Episode 10: Best Friends, Interwoven Families, and Conversing with Spirits: Vaughn's Story
Editing this episode was such a joy because I got to listen to Vaughn's smooth voice and bright laughter for a few hours. It's often a little strange to listen to the recordings after having had the interview; it feels as if I am spending time with that person. But when I see them again, it's just me that has been spending time with them. All of this especially highlighted and strange in the time of covid, in which most of my relationships are relegated to zoom and video and phone chats. So in a funny way, all of my conversations that happen digitally have a similar quality of feeling distant, recorded, unreal. Since several of these episodes have been recorded on Skype anyway, this interview didn't feel too far out of the ordinary, although I'd trade it in for in-person laughter and one of Vaughn's famous hugs any day. When I was catching up with her recently, we usually have some discussion about creative endeavors. She's a musician with an incredible voice (her bands Tribe Mars and Brown Calculus are the stuff of Portland legend) and one of the things I'm missing during quarantine is watching her perform in a crowded room, the feeling of the room drop its buzz as her voice washes over us. I am surprised at how often I fail to consider this podcast as an act of creativity (it doesn't exactly feel like art to me, but it definitely is expression?) but when she asked about how it was going, I was surprised she volunteered to be a guest! Most times I feel like I have to ask a few times, or convince someone it won't be scary, but in classic Vaughn style, she unabashedly and fearlessly signed up to participate. I shouldn't have been that surprised; she has never once in the time I've known her flinched from speaking her truth, or from warmly and openly making space to connect with the people around her. And we benefit so greatly from that gift of hers, this conversation being but one example of her generous and vivid spirit.She talks about losing her best friend from high school to cancer, a grief made a little more complicated by the familiar change most of us go through of watching friendships change as we go through life. And yet, despite those shifts in relationship, there is something unalterable, something so deep about those formative memories and times together, that renders friendships like these inseparable from the fabric of our own identities. The easy way in which Vaughn talks about how that friendship with Candace lives on in her reveals that power.
Piano music by Jeff Buckingham
Interlude from Free Music Archive: Dakota, by Unheard Music Concepts