speaker 6: the love and support of our friends. But what better
Speaker 6: way to do that than to cook together and eat together.
Speaker 6: Not only that, where you're feeling stressed and anxiety, it's
Speaker 6: very important that you eat foods, healthy foods loaded with antioxidants.
Speaker 6: Don't eat a bunch of you know, funch fries and
Speaker 6: I mean, it's okay once in a while, but it's
Speaker 6: very important that we really fill our bodies with nutritious
Speaker 6: foods because that's definitely going to help with serotonin and
Speaker 6: help us calm down.
Speaker 4: Oops.
Speaker 1: You mean all the carbs I've been eating in the
Speaker 1: last week not a good thing.
Speaker 6: Like I said, so once in a while, I'm.
Speaker 4: Calling it comfort food.
Speaker 1: You know, Chef Katie Chin, I have had the honor
Speaker 1: of attending your one woman show that's played at the
Speaker 1: Whitefire Theater and the Santa Monica Playhouse. And what's interesting
Speaker 1: about your show is that it talks about intergenerational family trauma,
Speaker 1: but in every scene there is this theme of food.
Speaker 1: Would you care to share how in your life, cooking
Speaker 1: with your mother was the go to place whenever there
Speaker 1: was trauma.
Speaker 6: Well, you know, it really became a love language for
Speaker 6: us and many you know, Chinese families and especially our
Speaker 6: love is shown through foods. Like I like to say,
Speaker 6: if I got all a's, I got a whole fish
Speaker 6: and black bean thoughts, if I got all bees, I
Speaker 6: got pork showing it was a way to communicate and
Speaker 6: to show love and also heal. Like I said, that
Speaker 6: was my mother's way of really showing us that she
Speaker 6: loved us, because she didn't necessarily have the tools to
Speaker 6: do that verbally. Also, it was very meditative me cooking
Speaker 6: together with my mother in the kitchen. So much was unsaid,
Speaker 6: so much was subtext. But if we got in the
Speaker 6: kitchen together and we were able to make dumplings, you know, mindfully, purposefully,
Speaker 6: it really we were really healing ourselves, you know.
Speaker 1: And I do want to say to those people out
Speaker 1: there who I'm sorry have lost your kitchens, this is
Speaker 1: your time to be cared for. This is your time
Speaker 1: to be served. So reach out to World Central Kitchen.
Speaker 1: Check their locations and their hours. There are volunteers and
Speaker 1: also jose Andres says there are volunteer chefs around the
Speaker 1: city who are standing on street corners making food for people.
Speaker 1: Google around see if you can find out where those
Speaker 1: places are because it's your turn. Now, it's your turn
Speaker 1: to be served and cared for, cared for by the
Speaker 1: city of Los Angeles, meaning it's citizens and people, and
Speaker 1: our heart goes out to you.
Speaker 3: Katie.
Speaker 1: What last words do you have for those who may
Speaker 1: not have a kitchen, who are sitting tonight wondering where
Speaker 1: their world is because they've lost their home.
Speaker 6: I would just say, you know, take advantage of the resources,
Speaker 6: the amazing work that jose Andres is doing, but reach
Speaker 6: out to a friend, ask for help. Everybody wants to
Speaker 6: serve in this time, so it's okay, you know, look
Speaker 6: for a friends and I guarantee you someone will bring
Speaker 6: you into your home and make you hot meal.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's so many of us who are like, what
Speaker 1: can I do? What can I do? Please give us
Speaker 1: the opportunity to give. Chef Katie Chin, thank you for
Speaker 1: your wise words of wisdom and good luck as your
Speaker 1: one woman show continues.
Speaker 4: Holy Shataki. It's called I love the title Holy Shataki,
Speaker 4: A walk Stark.
Speaker 6: Stars born and by the way, I am giving a
Speaker 6: portion of proceeds to my show this Thursday at the
Speaker 6: White Fire Theater at eight o'clock.
Speaker 4: Wonderful to fire fire department.
Speaker 1: Oh, to the fighters, to the firefighters.
Speaker 4: Yeah, oh my god.
Speaker 6: Foundation.
Speaker 1: Yes, and jose Andris is also out there feeding firefighters,
Speaker 1: which is very exciting. He's sending his food trucks out
Speaker 1: to the with the.
Speaker 6: Trench Jennifer Garner, which is amazing.
Speaker 4: It's so wonderful. Thanks for being You.
Speaker 6: Can do it anyway, can do it.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much for being with us, Chef Katie Chin.
Speaker 1: You are listening to the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show on
Speaker 1: KFI AM six forty Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 7: You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
Speaker 7: AM six forty.
Speaker 4: Welcome back to the.
Speaker 1: Doctor Wendy Walls Show on KFI AM six forty Live
Speaker 1: everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. My next guest thankfully did
Speaker 1: not lose his home in the fire, but his family
Speaker 1: went through jump through some serious hoops to try to
Speaker 1: get out, evacuate safely, and even break back in to
Speaker 1: be able to check on their home. I'd like to
Speaker 1: welcome renowned artist and sculptor Anthony Pearson. I know that
Speaker 1: your wife Ramona is also in the background and the
Speaker 1: two of you are there I'm so glad that your
Speaker 1: home is okay. But there's something interesting you told me, Anthony,
Speaker 1: which is there's a reason why your particular small row
Speaker 1: of houses in Pacific Palisades survived. Can you explain that.
Speaker 8: Luck?
Speaker 4: Luck?
Speaker 3: Yeah, luck is the first reason. And then there's the
Speaker 3: far paints I bought that I put on my home,
Speaker 3: and all the brush I cleared back, and my situational
Speaker 3: awareness and my neighbors tending to their property. But luck
Speaker 3: is the reason.
Speaker 4: Were you.
Speaker 1: Were you aware in recent months about the possibility for
Speaker 1: fire and danger? Is that why you took these events
Speaker 1: to try?
Speaker 3: I've been aware of the possibility since I was nine
Speaker 3: years old when I watched the same exact mountain burn
Speaker 3: Mount to Mescal, and since nineteen seventy eight it hasn't.
Speaker 3: So it would be like if you had a really
Speaker 3: curly hair and you didn't get a haircut for sixty
Speaker 3: years or something. It just was time, and this is
Speaker 3: nature's way, and this has happened since ancient times, and
Speaker 3: we knew this day would come, but the manner in
Speaker 3: which it happened left us with nothing but a remembrance
Speaker 3: of Pacific Thalisades and a remembrance of the community and
Speaker 3: a remembrance of the sense of place. Spacific Dallisades is
Speaker 3: a completely misunderstood place. People think it's a place for
Speaker 3: movie stars and opulent schools, and it's actually a place
Speaker 3: where the barber who cut my hair cuts my friend's
Speaker 3: kids hair, my junior high school teacher was my daughter's
Speaker 3: junior high school teacher build with. It's a neighborhood, and
Speaker 3: it's filled with eccentric and apartment dwellers, and you know,
Speaker 3: not all money people and not all famous people. When
Speaker 3: I was a boy, they had a T shirt and
Speaker 3: it said, if you're rich, you live in Beverly Hills.
Speaker 3: If you're famous, you live in Malibu. If you're lucky,
Speaker 3: you live in Pacific Palisades.
Speaker 1: Oh, it's wonderful now. Earlier you had explained to me
Speaker 1: that there was something unique about the topography of your
Speaker 1: particular street that may have contributed to the luck you had.
Speaker 3: Can you explain that, Well, it's a funny paradox. We
Speaker 3: lived up against the slope which last February decided to
Speaker 3: move on us and create a mess in our backyard
Speaker 3: and mess up my neighbor. And we cursed that slope
Speaker 3: because it hovered over us like a dangerous worry it
Speaker 3: was a mudslide. Yeah, it was a mud slide, But
Speaker 3: that same big slope behind these four or five houses
Speaker 3: in a row, it also sheltered us from an ember cast,
Speaker 3: So that imber cast went right over us and down below.
Speaker 4: Like you lie in.
Speaker 1: The back of a pickup truck and you don't feel
Speaker 1: the wind if you like.
Speaker 3: It, like when you like that's exactly right. Yeah, So
Speaker 3: how many houses on your street survived? We have about
Speaker 3: thirty or forty houses on our street, and I think
Speaker 3: we lost seven or eight something like that.
Speaker 1: And what is to go back to with all the
Speaker 1: burned out streets in order to get there?
Speaker 3: Well, you know, there's certain neighborhoods that looks like Dressden.
Speaker 3: It's absolutely leveled. And everybody's seen the pictures, and you know,
Speaker 3: we live in this world where we look at our
Speaker 3: phones and we have what one of my friends called
Speaker 3: fire pornography, and all we see these pictures of destruction,
Speaker 3: and when you get back in you quickly realize that's
Speaker 3: not entirely true. And there's homes and there's buildings, and
Speaker 3: there's things still there, and those few things that are
Speaker 3: still there. Maybe it's forty percent in some places, ten
Speaker 3: percent in others. That's specific. Calisays, Now that's what we have,
Speaker 3: and that's okay.
Speaker 4: So you have gone back in to investigate.
Speaker 3: I did not go back in to investigate. I came
Speaker 3: in to check on my property, but I mostly went
Speaker 3: back into put out spotfires, look for my neighbors who
Speaker 3: stayed there. I have a neighbor who's ten fifteen years
Speaker 3: older than Knees, an incredible hero. He was ripping siding
Speaker 3: off of houses and going around feeling for heat in
Speaker 3: the walls and extinguishing things. And he and I and
Speaker 3: another man with buckets of pool water, we work two
Speaker 3: days straight trying to, you know, make sure that nothing
Speaker 3: else reignited, and you know. And then I went from
Speaker 3: place to place to check on neighbors' homes.
Speaker 1: And so some of your neighbors refuse to evacuate.
Speaker 3: Several of my neighbors did not leave, yes, And I
Speaker 3: felt like I was a fourteen year old kid again,
Speaker 3: because I was hopping through vacant lots and jumping over
Speaker 3: the walls and lying to the police to make my
Speaker 3: way down secret little staircases and up the canyon. And
Speaker 3: I went four nights in a row, and I slept
Speaker 3: there for the first night, the other night, setting the
Speaker 3: alarm every hour and just making sure I was safe.
Speaker 3: And that's the way it goes when you live in Paradise,
Speaker 3: when you live on the hillside like that. And we
Speaker 3: knew that, and everybody knew that. And the day, the
Speaker 3: day finally came. One of the things, Wendy that happened.
Speaker 3: People think that Pacific Poliitdaves is a really fancy place,
Speaker 3: and it is, but we all suffer. Rich poor black
Speaker 3: white man woman. We all have joy and we all
Speaker 3: have pain. And there's a lot of different kinds of
Speaker 3: people in my community. And you'd be surprised, you know
Speaker 3: what that place is like.
Speaker 1: Well, I hate to use the term, it's not my
Speaker 1: favorite term, but because of trickle down economics, when one
Speaker 1: wealthy family loses their house, there are a lot of
Speaker 1: working class people who lose their jobs.
Speaker 3: Whether we're talking about there's a lot of Yeah, there's
Speaker 3: a lot of people who who don't have a job.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of people who don't have a place
Speaker 3: of business, and there's a lot of people who don't
Speaker 3: have homes. That's exactly right, Yeah, when.
Speaker 1: We're talking about landscape workers, where we're talking about childcare workers, teachers.
Speaker 4: The right, the dog walkers of the world, right, I mean,
Speaker 4: there are a lot of you.
Speaker 3: You would be surprised how many of those people reside
Speaker 3: in Pacific Fallisa. You'd be surprised by that they live
Speaker 3: in their parents sold home that they inherited. They live
Speaker 3: in a little studio apartment on Sunset Boulevard, and they
Speaker 3: teach at the school and many palastates high school teachers
Speaker 3: lost their little cottages in the alphabet streets. We know
Speaker 3: four or five of them.
Speaker 1: You know, we have to go to a break. You're
Speaker 1: an artist. When we come back, can we talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about art as therapy and a way to
Speaker 1: hear sure and how you think this tragedy may inform
Speaker 1: your own art going forward. My guest is sculptor Anthony Pearson.
Speaker 1: You are listening to the Doctor Wendy Wall Show on
Speaker 1: KFI AM six forty. We live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 7: You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
Speaker 7: AM six forty.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the home stretch of the Doctor Wendy
Speaker 1: Wall Show. I do want to say before I return
Speaker 1: to my guest, that I hope that some of the
Speaker 1: information and the human stories that we've been able to
Speaker 1: share with you tonight will help in this healing that
Speaker 1: we are all enduring together. Whether the fires impacted you
Speaker 1: directly because you lost your home, or you had to
Speaker 1: evacuate and you're waiting for news, or you're living further
Speaker 1: away and watching anxiously from the sidelines, there is a
Speaker 1: kind of secondary trauma from spectating what's going on, and
Speaker 1: that's why we all need to take care of our
Speaker 1: mental health. That means, as the psychoanalyst said who we
Speaker 1: had earlier on in the show, sticking to the routines
Speaker 1: as much as possible, trying not to binge on too
Speaker 1: much news. I'm guilty myself of doomscrolling in the middle
Speaker 1: of the night, but trying to regulate how much we're consuming,
Speaker 1: What do we need for information and what are we
Speaker 1: taking in that's just exacerbating our fears. Then what can
Speaker 1: we do today down our arousal, our flight or fight response.
Speaker 1: Can we exercise still? Can we meditate? Can we cuddle
Speaker 1: our children and family and loved ones. Can we pet
Speaker 1: our pets? Can we spend time, just releasing our own
Speaker 1: natural endorphins and opiates to calm ourselves down. It's up
Speaker 1: to us to try to do the work. And Anthony Pearson,
Speaker 1: I wanted to keep you on the show because you
Speaker 1: are an artist, and I always think of art as
Speaker 1: a language, just yet another language that humans can learn
Speaker 1: to speak. But it also there's been so much research
Speaker 1: in recent years about how therapeutic art can be.
Speaker 4: Do you agree?
Speaker 3: I completely agree, And I think that the work I've
Speaker 3: made is really about my childhood experience. And I think
Speaker 3: that the work I've made, albeit abstract, represents, in a
Speaker 3: rather obscure way, the magical topography of my childhood and
Speaker 3: what it was like living at the ocean, in the
Speaker 3: bluff and you know, in the mountains, and you know,
Speaker 3: it takes me back to the natural world to be
Speaker 3: able to, you know, depict these things in some certain way.
Speaker 3: My childhood was magical there, and my parents moved there
Speaker 3: in nineteen seventy and the freeway, the ten freeway, didn't
Speaker 3: come through till nineteen sixty six or something, so people
Speaker 3: don't realize this was a distant place and it was
Speaker 3: a place where the children would crawl down into the
Speaker 3: brush and they would make little forts and create these
Speaker 3: little worlds for themselves. And my brother Michael Pearson in
Speaker 3: this incredible essay about our childhood that he posted on Facebook,
Speaker 3: and I wept because that sense the place is something
Speaker 3: I always never wanted to lose, and the making of
Speaker 3: things and using my hands, and it reminds me of
Speaker 3: when I used to go to a quiet place, find
Speaker 3: my home, and you know, play with things in the
Speaker 3: dirt and create little tableaus and have an imaginary world.
Speaker 3: And those things in art are a place that I
Speaker 3: can go that quiets my mind and it makes me
Speaker 3: feel contemplative, and that's really the purpose of my work.
Speaker 3: That's really the purpose.
Speaker 1: Would you recommend to somebody who may not be considered
Speaker 1: a great artist that they should get their hands in
Speaker 1: some clay, or get their fingers around some markers and
Speaker 1: just let it come, you.
Speaker 3: Know, tinkle on a piano even though you have no
Speaker 3: expertise or or you know, knit or anything else. Because
Speaker 3: we're cerebral people and we sometimes forget that, you know,
Speaker 3: when we put our hands in front of ourselves and
Speaker 3: we moved back and forth doing something totally irrelevant and useless,
Speaker 3: it actually has a purpose art has no usage. It's
Speaker 3: something that is separated from doing my tax return and
Speaker 3: trying to talk my kid out of making a bad decision.
Speaker 3: It doesn't need a reason art, it's just something that
Speaker 3: we can do, you know, one on one with the object.
Speaker 1: I had a guest on earlier, a psychoanalyst who said
Speaker 1: that he took some time his home was burned in
Speaker 1: the Palisades. He took some time to write dialogue, write
Speaker 1: a narrative about the last few hours he remembers in
Speaker 1: his home because he wanted to remember everything he saw
Speaker 1: and heard and smelled, because he was afraid those memories,
Speaker 1: because they were so close to the trauma, would degrade
Speaker 1: the quickest. And so I mean, would you agree, I'm
Speaker 1: not an artist, that it might be a good idea
Speaker 1: for some people to draw their favorite places in their home.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think that that sometimes has important And I
Speaker 3: think that sometimes people want to make an insurance claim
Speaker 3: and they want to check on their neighbor, and they
Speaker 3: want to figure out where they're going to get the
Speaker 3: first pair of underwear from. But don't forget that, you know,
Speaker 3: you need to sit there and quietly, you know, have
Speaker 3: that that time and space and get that get I
Speaker 3: call it getting back into place.
Speaker 4: Feel the time to feel, you know so, and.
Speaker 3: You know we all we all deal with it differently.
Speaker 3: And you know, our two daughters deal with it differently
Speaker 3: moment to moment. And my wife and Mona is sitting
Speaker 3: here with me, could tell you, you know, the way that
Speaker 3: she feels in any given moment. And there's there's no
Speaker 3: one right way. We all every way is okay and
Speaker 3: it's fluid okay.
Speaker 4: So well, I will.
Speaker 1: Say that my best advice to everyone is to not
Speaker 1: hide from the feelings. On the other hand, don't wallow
Speaker 1: in them and dwell on them to the point where
Speaker 1: they continue to grow. But from time to time, go
Speaker 1: back and forth. The brain heals itself from trauma by feeling,
Speaker 1: then moving away from it, getting distracted, laughing with some friends,
Speaker 1: having a moment of joy, and then coming back to
Speaker 1: the memories, and we go back and forth. It's like
Speaker 1: if you've lost a loved one, and that's the grieving process.
Speaker 1: You're not sad every single minute of every single day,
Speaker 1: but your brain deals with it by going back and forth.
Speaker 1: And that is my advice to all. Anthony Pearson, thank
Speaker 1: you so much much for joining us tonight, and I
Speaker 1: do hope you know your home is still intact. Thank goodness,
Speaker 1: and I hope it stays that way. I hope the
Speaker 1: winds are all in our favor as this week continues.
Speaker 1: And thank you for being with us.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Kin, thank you.
Speaker 1: And thank you for being with me on The Doctor
Speaker 1: Wendy Walsh Show. You've been listening to The Doctor Wendy
Speaker 1: Walls Show on KFI AM six forty live everywhere on
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app. You've been listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh.
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