Podcast Summary

Podcast: Cannonball with Wesley Morris (produced by The New York Times)
Episode: We Belong Together
Date: June 16, 2022
Hosts: Wesley Morris & Jenna Wortham

Overview

In this intimate and reflective episode, Wesley Morris reunites with Jenna Wortham after her extended break to discuss the many ways people maintain connection, especially through long absences and tumultuous times. The conversation weaves between personal stories about friendship, the challenges and beauty of solitude, the physical experience of separation, the importance of community (from family to grocery store encounters), and the healing power found in intimacy, water, and everyday joys.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Jenna’s Return & The Meaning of Absence

• Jenna shares her experience of being away for eight months to work on a book (“Work of Body”), diving into themes of dissociation, trauma, and learning embodiment.
• She describes her struggles with re-entry into New York City, feeling disoriented and questioning, “Where is my body in space and time right now? I don’t know.” (03:30)
• Jenna reflects on the challenge of maintaining relationships with her two young “nibblings” (nieces/nephews) during her absence, touching on the inevitability of being forgotten as part of childhood’s nature.
• The emotional return home is described vividly as one child enthusiastically greets her, but the baby asks, “Wait, what’s your name again?”—a humbling, grounding moment about the fragility of memory and presence in loved ones’ lives.
  • Quote (Jenna): “I’m your tita Jenna. Don’t forget it.” (06:26)

Keeping Friendship Alive at a Distance

• Wesley confides his anxiety about losing connection during Jenna’s time away, underscoring the depth of their long-running friendship:
  • Quote (Wesley): “I was really interested in what could change… what would the disruption of our daily, weekly, hourly, by-the-minute relationship be like?” (06:39)
• They reminisce about a treasured video Jenna sent from upstate New York—chopping wood in crocs and short shorts—which Wesley jokingly calls “dyke history” and suggests she belongs on an HGTV show:
  • Quote (Jenna): “That was the beginning of the departure… I wanted you to witness this transformation so we could keep talking about it.” (08:47)
• Both cherish their text exchanges, including a moving one after Sidney Poitier’s passing, illustrating the comforting rituals in modern friendship.
  • Quote (Jenna, reading her own text): “I wish I could invite you over for a meal. I feel like you really need it right now. Just know my door/table is always open, no matter where I am in the world.” (10:49)

Community, Identity, and the Restaurants of Life

• The pair discusses a NYT article about how restaurants address customers regarding gender—prompting laughter and a deep conversation on language, inclusivity, and representation.
  • Wesley intends to generate a thoughtful dialogue about gendered greetings; Jenna notes the first restaurant profiled is named “Gay4U,” and delights in the community’s small victories.
    • Quote (Jenna): “Not the first restaurant being called Gay for you… we are taking over.” (12:11)
• Their playful banter highlights the joy and resilience in queer community, even in the seemingly mundane.

Loneliness and Its Antidotes

• Jenna candidly admits the hardest part of her sabbatical was anticipating inevitable loneliness. She cites a NYT article: “Being lonely can be as bad as smoking 15 cigarettes a day,” and questions the compounded health impacts for people who face both loneliness and racism.
  • Quote (Jenna): “I had no way of knowing what that lonely would look like, what the texture would feel like… would it be a bottomless pit, a spiral?” (13:52)
• She describes her intentional choice to stay near water everywhere she lived, recognizing water’s sensory comfort as a source of grounding and solace.
  • Quote (Jenna): “That briny smell and that sound and the sight is just familiar. It’s comfort. It’s home.” (15:35)

Water as Metaphor and Memory

• Jenna’s voice notes often include references to water—sailing, swimming, floating—creating metaphors for return, ancestral memory, and Black liberation.
  • Quote (Jenna): “There’s something about, you know, African Americans in water… It’s always a return.” (17:16)
• Communal swimming becomes both an act of pleasure and remembrance: “How lucky and how unlucky,” she observes, honoring the complexity of Black relation to water, past and present.
• Living on a small island, she learned the beauty of being known in a community:
  • Quote (Jenna): “It became very safe and it became very lovely… something I looked forward to, which is being known and letting people in.” (18:37)

Community, Tragedy, and Everyday Intimacy

• Wesley recalls the Buffalo supermarket shooting and the role grocery stores play as centers of sustenance, interaction, and hard-won intimacy in Black communities (19:00–21:00).
• They reflect on the loss of such spaces and the resilience required to maintain them, especially amid collective trauma and loneliness.

The Ongoing Work of Connection

• The episode circles back to the fundamental need to intentionally nurture (“water”) relationships, appreciating the work done to keep them alive, even in absence.
  • Quote (Wesley): “We watered it. It was being tended, because look, here we are.” (21:41)
• Jenna describes her state on returning: more open, “protective over that openness rather than being closed and protective over that closedness.” (22:04)
• The mood is one of hopefulness:
  • Quote (Wesley, quoting Jenna): “Buckle up, baby. It’s gonna be a ride.” (22:21)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Reentry & Recognition:
  Jenna: “The baby tilts her head up at me and goes, ‘Wait, what’s your name again?’ … I said, ‘I’m your tita Jenna. Don’t forget it.’” (06:26)

• On Everyday Rituals in Friendship:
  Wesley: “To like overuse this water thing – we watered it. It was being tended…” (21:41)

• On Loneliness:
  Jenna: “Loneliness is for me very fear based. And the fear is that I’ll be alone forever. No one cares about me and I’m gonna die. And these are all like childhood voices that pipe up in times of insecurity.” (16:34)

• On Blackness and Water:
  Jenna: “It’s always a return. And it’s an honoring… we get to have this entirely new experience of this body of water that those before us did not have the privilege of experiencing.” (17:27)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:39–02:40 — Opening voice message, Jenna’s return, setting up the episode
• 03:04–06:37 — Jenna on leaving, writing, relationships with family, reentry
• 06:39–10:00 — Wesley on friendship, the cherished “axe” video, rituals of connection
• 10:06–12:49 — Text exchanges, the meaning of community care
• 13:38–15:44 — The realities and dangers of loneliness, personal strategies
• 15:56–18:37 — Water, Black memory and healing, communal joy and intimacy
• 18:37–21:41 — Buffalo, grocery stores as community, tending relationships
• 21:44–22:18 — The state and work of friendship, replenishment
• 22:21–22:37 — Anticipating what comes next, hope and joy

Tone & Style

The conversation is earnest, playful, and deeply personal. Wesley and Jenna seamlessly move between laughter and frank discussions about race, loneliness, joy, and cultural memory. Their rapport is full of humor, affection, and a shared understanding cultivated over years.

Conclusion

This episode, filled with stories about absence, reuniting, community, and healing, offers a compelling meditation on the ways we stay woven into each other’s lives—across distance, hardship, and the passage of time. Jenna and Wesley’s candor creates a space of intimacy and honesty, affirming the hope that “we belong together,” even when we’re far apart.