Episode 250: Wrapping Up Season 1

Summary

Episode 250! Huge milestone for me! So here I’m going to give you some ideas of where to go back and listen to earlier episodes if you don’t know where to begin. If you have been here all along, this episode will be a trip down memory lane of where we’ve been together. What a wild ride! I also mention some of my big influences as a podcaster and storyteller, as well as some of the movies that remind me of days of yore. As always… something for everyone.

After a short hiatus I will return with Season Two in the first week of October! See you then.

I have a Patreon page! Please check it out. If you make a small pledge you’ll get to see photos and clips from my journals and hear a bit more about some of the stories. This is a fun way that I can share visuals with you.

Check it out HERE.  Or at patreon.com/dianathebard

If you want to hear more on any particular subject, or if you want to ask a question or simply connect, you can find me on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/dianathebard   — This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Transcription

Hello, and welcome to the last episode of season one of The Bard of Hudson. (Ooh, fancy intro.) I’m Diana Green. These are my stories. And for those of you who’ve been on this ride with me since the beginning, I salute you. Nay, I bow down to you. I am honored and amazed by you. Thank you. Thank you. For those of you who might be just tuning in, or have recently started on this journey, I thought I’d take up part of this time today to pave the way for you to discover more cool stories if you don’t know where to start. I mean, I know of I come to a podcast that has hundreds of episodes, I get a little nervous about where to begin. What did I miss? How far back do I have to go? So I get it. So here in my 250th episode, this huge milestone, I thought I’d take a little time to travel back through some of the convoluted avenues of my crazy story. 

First, I’m going to mention a few things for how we’re moving forward. October 2, which is coming up soon, is my one year anniversary of starting this podcast. Woohoo! Three cheers for me! If I did that, every year, I’d have 1000 episodes in just four years. That’s a little crazy. What the hell would I talk about? So I’ve decided, I’m going to make a shift for season two and just have episodes come out twice a week, on Sunday and Thursday. That way, I can focus on writing this book that I’ve been writing (in case you didn’t know). I need to do that a bit more, because I want to finish it. Because here’s the thing, I write longhand. I love doing that, because it really connects my brain with the words on the page. Each podcast episode has been about six to eight pages of writing. So think about it – I’ve written over 1500 pages in the last year! Now if I could do that for a novel, while I’d be like Ken Follett, or George RR Martin. You get the idea. So I’m gonna take a little time off (whuuut??! I never do that!) And Season Two will kick off in the first week of October with a bright, shiny new episode. So not that much time off, you know. So for those of you who are catching up, that will give you a bit of time to dive back into some oldies. You could also browse through my snazzy new website, where it is now possible to play the episodes directly from there on your laptop, if you want to have a break from work, or if you don’t like earbuds, or for whatever reason at all. Also, there are now transcripts of many of the episodes right on the website. So if you prefer reading, you could get out your iPad or whatever and read them. Podcasts not really your thing? You don’t particularly need to hear my sweet voice? Then you can read the stories instead. Is this a full service experience or what?! I will be working on getting all the transcripts out by the end of the year, but it’s a huge job so, you know, keep your fingers crossed.

But mainly I’d love you to keep listening because it cheers my lonely little heart to think that you’re out there sharing my adventures. I feel you, all you excellent people who’ve had a listen from 22 different countries. Keep coming back! And tell your friends! That has been one of the most connective things I’ve done on this trip is to hand out business cards to people I just had casual conversations with – in stores, on ferries, in cafes, and artists residencies – and to think that perhaps I made a brief connection with a friend who will stay connected over the airways. I see you Greece, Italy, Croatia! So cool! And all you wonderful people in the UK listening perhaps in spite of thinking podcasts were not your thing. Hopefully you discovered a new love. 

I know that I resisted them for a long time. Perhaps it was the word words are important to me. And ‘podcast’ just sound so space age, not very cozy. After all the pods were those terrifying gray blobs that replaced all the humans in Invasion of the Body Snatchers Yuck! I can still see Donald Sutherland waggling his tongue and pointing. Yikes! Okay, if you have no idea where I just went there, hey, Google it, and maybe you have a new thing to add to your movie queue. I do this a lot. It’s part of the ride. 

Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes, podcasts. I didn’t want to go there either. But one day, I was painting my basement with my daughter Savannah, after the crackhead moved out. (True story. I will tell it soon one of these days.) And she said I had to listen to this podcast she heard with Elizabeth Gilbert. Before I could object she put it on. And before I knew it, we were listening to wisdom, and laughter, and so much insight. What a great way to enhance an otherwise long and time consuming chore. 

By the way, you know who Elizabeth Gilbert is she wrote Eat Pray Love. And this podcast was based on another beautiful book she wrote called Big Magic about how forces in the universe get together to bring us blessings. Yes, it’s that New Age woowoo stuff, but give it a try. It’s amazing. I highly recommend it. She did stop after her one season and I’m not going to do that. 

Speaking of other podcasts and other people who have inspired me on this journey, I just auditioned to be a guest on a new podcast being launched by my all time favorite get-your-ass-in-gear coach, Jen Sincero. I hope hope hope I get it. If anyone listening wants to put in a good word for me, please do! You know her too. She wrote the book, You Are A Badass and all the follow ups to that, especially You Are A Badass At Making Money, which I highly recommend to everyone. It is funny and it makes you think and change and get the money fairies to notice you. 

Okay, so back to my own stories: where to go if you want to delve back into the past, but don’t know where to begin. (And one side note here about those early episodes, in the first 100 or so I didn’t have the right equipment and I didn’t know how to edit. So please excuse that learning process and just listen for the content. They are good stories.) So, do you want to go way back to before I even began and hear more about my beloved grandmother? She was a lady in the old sense of the word, elegant and well mannered. But she was also tough and built to withstand the many trials that life threw at her. Try episode 11 to hear about her love of music, or episode 34 to hear about how she dealt with my spaz of a self who, when I was a teenager just hurt myself all the time. Episodes 43 through 47 really get into her early life as a young girl in the 30s and 40s and marrying an Italian aristocrat and living in Italy during World War Two. I was blessed to have an entire book of printed and transcripted letters of hers that I was looking at just before I moved out of my house, and they influenced me a lot in writing those early episodes. Episodes 56 and 67 talk about a place that she loved to return to and where she brought us all to share fun summers – an old dude ranch in Colorado without electricity or running water that she and her sisters used to go to when they were kids. And it was a wonderful place to live a little rustically and enjoy the outdoors. Episodes 83 through 85 talk about what a joy it was sharing holiday traditions with her. She was the true matriarch of this clan, and was happiest when we were all together under her roof. Naturally she is woven throughout all my days, but her end was especially poignant, and I tell it in detail in Episode 200. Don’t shy away from that. It is beautiful. 

If you are someone who loves travel adventures, well I’m in the midst of them now. And many of the newest episodes tell of my extended trip through Greece, Italy, Scotland and the UK and Croatia. But if you want more, try episode nine with our crazy family sojourn to Tortola. Or episode 23 when I took a big trip to Egypt as a teenager. In Episode 70 and 71, I take you along on a crazy cross country trip that we took in a converted van that my mom and her partner Virginia made back in the early 70s. We even had a CB radio like the guys in Smokey and the Bandit. No? Burt Reynolds? Anyone? Okay, never mind. There’s another movie. 

The first time I came to Greece – not counting when I was two and don’t remember – was just at the end of my senior year in high school and boy did my cousin and I flirt with those Greek sailor boys. You can hear all about that in episodes 93 and 94. I have a wild three weeks in Suriname, South America on a research trip with Earthwatch in episodes 99 and 100. I even have an encounter with some ferocious native spirits during that trip. Don’t miss those. I have been very fortunate to travel a lot in my life: Paris in 1982 for a month with a photo workshop – that’s episode 110 – and a once in a lifetime trip to China for a month in 1983 when it was just opening up to Western tourists. That trip takes four episodes to cover because it was truly an immersive, amazing experience. Those are episodes 114 through 117.

A lot of episodes talking about my relationship with my mom, of course. She is a force of nature that has shaped my life in powerful ways, kind of like a hurricane or a tsunami. But hey, I wouldn’t be who I am or where I am if it were not for her influence. To hear about her early escapades as a wild young thing, you could try episode 38. And then hear about how she and my dad met in Episode 39. Listen to the insane things they did as young parents in Episode 22, 17 and 41. Episode 41 is especially funny about a movie my mom made, which starred my brother at two years old as a villain named Bat Mabu. Yes, she’s a huge Jane Fonda fan, so if you kind of recognize that title, that’s where it came from. I will find that movie one day and put it on my website, I promise. Then episode 48 tells the sad story of why I didn’t live with my mom from age six to eleven. Again, those experiences made me what I am, for the most part. 

After those first few episodes, when I was all over the map, I pretty much tell things in sequence. Now and again, I diverge to muse upon things I’m curious about or things I am learning or books I love. But generally, if you want to relive some of your own teenage memories, you will probably find some sparks of nostalgia by listening to those episodes, between 65 and 95, where I stroll through those high school years. Between 97 and 130 I explore all those crazy college times – meeting a new and wider group of people, taking stupid risks, growing a lot. There follow weddings and parenthood, and a career with art and literature and history, building community and trying to become the best human I could be for those I love. And finally, finally, for myself. 

I hope you will find or have found much to inspire you, and that you’ve had many moments along the way that recalled flashes of your own experiences through the paths of your life. I’d love to hear about them if you ever feel like writing me a line or two. I’ve written 70 postcards and letters while on this trip and countless emails. So I will write back or respond in some way. 

I hope this has been helpful. Thank you for taking this ride with me. And I look forward to the new season and sharing many more stories to come. Bless you all. I’ll see you then.

Bye