The Memory Generation

Episode 15: Mira Ptacin

INTRO

Rachael Cerrotti: Hey Everyone, I’m Rachael Cerrotti. Welcome to The Memory Generation – a podcast about the memories we inherit and the stories that are passed from one generation to the next. Today we are talking with Mira Ptacin.

Mira is a writer, educator and activist. She teaches creative writing at Colby College, leads memoir workshops to incarcerated women at the Maine Correctional Center and describes herself as writing about – and this is a quote from her – the uterus and the American Dream. She has also written extensively about grief, motherhood and family storytelling. Today, we are talking about her first book which was published back in 2016 and is titled Poor Your Soul. The book weaves together the story of the loss of her brother when she was just a teenager and then the loss of an unborn child when she was in her twenties. Mira currently lives on an island in Maine with her husband, two children and a whole bunch of rescue animals.

We recorded this conversation on October 9, 2022 in Portland, Maine.

INTERVIEW

Rachael Cerrotti: You grew up in Michigan

Mira Ptacin: Yes.

Rachael Cerrotti: Your father's originally from Chicago.

Mira Ptacin: Yes.

Rachael Cerrotti: He's American and your mother is Polish. 

Mira Ptacin: Yes.

Rachael Cerrotti: And when did your mom immigrate to this country?

Mira Ptacin: She immigrated. I think it was 1972. She was 28 years old. And she learned to speak English on her own from watching American soap operas and hence the title of my memoir Poor Your Soul. A lot of it is about my mother and her immigration and our relationship. So she learned English from watching soap operas. So her English is like super dramatic. And just, like Oh, Stefano, oh you are - please bring me to the blah, blah, blah, and really dramatic stuff but her English is also broken so she would say when I was growing up to my brother and my sister and me, you know, if I catch you watching television on a school night poor your soul. And that really, truly meant your poor soul is going to hell. So it was just like, poor your soul. And she would point at us and just glare and anytime she pulled out Poor your soul, it meant business. So you don't not listen to her when she says that one. So Poor Your Soul is the title of my memoir. It's a braiding of the story of my mother's immigration to the United States and her adopting my younger brother, Julian, who was a baby in Poland that didn't have a family. And then the loss of him when he was killed by a drunk driver when he was 14 years old. And the other thread of this story is about me losing a baby when I was five-ish months pregnant at the same age my mother was when she immigrated to the United States.

Rachael Cerrotti: And so you grew up, you had this younger brother. His name is Julian.

Mira Ptacin: Uh huh.

Rachael Cerrotti: And you called him Jules. 

Mira Ptacin: Yep. 

Rachael Cerrotti: Tell us a bit about Jules. 

Mira Ptacin: Julian was a quiet guy, but always had this smirk of sort of being a little jester. And, he was very insightful. He was just a sweet, sweet, shy boy. Loved playing with his friends, loved playing with his dog, loved messing with me. And memory is such a weird thing because I feel like the minute he died or when I found out he passed away, something happened in my brain where all my memories of him and just him as a human - everything just, like, froze, and I couldn't recall any memories, just like maybe two. It's so crazy. And it's been almost 30 years since he died. And sometimes the only time I really know what it feels like to be around him is when he comes or when I have a dream about him. And I savor those dreams so much because I remember how it feels to be around him, like what his essence was. But he was a tall, quiet, gentle, goofy boy. And I remember the last thing he said to me the night he died, umm which just sucks, because I was like 17. And that's like the peak of when you feel like you should be social and my friends kept asking me to come out that night. Fine, I should be doing this. I don't want to, but I should so I'm going to go. And I hate that I had that hesitation and still went. But the night I left, he was in the basement mating socks, like putting sock pairs together. And I remember he threw a sock at my head and he said, ‘see ya scrub.’ And those were his last words to me. And that it's just kind of like how he was. He was loving, but he was indirect about it. So he'd, like, throw a sock at me and that meant love you. See you later. So that's what Julian was like. Another memory I have is not my memory, but my mom's memory. When she would drop him off at football practice, they would hold hands while she was driving. He was just a sweet, quiet little deer - like a doe. 

Rachael Cerrotti: Can you tell us a bit about the night he died? What happened? 

Mira Ptacin: Yes. Oh, yeah. I'll rewind us a little bit. My mom - she had immigrated to the United States. Masters in Physics. Learned English, got a job in Chicago working at a hospital. She was beautiful woman. She still is. Always wears red lipstick, always. She put red lipstick on me when I was, like, being wheeled out to have a cesarean section. She had cancer, was going through chemo - red lipstick. So anyway, my mom working in the hospitals - all these young doctors - they were always trying to like date her. And then she met my father, who is like Steve Martin and Jesus mixed together. 

Rachael Cerrotti: What a Combination. 

Mira Ptacin: So sweet and so goofy and so loving and anyway they have their own romance story. But they got married and decided to move to Battle Creek, Michigan, which is about an hour away from Chicago. Tiny little town. And she did not work. She had us children, adopted Julian, raised the kids. But after a while she was getting really antsy and itchy, so she started a catering company and then started a restaurant. And she was so successful in our little tiny town of Battle Creek, Michigan. Fast forward to 1997. It's a Saturday night. I'm out with my friends. My sister is in college. She went to U of M. So my dad and Julian are home mating socks and they decide to go drive to the restaurant to help her close up early. So they're driving to my mom's restaurant. Meanwhile, there's a man just around the corner who is drunk and he and his wife have been fighting all day. And so he's driving and she's chasing him in another car. He drives right through the stop sign as my brother and dad are passing by perpendicularly and he slams right into the side of the car that Julian is on. And Julian, I don't know, they say he dies instantly. And then my father is with broken ribs, broken collarbone. And my mom heard the sirens and she tells me that she just remembers stopping and just praying for whoever that was for which is so sad. And then I get this call. My mom's best friend called and said Mira, you know, you have to come home. There's been an emergency. And my mom grabs the phone. She said someone is dead and hangs up because she's so dramatic. Soap operas. So I drove home the whole 45 minutes not knowing who died. And I didn't think it would be Julian. I thought it was going to be my dad because to me that just made the most sense because he’s the oldest. It was awful. And then I walked into the hospital and that moment on, for the rest of my life, like something died, something crumbled, dropped out of me. It was like I was like this ghost floating around for years. And the other thing I remember was my dad and my mom. And my dad was in a hospital bed and they were both just weeping and it was so sad. And I just didn't dare interrupt that moment for them of their tenderness and just mutual grieving. But from then on, we all had to figure out how to do it on our own. My sister was in college and had to go back to college and I was in high school - I went back to high school. My parents were both working and I know that there is some statistic somewhere, like how many couples get divorced after they lose a child and they knew that too. So they did everything they possibly could to not let that happen. And they're still together and they're madly happy and in love, but they prioritized that and that hasn't stopped since then which was wonderful for them, but was really freaking hard for us. Cause My poor sister went back to like U of M a party school and her grief juxtaposed to all that madness must have been really awful. And then mine was just so much guilt because I thought that if I hadn't gone out that night, I would have delayed all the action by like five minutes or something. It wouldn't have happened. So for years I spent just trying to not fuck up, not mess anything up, not make anybody sad, not hurt anybody in the family. And then fast forward to when I moved to New York. I mean, I was so good. I was so good. From the night Julian died to the end of high school -

Rachael Cerrotti: If I can interrupt just because –

Mira Ptacin: Yeah. 

Rachael Cerrotti: I read your book. 

Mira Ptacin: Yeah. 

Rachael Cerrotti: Prior to this, you were not so good, right?

Mira Ptacin: Oh, God. 

Rachael Cerrotti: Like, this was like a shift for you.

Mira Ptacin: Yes

Rachael Cerrotti: Like you had run away from home.

Mira Ptacin: Oh god, yeah

Rachael Cerrotti: you were –

Mira Ptacin: So bad

Rachael Cerrotti: a challenging child. 

Mira Ptacin: I was so –

Rachael Cerrotti: Can I call you challenging child?

Mira Ptacin: I was so bad. I was so bad, you guys.

Rachael Cerrotti: This was this was like a fundamental shift of who you –

Mira Ptacin: Such a shift

Rachael Cerrotti: how you operated in the world.

Mira Ptacin: It was like the gauntlet dropped and it was like the gauntlet of guilt. And I went from like smoking, coloring my hair red with Kool-Aid, skipping school, doing drugs, running away. I lived with my boyfriend who sold acid and crystal meth and then came home because he cheated on me and I came home - 

Rachael Cerrotti: You're like 16

Mira Ptacin: 16 years old. And then Julian died like a few months later, and I was boom. Done. Good. So I moved to New York to be a writer, went to graduate school, took out this huge loan. I went to Sarah Lawrence. It was like that year was voted the most expensive school in the country. I had all these reasons not to fuck up, but all these reasons to prove that I am going to redeem myself. And I was like, you know, first one in the classroom, editor of the literary magazine. Just above and beyond. So eager beaver of an achiever. And then my family noticed this over holiday break in the winter. And I came home and they're like, ‘dude, Mira, you need to make friends and you should start dating.’

Rachael Cerrotti: I think there's a line in your book that you say that you had like no intimacies other than literary ones with your new classmates. 

Mira Ptacin: Yes

Rachael Cerrotti: Right? 

Mira Ptacin: Like this was like your –

Mira Ptacin: That was that was it.

Rachael Cerrotti: That was it. 

Mira Ptacin: That’s all I did. I wrote. I read. I went to poetry readings. That’s it. But my family was like online dating was kind of new. Everybody in the family was in a relationship. They’re like ‘Mira, let's give this a try.’ And I was like, No, no, no. I said if you guys want to see what's like, you could just like use me as your avatar, but I'm not doing any of this. So my sister, my mom and sometimes my dad were like, oh my god, look at this one. Oh god, look at this one.

Rachael Cerrotti: They made a dating profile for you?

Mira Ptacin: They made the dating profile for me?

Rachael Cerrotti: God, that's a lot of permission to give to your family.

Mira Ptacin: Oh yeah. They saw this one adorable dog with man. And a lot of these dog pictures –

Rachael Cerrotti: These are still the pictures that win on Internet dating.

Mira Ptacin: Oh good. That’s good to know. 

Rachael Cerrotti: Yeah.

Mira Ptacin: Good to know. They should win. And then Andrew’s profile was so cleverly written, so I gave them permission to click yes. And then snowballing, moving forward - Andrew and I went on a date. We clicked so well. He is an engineer. I'm a writer. It's like Excel worksheet meets like washing machine, but somehow it works. And we fell in love so quickly. And it was so magical, so wonderful. He was like the first real man I had ever dated. Everybody else was like a guy. And he had a beautiful bookshelf and he had read all the books. And he rode his bike to work. And such a good human. But then three months into things, I wasn't feeling good. And he was joking and said, take a pregnancy test. So we went to this drugstore near his apartment and it was yes. That brought me back to Mira aged 17 after Julian died. Like I was doing so well.

Rachael Cerrotti: You went from being like, I'm not even interested in dating. 

Mira Ptacin: To pregnant. 

Rachael Cerrotti: And in love.

Mira Ptacin: And in love. All this was super quick. So then Andrew and I decided to get engaged. We decided to have a baby. And then we slowly revealed all this to our parents who were cool about it. But I still felt really, really, really guilty. 

Rachael Cerrotti: Going through your book, there's a paragraph that, like, stood out to me as something that I can relate to. I've never been pregnant. I've never had a pregnancy scare. I don't have children. But there was this paragraph that I read that I was like, I feel like that's how I would feel. You write, and this is fairly early on in the book you wrote 

“Behind us, the sound of children shrieking on a playground is making me want to smoke a cigarette, or maybe three hundred, all at once. It is spring, and I am not ready to be a mom. I don't want to be a parent. But now I am. There is a baby growing inside my uterus and there is nothing I can do about that right now, so I will not smoke cigarettes and I will not drink alcohol and I will not do anything that may cause the least bit of harm to this tiny speckle of a human I'm nurturing. Is that what they call motherly instinct?” 

Mira Ptacin: Yeah. It is motherly instinct. I really think that is.

Rachael Cerrotti: And so I'm going to ask you to read a piece of your book.

Mira Ptacin: Sure

Rachael Cerrotti: And I love when I'm in studio with somebody because it means that we can like actually pass pages –

Mira Ptacin: Yeah, oh

Rachael Cerrotti: back and forth. The piece I'm going to ask you to read is just a couple pages after that paragraph. So it's just a continuation of that thought here. So if you don't mind reading, starting with “I cry and often.” 

Mira Ptacin: It's so crazy because this was 2008. And - what is the - it's 2022 and it's so crazy that I've moved so far from this. But let's see, okay. 

“I cry, and often. During the day, alone and in hiding, I cry because I feel like I failed. I worried that when they find out about my pregnancy, I will be perceived as lazy, reckless, irresponsible, selfish. By whom? No one in particular. I feel defeated because I don't want a baby, but know I must keep the baby. Andrew and I loved one another and we had sex and the pill didn't work and we made a baby. The question of whether I wanted one is moot. It doesn't matter because somehow I know that my whole life has led me to this place; this is what has happened and I will have to take responsibility for my actions. The time has come for me to step up. Grow up. 

At night and quietly, I cry because I am in mourning. I am suddenly pregnant. This makes me feel suddenly apart. Isolated. In an instant, I am separated from my life as I knew it. Separated from my classmates at Sarah Lawrence. I am no longer a writer to be critiqued so much as the subject of their popcorn gossip. Separated from my role as a sibling, I am no longer the spirited younger sister but the knocked-up one. Suddenly separated from the layover I'd been enjoying between youth and adulthood. And, even though they don't know yet, I am suddenly separated from my parents. I am no longer their daughter so much as I am now one of them – a parent, with their own child. I will have to learn, and quickly. Learn how to support the head. Learn how to breastfeed. Audition for daycare. Make budgets. Meal plans. I am pregnant. And defeated. Andrew already has an established career as an engineer; I am a struggling writer with impending student loan payments. How on earth will we make this work? What kind of mother will I be?” 

Oh, isn't that fun? Oh god.

Rachael Cerrotti: Okay to read that like that?

Mira Ptacin: Yeah. But I feel so sad for a little Mira. Like, it's going to be okay. It's going to be okay. Everything was like so in the present moment that whole time. I just felt like I needed to erase everything as quickly as I could or just get this over with as soon as possible. Not like terminate a pregnancy, but just like make everything right for everybody else rather than just, like, listen to myself. And it was just so terrifying.

Rachael Cerrotti: That feeling of alienation that you describe? Do you feel as though there was something that was familiar there in feeling alienated from peers after your brother died? 

Mira Ptacin: I think so. Because I remember just feeling apart from everyone, but I think it was a different category of grief because when Julian died, I became so popular. It was awful. People just wanted to be my friend or be like Mira-adjacent because she was the girl whose brother died and that was like really big news in the community. And then at Sarah Lawrence, it was like just the opposite where it felt like if I had stole someone's writing and used it as my own or like The Scarlet Letter or something. 

Rachael Cerrotti: What comes next?

Mira Ptacin: We're pregnant. We're engaged. Looking back at it now, I think if we hadn’t been pregnant - people ask me this sometimes too, like if you had been pregnant and you guys didn't decide to get engaged and blah, blah, blah - would you still have gotten engaged eventually? Yeah, I think we would have. He's stellar and we're so opposite, but we just like each other a lot. But anyways, so we got engaged and for him it was like, this is cool. This is going to be such an adventure. But for me, I was panicking and the happiness of like, look at this dude and we fast forward, everything's going to be great. But I was panicking and feeling so guilty. But then five months into the pregnancy, we go for that like really exciting ultrasound where they show you the heart and the lungs. You can see the sex of the baby and we get in there and are like this is when it's going to be fun because now we can start picking out like little baby clothes. And we go in and I'm lying on the table, gel onto my stomach, and the technician starts moving the thing around and it's just silent. And we're like, you know, tell us what you see. What do you see? And she said I’m not allowed to say anything right now, I need to go get the specialist. We're like, well wait, but tell us what you see. She said, I can't. And we knew something was up. And the specialist comes in and she's like, yep, yep. That's right. Yeah. Zero brain development, irregular heart structure, spina bifida. Da da da. Listing all these things. And all these people just kept coming in and out and no one was telling us what was happening. And I’m starting to really panic. And I'm also in a physically vulnerable position like on my back exposed. And then chromosomal tests and genetic testing. All this stuff. And we didn't know what was going on. All we knew that something was really, really wrong with the baby. And we were there from like seven in the morning to like seven at night and exhausted and just shook. So then we went home and all we knew was that the baby wasn't viable outside my womb and that since I was so far along in my pregnancy, we had ten days to make a decision. I had the decision to make actually - if I wanted to terminate the pregnancy, do nothing and have a miscarriage or induce and deliver a baby that was not going to live. 

Rachael Cerrotti: I was going to ask what you decided to do.

Mira Ptacin: Well, actually, what I did was actually go away for a weekend by myself. I was already registered and accepted to a writer's weekend in - all the way across country in California. But then a couple of days before I left for the colony is when I found out that I was - had to make this decision and everybody's like, you're not going, are you? And I said, I am going to go. And Andrew supported it because he's like, you know what's best for you. But everyone was like, Mira that's crazy. You have shit to deal with. So I was like I'm going to deal with it there by not thinking about it. So I went which was really uncomfortable because they'd be like, what are you naming the baby? Is it a boy or girl? Blah blah blah. And I just wanted to go to write. But it actually ended up being a really, really therapeutic experience. And it helped me make my decision because I didn't know what to do because I didn't know what everybody else wanted me to do. 

Rachael Cerrotti: Mmhmm

Mira Ptacin: Because I had been doing things to please other people and not upset anybody since Julian died. And then when I was away, there were two things that happened that helped me - that encouraged me to make the decision that I knew I wanted to make for myself. And the first one was that my doctor and I kept having these calls and I finally said, like, I don't know what I should do. I want to make the decision that's going to upset the least amount of people. And she was like, Mira, what do you want to do? And I was like, that's what I want to do. And she said, look it - the term late term abortion is not a medical term. It's a term that the anti-choice or pro-lifers made up to make people like you feel really shitty about a decision you make. And the second thing you need to know is this baby ain't going to survive. The one who's going to survive is you. And as a doctor, it is my job to advocate for the health of the patient. So I think You should terminate this pregnancy. That's the best thing for you and you're the only one coming out alive. You ain't going to save this baby no matter what you do. So I was like, I needed to hear that straightforward because all the other times were like, you choose what you want to do. And my mom would say, I think it'd be, like, therapeutic for you to deliver the baby and hold it and say goodbye. And for me, I was like, that sounds fucking terrifying. So then that was one thing. And then the other thing that helped me a lot was this writing teacher - I had gone in there with a manuscript about a murder that had happened in my hometown of Battle Creek and I stayed after class and I was like, can we talk about this? I want to be a published author. And he was like, well, here's the deal - besides the fact that there was like this big, hideous murder, what else is there? What's the story? There's the big thing. There's a murder, but what's everything around it that happened? That's all the interesting stuff. And he told me that when he was writing his first book which was a true story based on some documents he had found about a man who traveled the world as a blind man back in like the 1800s. He learned about this and was like I have to write the story. That's so interesting. He got a book deal and he started writing the book and like by chapter two was like - uhh Captain Joe went to the port, but he's blind. And next chapter, he went to get a hotel room, but he's blind. So like there's nothing more than he's blind. There's nothing more than this was a murder in a hometown and blah, blah. So he said - anything happening in your life right now that is more interesting than like a murder in a hometown? And I was like, well, if you ought to know. You see, I'm pregnant. I'm really very pregnant. When I go home, there's going to be no more baby and I'm going to terminate the pregnancy. And I told him the whole story and he was like, you gotta write a book about it. And then he was like I know your brother had died and I know there's other things in your life. All those things have to connect to your feeling right now. And I was like, you're right. I have to go explore all of this. And that's what prompted me to write this book. 

Rachael Cerrotti: I was wondering particularly with the section that I asked you to read and you talk about feeling alienated and you felt distant from your parents because now you were going to be one. After having this loss, if in some way that actually brought you closer with your mother because within the matter of one day's worth of information, you went from feeling like what is now my new role as a daughter in a sense. I feel really distant from my parents because I'm going into this new identity, this new role, to suddenly being like, Wow, now I've also lost a child and my mother's lost a child because I noticed that even as you write about the loss of your brother in this book, it seems like you more often lean into the story of your mother's loss of a child than your loss of a brother.

Mira Ptacin: Yeah, that's true. And I think it's because the love you have for a sibling is so different than a love you can have for a child that you raised and you are there to protect. But when I lost a child, my mother stepped right in and was my advocate. But she also gave me advice for things that are like surrounding how to deal with other people. She would give me, like, advice about how to play this role of wife and how not to do it. And how to do it the way that's best for me. Like, okay, I'll give you the example. Like, sex - after this happened, I was like, no one is fucking touching me ever again. And I'd get so mad at Andrew when he would try to, like, have sex. I'm like, are you insane? But my mom would say when Julian died, I didn't want anybody to touch me, but for Phil, my dad - and in some ways, this was way too much information. He, like sex, would make him feel loved and nurtured and connecting was - connecting with someone - my dad and my mom having sex on a podcast - here we are. But umm, but then I'd be like, oh, okay. So I wouldn't be as angry at Andrew because she would sort of decipher like why he was trying to do that.

Rachael Cerrotti: Was that your relationship with her before or was this like an opening up in a brand new way for the two of you?

Mira Ptacin: Umm, it was closer. Since then, we are so close. I think also if not for my mother being older and wiser, having lost a child, having dealt with her relationship with my father, I wouldn't know how to stay married to Andrew. I would have probably left him. It was like so much trauma I didn't know how to deal with. She talked me through it so I wouldn't take it out on Andrew. I mean, I had thrown plates at him. I have thrown his cell phone out the window before. Like I was so traumatized and he was in his own way, but it was just so different. 

Rachael Cerrotti: It's been about eight years since this book was published. Do you recognize yourself? Like, does it feel familiar? Or like when you read those pages, when I hand it to you and - are you like, oh, yeah, I totally know that woman? 

Mira Ptacin: To be honest, that's the first time I've read anything out of there for maybe seven years or so. I mean, I went on the book tour with Poor Your Soul when Simone was three months old and I was like carrying her on my chest during readings. That was so weird because right after you have a baby, your brain is physically changing. Like I don't think I had any perspective cause I was like, I'm reading this, it's coming out of my mouth. But in the back of my head, I'm like, does Simone need a diaper change? Does she need to nurse? But now they have autonomy, reading it - I know that person and she is suffering so much. And she's so raw and she's being so genuine. I just want to, like, tell her it's going to be okay. It was the very beginning of my adulthood and things I'm teaching my kids now is like, if you work hard, you play hard. Like when they practice piano every day and you go to your lesson, it's going to be so much more fun than if you only practice a couple of times, then you go to your lesson. And I feel like I worked so hard and I suffered so hard that I am thoroughly enjoying everything in my life right now. So I feel like I'm glad for her because she doesn't have to learn this shit later. And now I know how to advocate for myself. I know that when I make a decision, I am aware of who it affects. But I'm like, how do I think about it and what works for me? Not what everybody is telling me or expecting, but I do recognize her. And she's a mess. She's a hot mess. I feel sorry for her. 

Rachael Cerrotti: I want to end the conversation with Julian. 

Mira Ptacin: Yes I would love to.

Rachael Cerrotti: You talk in your book about after he passes away, you learn that he was a poet. 

Mira Ptacin: Yes

Rachael Cerrotti: Right. And so you write 

“We never knew about this, that you were a secret poet. I am starting to see that, often, you kept your thoughts hidden from the rest of the world, too. Those parts deep within us that are so difficult to share. Tender things, like regrets and beliefs that, when exposed, make us even more vulnerable. The stories we write, the notebooks we hide, never knowing if they will be read with someone else's eyes.” 

Mira Ptacin: I wrote that?

Rachael Cerrotti: You wrote that. It's such a beautiful paragraph. So I'm going to ask you to read Julian's poem.

Mira Ptacin: I would love to. 

So the title is What The Yellow Had To Say. By: Julian Ptacin

“I am the joy of a flower

the singing of birds. 

I am a promise 

The happiness that fills your body 

I am the delight of friendship 

The feeling of being with someone. 

I am the light shining through your window 

Making you warm 

The sight of someone you love

I am the peacekeeper, 

The never-ending joy.” 

And we found this, I don't know, a few days after he died and he had written this poem and it's just profound. And we just still can't wrap our heads around it.

Rachael Cerrotti: Particularly from a 14 year old boy.

Mira Ptacin: A 14 year old football player, yeah.

Rachael Cerrotti: So as you carry the memories of your brother and the child that you didn't have where does that never-ending joy exist for you in these memories?

Mira Ptacin: I think the joy is when I am with my family. When I was with my family. I’m just seeing these images in my head of like even my family at Julian's funeral. Even us being there together. There's like this magic, warm, energy or love that is within all of us that is so much stronger when we're together. And it feels so good. It's just the memory of being together. Whatever the situation is is what brings me so much warmth and joy. 

Rachael Cerrotti: Thank you so much, Mira

Mira Ptacin: You’re welcome. I feel so warm. 

Rachael Cerrotti: I feel warm too.

Mira Ptacin: You’re like Christmas morning right now. 

Rachael Cerrotti: Cozy in this little studio in South Portland.

Mira Ptacin: That was really interesting to go back to all that. It was really therapeutic. 

Rachael Cerrotti: Oh, good. 

Mira Ptacin: Thank you.

OUTRO

Rachael Cerrotti: Thank you to Mira for joining me today. You can find her book, Poor Your Soul at your local bookstore. It will also be linked on our website.

The Memory Generation was created in partnership with USC Shoah Foundation which is home to more than 55,000 testimonies of survivors and witnesses of genocide. You can learn more about their work and the Visual History Archive at sfi.usc.edu.

You can find additional links, book lists, testimony clips and all types of other resources and stories on our website: memorygenerationpodcast.com. Our editor is Lene Bech Sillesen. Our executive producer and co-creator of this show is Stephen Smith. The music is from Kodomo.

I’m Rachael Cerrotti. Thanks for being with us.