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Contemplify
Jeffrey Martin on Thank God We Left the Garden, Letters, and Literature
01:22:53
"[Jeffrey Martin writes] Songs that are stark in their simplicity, yet emotionally rich in a way that can catch your breath in your throat or leave your eyes suddenly damp." — Paste Jeffrey Martin is a musician with a number of albums under his...
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- [00:05]
Paul Swanson
Welcome to Contemplify where we seek to kindle the examined life for contemplatives in the world. I'm your host, Paul Swanson. Today I am in conversation with Geoffrey Martin. Geoffrey Martin is a musician with a number of albums under his belt. His latest, thank God We Left the Garden, has been playing on repeat in my house since November of last year. That is not an exaggeration. Martin's music has been turning my soul over with each listen, airing out the space and providing sunlight on unswept corners. Melodies and turns of phrase that alter the course of each day. In our conversation, Jeffrey and I talk about his time as a high school English teacher, the mystery of knowing and unknowing in art, the impact of handwritten letters, his beautiful songs, and so much more. As always, you can visit contemplified.com for the show notes on this episode and learn more about jeffrey@jeffreymartinmusic.com now join me in raising a glass to my guest today, Jeffrey Martin.
- [01:22]
Jeffrey Martin
Gotta begin.
- [01:22]
Paul Swanson
I wanna ask you where I finding you today.
- [01:25]
Jeffrey Martin
What.
- [01:26]
Paul Swanson
What location are you in and what's the context of that location?
- [01:30]
Jeffrey Martin
I'm home in Portland, Oregon, in this little plywood shack in the backyard. It's kind of my mind palace. Just simple recording setup out here and some guitars and. Yeah, just where I write.
- [01:51]
Paul Swanson
Yeah. And did you build that yourself? Was that something that you put together for music or for your own kind of solace?
- [02:00]
Jeffrey Martin
Yeah, my girlfriend and I, we live in this kind of. It's a detached garage that we turned into a studio apartment some years ago. And it's so great. It works beautifully because we're both touring musicians and yeah, it allows us to live pretty cheaply in Portland, but we just needed a little more space and so I built this little shack and then we found a little travel trailer for her, put it in the backyard next to the shack and so that's her riding spot. Yeah, it's just nice to have a space that's like, dedicated to that world.
- [02:42]
Paul Swanson
Yeah.
- [02:43]
Jeffrey Martin
And it's not like I'm cooking meatloaf in here and stuff. That's good.
- [02:48]
Paul Swanson
Yeah, it's like each have your own little hermitage, little writing shack outside the homestead.
- [02:55]
Jeffrey Martin
Yeah.
- [02:55]
Paul Swanson
Yeah, that's great. I always love seeing what one holds on their wall or the bottles within arm's reach.
- [03:05]
Jeffrey Martin
What is the bottle up there? Oh, red breast. Red breast. That's my favorite lately, but yeah.
- [03:12]
Paul Swanson
Okay. Now, as I was saying just a few minutes ago, the podcast tends to focus on kindling the examined life for Contemplatives and so I'm always curious to know. I see this contemplative spirit in your music. Leaves me wondering are there, are there lineages of whether it's a philosophical, spiritual or artistic streams that you lean into and feel like you are flowing out of, or that you're swimming in or how do you connect with any of those lineages, if you do at all?
- [03:46]
Jeffrey Martin
Yeah, yeah. My dad has like a. Just a natural, like philosophical bent to his mind and he loves to dig in and talk about things. And so the music that he seeks out and the, the films that he watches and the books that he reads and stuff have always leaned that way. He was a great. You know, I just grew up in that energy kind of. And I think just early on got attached, especially in music, to songs that kind of. That felt like there was a direct line between the song and the person's life who was performing the song. Like almost like they tied a string to something in them internally and then attached it to something that they witnessed in the world or observed or something. It's not like it can be any genre. It's just there's like a feeling, there's like a sense that someone saw something and then reported back with this song. And there's a lot of really impressive music out there that doesn't do that, I think. But it really bores me. And I don't mean to say that like, I don't mean to take away from. I know a lot of people love music that's not as heady and whatever, but I just, I think maybe because I play so much alone on tour also, like night after night I need to be playing things that I. I can feel again and again and again. This would be a really hard job if I was like an entertainer, I think, and trying to emote kind of, I don't know, act or something every night. But yeah, so I don't know, that's my goal, I think, or that's what I'm drawn to when I'm writing. And anything I'm reading the same way. It's just like I was just reading this Raymond Carver short story this morning. I figured it's called Such a simple. The Student's Wife, I think it's called. It was just like this really potent snapshot of this couple, this young couple's life and, and it just. The whole time I was reading it, I was like, man, he lived this in a million different ways and found a way to put it into a four page story. I just really like that feeling.
- [06:37]
Paul Swanson
Yeah. That certainly resonates for me. And not to. Not to embarrass you or to lay anything on thick, but that is how I've lived with your music and particularly your latest album.
- [06:55]
Jeffrey Martin
Well, that's good. That's really good to hear this. Yeah, that's great.
- [06:58]
Paul Swanson
These past five months, I've spent so much time with your music. Here we are meeting for the first time. But I've already spent two listens with you today. Going through the album and the way you articulate it with Carver and to being able to sink into something that is recorded that fresh every time. Like because of my life continues on my own linear path. But as the. The music hits me, different songs become my favorites because of what's going on in my life and how it, it percolates. What's. What's processing through me.
- [07:43]
Jeffrey Martin
Yeah.
- [07:46]
Paul Swanson
That to me is what I seek out in artistic expression that lasts. I hear you. And there's so much. There's so many things out in the world that I don't want to take from anyone else. Getting joy out of them, and that's wonderful. But there's a particular strand of art that moves me deeply. And when I find it, I want to tell everyone about it, but also just tend to it and stoke it and respect the integrity that goes into that. What had to be lived, what had to be processed to be able to offer that back to the world.
- [08:29]
Jeffrey Martin
Yeah. I think my favorite art, like in the broadest sense of the word, just my favorite art to encounter is the kind that I simultaneously have the feeling of like, I want to tell everybody about this. And at the same time I feel like I need to be very careful with who I tell about this.
- [08:51]
Paul Swanson
Yes.
- [08:53]
Jeffrey Martin
Like, it's very precious and I don't want to experience offering it to somebody who doesn't know how to hold it and then feel the sadness in that moment. Yeah.
- [09:06]
Paul Swanson
No, that's so true. That's so true. I was talking to a friend about David James Duncan's book Sun House, because I'm such a fan of this book. And he made the great point of you can't tell everyone about this book because not everyone will receive it in the way that it's being offered and not everyone's ready for it. And that's not putting anybody down. It's just there's a certain set of kind of open hearted conditions to be.
- [09:37]
Jeffrey Martin
Able.
- [09:39]
Paul Swanson
To persevere through the beauty and depth of it. I think that there's an integrity to that. Like you Were saying of, like, you don't want it to be extinguished by. Yeah, Overpopulation, right?
- [09:56]
Jeffrey Martin
Yeah. I wonder. I'd love to. It'd be so strange to be an author, I think. And to put out a handful of books in your career would be a really good career, but each one, like, I think about it with songs all the time, but. But I put out many more songs than books I would write if I was an author. But there's that old. Everyone says once you release something into the world, it's not yours anymore. And whatever. I think that's kind of true. I think it's kind of bullshit also. It's true in the sense that people can interpret it how they want and they can attach whatever of their own life to it. But sometimes it shows people who have very specific questions about songs or lines in songs or they'll have comments about their interpretations of songs. And I never feel bad about telling them that they're wrong. I don't want to just say, like, that's nice that you interpreted it that way, because to me, it's, like, attached to something very real and visceral in myself. And I had a strange tour a little while ago of this guy came to a show, and he wanted to propose to his girlfriend at the show, which was strange already to me because I didn't, like, imagine my music being the best music to pop the question to. But. But they were big fans, and. And. And he asked me to play this. This one song called Sad Blue Eyes specifically, and he wanted to propose after that song, and I was just so thrown by it and, like, man, that, like, I'm. I'm so flattered that you want to do that and whatever, but I just want you to know that, like, that song, to me, is a song about someone who thinks they've found love, but it's not. It's like, the opposite of love. They found this, like, codependent thing that resembles love, but it's really gonna just hurt in the end. And I don't know why you would want to propose at the end of that song. It was just, like, quiet. And then he just said, like, oh, yeah, but it doesn't. That's not what it means to us. So. And he just, like, it didn't shake him and he didn't end up proposing. He just. I don't know what happened, but it was a good. Like, I thought about it for days after that because I, like, there is something in me that wants to, like. Like, I really wanted to grab him by the shirt collar and be like, no, this is what the song's about. And you're. You need to listen harder. But then, I don't know. The more I thought about it, I think that's kind of beautiful. What he found in the song and maybe what his girlfriend found in the song and all the times that they listened to the song together and heard it in this specific way. And like, yeah, who am I to take that from him? But it is bullshit.
- [13:19]
Paul Swanson
But it is. I appreciate hearing that because I think as listeners or participants of receivers of art in any way, we come with our own interpretations. And you don't want to overplay that hand of. It's only the interpreter's right. The artist also has, I think.
- [13:43]
Jeffrey Martin
More.
- [13:44]
Paul Swanson
Than a right to be able to say, well, here's where this is coming from. Here's how it means to me. And you're wrong.
- [13:51]
Jeffrey Martin
I think part of my thinking, or frustration, if there is any really about that, is that I wish that we lived in a moment where it was okay to be more critical of art, of all kinds of art, and not have it mean that I'm making some big statement about everything. I have a few close friends in music who can, like, send me a song that they wrote and I can say, man, this one doesn't work for me, doesn't hit me, or it needs some whatever. And there's no love lost between us at all. And it's so great. And there are people that I would never, ever, ever say that to because it would be this, like, disastrous thing that would unfold, I think. And sometimes in interviews I find, like, people ask, like, what do you listen to? Or what music did you grow up on and stuff, or what do you like? And I feel this, like, tension in me because I'm afraid I'm going to say something that would make someone unhappy. Like, well, I don't like so and so, or I don't whatever. And I wish that there was more freedom just to say, like, that Bob Dylan album really sucks. It's a shitty album.
- [15:18]
Paul Swanson
Yeah, I think about that with critical friendships. I'm a pretty laid back, easygoing guy, but I know that my deepest friendships are the ones where there's a criticism is allowed and it's and actually an act of love to be able to offer some feedback like that.
- [15:39]
Jeffrey Martin
Yeah.
- [15:39]
Paul Swanson
And I do the same thing when I'm writing something. And if I get edits back, I'm not like, how dare you? How dare my draft not meet your expectations perfectly? Like that level of care that can be contributed through the feedback loop is incredibly generous because we all have those feelings, right, of being like, oh man, I don't want to disappoint this person. I want them to know I like their work. But to be able to share just outright, I mean, I can only imagine what a gift that is as a songwriter to have that kind of no bullshit zone of songs reaching the filter of people whose opinions really matter to you.
- [16:21]
Jeffrey Martin
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's really great. I had a professor once when I was in school. I was earning a teaching degree, and he gave me this great advice that when he was. He used to teach high school. And he said that he would write at the top of every paper that he graded, every essay, every story, whatever. Like, especially if it was a really low grade or a really high grade, he would say that. Just a reminder, this is like, whatever grade you got on this assignment has nothing to do with who you are as a person to me. And he would tell his students that wrote really well. I don't think you're a better person because you write really well. And tell his students that needed a lot of work in writing. Like, I don't think you're. Like, I don't think any less of you as a person because your writing needs a lot of work. It was such a. Like, I taught for a few years, high school level and it was such a useful. I used that more than anything, I think. And it was. It was just so disarming, especially for young people that are like really seeking validation in those ways. And like, it just made this like really free space where we could talk honestly about stuff.
- [17:52]
Paul Swanson
Yeah, that's beautiful. I can only imagine the ripple effect of that for students. My daughter is 9 years old, and just last week there's like the state testing that happens in schools. And yeah, like, our only message to her was like, we don't care. Like, this doesn't matter. This is something that we do in our. It's one of the clinical aspects of our education system. What we care is that you. We want you just to fall in love with learning. We want you to explore and be curious. And it was pretty sweet because her teacher had all had parents invited them to write notes. Because some kids get really anxious during this times, I'm sure now.
- [18:41]
Jeffrey Martin
Yeah, absolutely.
- [18:42]
Paul Swanson
To just be able to say that same thing. So I love that coming from a parent aspect, but to come from a teacher, it's gotta land even deeper because we put so much of that on the teacher's plate when we Know all the things that go along with state testing.
- [19:03]
Jeffrey Martin
Yeah, yeah. It's a stressful jungle.
- [19:08]
Paul Swanson
Yeah. How long did you teach for?
- [19:12]
Jeffrey Martin
I taught for about five years. Substitute teaching at first and then a couple long term full time teaching jobs. And then in 2015, I think kind of. Yeah, that. That summer I decided to kind of just dive into music full time and have been doing that ever since. Yeah.
- [19:42]
Paul Swanson
Wow. When you were teaching and was there particular books that you like to teach with that age, age group that.
- [19:54]
Jeffrey Martin
Yeah.
- [19:55]
Paul Swanson
Or particular assignments that you could see really connected with folks of that age?
- [20:00]
Jeffrey Martin
Yeah, it was especially the last teaching job I had was at this little town in Oregon called Junction City. It was a pretty, pretty small school, but they had a really great policy of kind of just kind of a more old school version of teaching. Like, just shut your door and teach. You know, we trust you. We hired you because we trust you. So there was no, like, very strict curriculum to stick to. And I found that. I just loved short stories because they worked so well for students that didn't have the attention span to work their way through a whole novel. And a whole novel with A class of 35 students takes a long time anyways because you gotta find that. That pace that kind of works for everybody. And inevitably you're leaving students behind who can't keep up. And you're also boring students to death who read the book in two days and whatever. Right. But I just, I loved, like, I did teach a lot of Raymond Carver short stories because he has so many stories that are. They walk right up to the edge of what would be inappropriate to teach in a high school. He doesn't cross the line fully, at least not with the language, with the implication. Absolutely. But I just really loved, like, bringing these short stories to these farm kids, essentially, and giving them examples of adults doing very strange things with a lot of joy and a lot of heartache and whatever in those stories. And I loved, like, watching them connect the dots, like, wait, does this mean that? And does that mean that? And that mean he did this? And like, it just like. And then seeing like, like, holy shit, that the world is bigger than. Than I thought. And yeah, so it was a lot of short stories, the big ones I taught that I loved. I loved 1984 because it's just so rich, the parallels right now. It's crazy. Yeah. And then Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath was a favorite also. That one was. It felt like a. That was my favorite challenge, I think, to teach because it comes with so much weight to Students, like, it's a title they've heard thrown around from their older siblings, maybe, who've gone through the system already. And, yeah, oh, we're gonna do Grapes of Wrath. We're gonna read some Steinbeck. Yeah. And I loved the challenge of, like, yeah. Trying to get them on board with a book that big and find all the. The beauty of it. And Steinbeck, to me is like, maybe a mix. Maybe a. If I'm thinking of, like, musical equivalents, I feel like he's like, a mix between Bob Dylan and John Prine. Like, Dylan was able to, especially in his early stuff, was able to say things about society and groups of people that are just profound. And he didn't say a whole lot about the nuances of the individual. But Prine found a way to dive into the individual. And I feel like Steinbeck can just switch back and forth in these ways that are not fair. It's just. No one should be able to do it so well. Yeah, I miss teaching. It was. I miss. I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would. And I. It was absolutely the right decision to stop. I found myself, like, really encouraging all these. I taught a lot of seniors in high school and just, like, coming alongside these young people and saying, like, go. To go. If you want to do college, do college. If you want to do something else, do something else, but just do it fearlessly. And misses, like, just really encouraging them to strike out and do what they wanted to do. And I think. I mean, that's why I had to stop teaching was like, I just wanted to be on tour and I couldn't keep giving that message. Message to students and kind of not taking my own medicine. But it's kind of surprised me. I mean, so it's, what, been nine years maybe since I taught? And I. I think about it all the time. I think about my students. I think about the stuff I taught. I think about the feeling of being in a classroom all the time. And, yeah, I don't know. It was a really powerful thing that I didn't see coming. It kind of felt like I did it. I became a teacher because it felt like I needed to do something conventional. And it hadn't occurred to me, really, that music could be a thing I could do at least when I started teaching. But I'm really grateful for it. And I really. If music didn't work out or if I needed to, like, stop doing it for whatever reason, I would happily teach until I died. I think there was a great towards. Towards the end of it the last year or two, I was playing a lot of music and it was a really cool balance of like, go out on the weekends and play shows, or sometimes it'd be like a bigger show and I'd fly to LA and play a show and be grading papers on the plane and like, you know, get back just in time to get back in the classroom on Monday. And whatever ego I had managed to like inflate over the weekend would just be instantly punched out of me on Monday. And I really liked that whole game of just like there's something inherently humbling about teaching and it's like, I feel like if you're doing it well, it's. There's this like servitude baked into it and I miss that. I miss that, being forced into that place because music is a whole different beast. It's, I mean, like baked into the world of music is so much emphasis on self promotion. And I mean, even if you're trying to do it in a authentic way, there's just like everyone wants you to be a brand of some kind. Everyone wants you to whatever. And yeah, sometimes I wish There was a 15 year old around just to like cut me down to size, remind me of what matters, give you the what for.
- [27:10]
Paul Swanson
Yeah, it's a strange time to be an artist when there's so much focus on the brand and the output, when you're seeking authenticity in your own craft and expression and discipline.
- [27:31]
Jeffrey Martin
Yeah. And it's also so strange how like, maybe this is just a human thing that we do, but it's like music as it exists right now, the industry, the whatever, it's existed this way for such a small amount of time. I mean, if I had been born 150 years ago, the concept of tour didn't exist. It just did not exist. I would play music regionally after work for the people in my community at best. And like we just accept now that there should be this whole engine behind it and that there's a way to do it and not to do it and. Yeah, it's a weird one.
- [28:17]
Paul Swanson
Yeah, it's very strange. And I, I reminded as you were talking about the poet Morris Manning, where he's like, he's a university professor, he's nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, and one of his favorite things to do is to host a barbecue and invite all his neighbors. And every person brings one poem and that they read and listen to because it's a poem that matters deeply to each person.
- [28:45]
Jeffrey Martin
Well, I think what I love about.
- [28:47]
Paul Swanson
That is it's A community event. And there's no judgment. There's no, like, well, that poem's not obscure enough. It's just a celebration of the language that moves us all. And he lives in Appalachia, and so, like, that retention of that community spirit from someone who, on one hand, has achieved so much in his field, but doesn't use that as something to promote his own work, but uses it to bring his community together in his backyard, grilling some food and everyone has a chance to share.
- [29:25]
Jeffrey Martin
Oh, that's really.
- [29:26]
Paul Swanson
That spirit, to me, is at the heartbeat of what I'm drawn to.
- [29:32]
Jeffrey Martin
That's really beautiful. I hope that I can learn that lesson soon. I feel the itch, too. But I was just talking to my girlfriend the other day about. We were simultaneously making Instagram posts to advertise tours we were doing, and it occurred to me that, like, I will. I'll pull out my guitar and play a little bit of a song for an Instagram post in hopes to drum up attention for a tour or show or something, and I'll feel fine about blasting it out into the world that way, but I've never once invited my neighbors around me to come over and just, like, play some music or hear some music or, like, I don't even know if my neighbors know what I do, really. And that's such a strange thing that I feel so shy about that, but not about putting it out to the world on the Internet. I know there's a lot less accountability from the Instagram side of things, but, yeah, it certainly doesn't feel real as a barbecue. Yeah.
- [30:57]
Paul Swanson
Well, that makes sense to me.
- [31:00]
Jeffrey Martin
And.
- [31:03]
Paul Swanson
There'S this. The reality of your album and your music. And I keep referring back to your latest album. Thank God we Left the Garden, because that's the one that I feel like took the legs out from under me and brought me back down to the ground of just. It is the spirit of that community barbecue. It is evocative of that. And, my gosh, there's so many things that. There's so many directions that we could go that I would love to ask you about.
- [31:42]
Jeffrey Martin
Oh, yeah, Ask away. I haven't actually gotten a chance to talk to somebody about the album in this way. I would like. You'd be the first. Yeah, I'd love. Cool.
- [31:55]
Paul Swanson
There was a question that came up when you talk about Steinbeck that I'm going to ask first, because I'm curious. You know, there's this great little tour video of you and Willie T. Taylor, and he calls you Steinbeck like As a Steinbeck or a songwriter, really knowing. Yeah. He mentioned he puts you and Steinbeck in the same.
- [32:14]
Jeffrey Martin
That's funny.
- [32:16]
Paul Swanson
Together. And I thought it was a very apt description of the way that you can bring story to song, but also the very particular way in which a character in a song or your own expression invites a listener in to a way that it's a portal to a much more universal experience. Even though the particulars are so precise. How does that hear, to know that. That Willie talks about you in that way?
- [32:47]
Jeffrey Martin
Well, that's really kind of him to say. I didn't know he said that. It's really encouraging to hear, especially about this new record, because it was a. When I listen to older songs of mine or play older songs of mine, I hear them differently now after this new record. I hear them precise, or maybe not precise, but confined, I guess, to a space that I wish they weren't confined to, maybe because without knowing it, I leaned too heavily on some. Some imagery or tropes that were like that occupied space for too long, I think, in songs or in writing. And so they. There is something that I can feel with this new record. It shows. It feels a lot more inviting to people of a much bigger spectrum of people. That's been just a really good lesson to learn because for me, the trap is overriding over describing a scene or a person. It feels good. It feels good to get in that rhythm of words and to keep fleshing out a story like that in my mind and see how much I can cram into a song. But it kind of feels like there's this relationship between the amount of description and how wide the aperture remains. And so I felt really like there was a lot of power in these newer songs in offering one image that maybe is less defined, but just letting it be there. There's a song I struggled with, actually, a song called Red Station Wagon. And I felt like the beginning of the song, the first line is, I can still see that red station wagon on the street by your house. And there's never any explanation in the song of what the red station wagon is or whatever. And to me, it makes perfect sense in terms of setting a scene and a time. That first verse is like, see the red station wagon? And then we used to walk to rent movies, and I don't see many red station wagons anymore. And I haven't walked to rent a movie in 20 years. But it is. It was like those two things put me squarely in the 90s. And it felt risky, I guess, at first to me to write it that way and leave it alone. But it's just been a really good lesson now to hear that nobody once has asked me, like, what the hell's up with the Red Station Wagon? Like, people can grab it just the same as I can grab it.
- [36:22]
Paul Swanson
Yeah. It's so great to hear that because some songs are like instruction manuals where folks will tell you, well, here's step one. Here's everything about. Too much information is given. So it feels like you know where this is going to land.
- [36:41]
Jeffrey Martin
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
- [36:43]
Paul Swanson
The sense of discovery in Red Station Wagon, of the journey of the character goes through, the scene being set where it's set by those opening lines. And then the existential wrestling with the makeup of a person and the theological questions that lie in there, I guess lie in many ways, and how to take that and the questions that are asked. It allows enough mystery for the song to continue to just rattle in the cage. I have to skip that song sometimes because it has such a knockout to it.
- [37:30]
Jeffrey Martin
Yeah.
- [37:32]
Paul Swanson
And that, to me is a gift of a great song, is when sometimes a song contains so much life in it that I'm not always ready to respect the song enough to not listen to it. Yeah.
- [37:47]
Jeffrey Martin
At times. Yeah. I'm not always ready to sing it.
- [37:52]
Paul Swanson
Today I was thinking when I was driving home about. I had to go through the track list today because I love that it's a complete album. Right. When I'm listening to the album and really listening to it, I don't skip a song because I'm listening to the album. And in that process, I realized I don't know the titles to all the songs because I listen to it as a whole. And I was curious to hear your thoughts on. As you were putting this album together. How much in mind do you have this cohesive project as a whole as you're working on particular songs? Is it something that's a forethought or an afterthought or something in between?
- [38:41]
Jeffrey Martin
It's something in between, for sure. It's something that. It's like an itch that I've learned to recognize. And it starts in me before any writing has occurred. Like, my writing process for songs is always starting with gibberish sung to a melody. So I have. I have thousands of voice memos on my phone and computer that are. Maybe it'll be like a gibberish. Like literally non words, verses and chorus and bridge sometimes. And then maybe I'll find a word or a line that becomes like the anchor to that Song and build around that feeling and. But it's for this new record. I just got pretty hung up on the imagery of the garden and all that that could mean all that it's meant historically, culturally. And the idea of paradise, it's never sit very well with me. I have memories from a really young age, like Sunday school memories of being confused about how boring Heaven sounded and just like, what really? It's just like everything's good all the time. Like, that's great, but I don't know about that. So I had an idea. I've never written a concept album and I had this idea of writing a full album where every song would reference the garden in some way. The word the garden, the idea of a garden. And that felt tired pretty quickly to me. It felt like I was excluding some other territory I wanted to look into by sticking to it. So there definitely is, like. There are a few songs in the title of the record, you know, reference the garden in some ways. But it ended up kind of revealing itself to me as something that was like, no, this is more about that intersection of like wisdom and mystery maybe. Like if you carry either of those things on their own, too far away from the other, it becomes a pretty bad scene, I think. Wisdom with no mystery becomes certainty, I think. And life gets really narrow and mystery with no wisdom becomes this unmoored kind of vague soup. And. Yeah, so I just wanted to paint a lot of scenes, I think, that were just that feeling in life that you can't quite name, but you know it so well. It feels very clear, but you don't know how to name it. You can just see it and feel it and it's really hard to even tell it about to someone afterwards. That's like the pulse that ended up being through the record, for me at least. And then once I discovered that pulse, there was a few songs I cut from the record in the recording process because I think they're great. I think they're good songs. I still play them at shows, but when I lined them all up, they kind of shook me out of that dream. And there was like. The record feels very close. It feels earnestly close to me. And there were a couple tunes that felt zoomed out, I guess, and more of like an idea about society than kind of like offering up this mystery thing.
- [43:00]
Paul Swanson
Thank you for that. I feel like as a listener, it does feel like such an intimate album. And there's a way in which, having listened to it such so many times about where it does also feel like there's a bit of a circle there because. And to hear what you said about wisdom and mystery. Like, I think there's some paradoxical themes throughout the album and that. That give birth to living it. So it doesn't become highfalutin or it doesn't become a flight into the beyond or anything overly romanticized. It stays so grounded. And I think going from walking to Lost Dog again, going from the end to the start, it feels like a natural. Like, I want to go through that. The birthing tension of those paradoxes again.
- [43:58]
Jeffrey Martin
That's cool. I've never. Yeah, I've never thought about that. Looping it back like that.
- [44:06]
Paul Swanson
I'd love to ask about some of those paradoxical themes that at least landed with me. And you can feel free to tell me that I'm full of shit and it's not there. I will not be offended. I'll be thrilled. There's this sense of knowing and unknowing and that they go hand in hand. And I feel like has moved through some of the songs. Like, I'm thinking about the line from the Quiet man rewrite. And Time was a mystic with a briefcase in his hand. You can pay to look inside it, but you can't afford to understand.
- [44:46]
Jeffrey Martin
Yeah.
- [44:49]
Paul Swanson
There'S a. I feel like between the knowing and knowing that bursts like a vulnerability in that turn of phrase. How does that line speak to you in that sense of this tension of knowing and unknowing? If it does again?
- [45:04]
Jeffrey Martin
Yeah, no, it does. I mean, you hit it on the head. I think there's a lot of. There's a lot of angst in me right now about this moment that we're in culturally and technologically and scientifically, where we're like. We are understanding things in a way that's like shocking. It's like awe inspiring to the level of understanding we have of some things. And that's, on the one hand, very exciting to me. On the other hand, I think it has this sneaky way of making us drunk on our own understanding. And sooner or later, and usually sooner than later, the machines and the powers in the world, and especially in this capitalist machine, they take note and they run with things and we find ways to make money and increase power. And maybe what started as like a pure. Like a compulsion in the mind of some mathematician or a scientist or whatever, really quickly grows beyond that and becomes these conclusive statements about life and about consciousness and about understanding of history and where we're going and whatever. So I feel like that tension between looking and understanding Observing and understanding will always be there. You can always pay to look inside the briefcase, and a lot of people do. And there's no correlation between looking inside the briefcase and understanding what you're seeing. And I don't know if that makes.
- [47:20]
Paul Swanson
Sense, but it does. It does. There's no sense, I think, of that Iris Dement song, Let the Mystery Be.
- [47:30]
Jeffrey Martin
Yeah, it's a great song.
- [47:32]
Paul Swanson
There's. That's actually a bold and wise statement. And I think with the capitalist consumer mindset, you don't see it that way. One wants to see how they can profit from mystery or from the mechanics of it, or even the smoke show that they can pretend to be. So for a short time at least.
- [48:00]
Jeffrey Martin
Yeah. Yeah. Oh, man, that song, that's one of the songs that I can revisit again and again and again and again. And as I get older, it just. It gets deeper and deeper and deeper. And you're right, it doesn't line up with any economic model that we. That we've come up with yet.
- [48:28]
Paul Swanson
Continuing this thread about again, I guess what I see is these paradoxical themes that birth something. Movement and stillness are these threads that I saw in the album as well. And there's that great line from Paper Quran where you say, I won't do the whole verse, but it is moving without moving. And I am not worried about where I am going.
- [48:55]
Jeffrey Martin
Yeah.
- [48:56]
Paul Swanson
And you know, there's reminded me of T.S. eliot. It reminded me of the still place that spins on the axis of the world, but the moving and not moving. How does that resonate for you as you think about the threads of that album of stillness and moving being like these paradoxical pieces that are present but are birthing something that neither one does complete justice to it.
- [49:28]
Jeffrey Martin
Yeah, that's it. It's like I want. Like we're bound by the language that we have available. And I really love the feeling of coming up against something that is a very real feeling. It's like a. It's like a. It's a concept or it's a space that I can feel, but I can't define it with words. And then the task of attaching words to it I really like. Because usually we use words because of what they mean. Like we use a word because it means something to describe an idea. But at those moments we use words, we use the limitation of their meaning to describe the thing. And if you use two words or two concepts, it's like the limitations combined, especially if they're contrasting limitations, puts me in that space. And there are Things. There are states of being and times in my heart feels like at the same time it's going a million miles an hour and it's also not moving. And it's the same feeling I get when I watch Roger Penrose give a lecture about higher level dimensions that my brain literally can't hold. Like, it can't go there, but the math goes there. My brain can't. And I love that.
- [51:14]
Paul Swanson
That's a great description. I think about those times where I'm like, oh, I'm at the limits of my intelligence here and I'm loving it because it's pushing the boundaries of what I can. It's almost like you intuit it, but I can't hang on to it or articulate it.
- [51:29]
Jeffrey Martin
Yeah. And what a gift. Like, what a. Wherever that came from. Like, what a gift to be aware that you are part of a universe that is so far beyond your understanding. Like, that's what a cool. I don't know. Yeah. I love that. Yeah.
- [51:47]
Paul Swanson
It just makes me happy to be alive. How did I get to be so lucky that I'm conscious of this? I get to walk around and drink some beer with some buddies and look at a fire and muse about what we're looking at.
- [52:02]
Jeffrey Martin
Absolutely. Yeah.
- [52:05]
Paul Swanson
I had a moment with your song Sculptor that felt like this when I, you know, when those words landed on me. But you wrote a letter like a sculpture and I cried and let the day go. I miss your breath on my shoulder. I think. I think I emailed you about that. Like, I just pulled over and just lost it. And it wasn't an individual that came to my mind. It was all of the loss. Whether it's those who have gone before me or also like those deep friendships where we don't get to see each other as much as we would like.
- [52:47]
Jeffrey Martin
Yeah. Yeah.
- [52:49]
Paul Swanson
And I just immediately sent it to those people who I felt like fit in that place of loss and love. And just like another one of those paradoxical themes of I can't articulate what these words are piercing into me, but it needs to be shared with those who feel that same piercing.
- [53:13]
Jeffrey Martin
Yeah, that's really a beautiful scene. Yeah. Is like a repeating pattern in my life and I don't know how to shake it and I don't know if I should shake it really. But it's the pattern of, like, I lose my way and then when I realize I've lost it, I try all sorts of things to find my way back to where I want to be. Inevitably, everything I try falls short and Makes me feel even farther away. And then eventually, I'm reminded by somebody in my life, someone I love a lot. Like, it's simpler than what I'm trying for. It's like, it's not a complicated journey back to that good place. It's just. You're making it complicated. And it's like, that song literally is about letters. Like, it's in my life for whatever reason. It's been letters that have led me back a lot of times. And I've had the huge blessing of having close friends who love writing letters. And I love an unsolicited. Just. You get a letter from someone you love, and it's. It just. All the noise gets turned down in my head, and there's something about holding a letter in your hand that someone wrote, and you can't be doing anything else in that moment. And. And so usually it's at that point where I'm like, oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, now I remember who I am. And then I make a mental note to, like, not forget that the next time I lose my way. And then when I lose my way, that's the first thing I forget. And that pattern just, like, keeps going. But maybe that's what makes the letter so sweet. So I don't know. That's an interesting song to have out in the world because it's a very emotional song, and it is undefined enough in the story of the song that people can attach all sorts of things to it. And it has led to some pretty heavy moments after shows at the merch table with I bet people. Yeah, I bet.
- [56:04]
Paul Swanson
Some things came up as you were talking. You know, a good friend of mine always talks about how the book in the Hebrew Bible, the Song of Songs, is all about love lost and found. Love found and lost, lost and found. And how it became, like, the sacred text that people had to wrestle with over and over and over again to make to. Because it is kind of the story of humanity. Like, we keep losing our way, we keep losing our love, and we have to keep refining it.
- [56:36]
Jeffrey Martin
Yeah.
- [56:36]
Paul Swanson
I resonate so much with you in the letter piece. Like, I'm curious, is this true for you, where there's friends that I. We correspond by letter, and I have to sometimes wait for the moment to read it. Like, I don't want to just read it on a whim and, like, be half distracted. I got to sit down with my.
- [56:56]
Jeffrey Martin
Yeah.
- [56:57]
Paul Swanson
My tea or my. My drink, and to read it in the conditions in which it was wrote, which is slow, because you can't Write a letter fast, or at least you shouldn't.
- [57:09]
Jeffrey Martin
Yeah.
- [57:11]
Paul Swanson
And is that true for you as well? Do you have to have the right conditions to be able to get into that?
- [57:16]
Jeffrey Martin
Yeah, I try to. On my website, there's a PO Box address that I leave on there because I really love coming back from a tour and finding some random letters from people. But actually, in my bag that I carry around on tour, I have a couple letters that are months old now, one of them six months old, and. And I've been waiting for them, the right heart space to respond to them. One of them is a friend of mine in Belgium, is just this very, very deep and kind person, and he wrote the sweetest letter. Then I've just been, like, carrying it around and rereading it and then feeling like I still can't respond yet. And I eventually sent him an email just saying, I want you to know that I'm deeply wrestling with this letter, but I totally know what you mean. It's a. Like, I failed. Sometimes when you do start reading a letter and you realize that it's going to require a lot more of you than you have in that moment. Yeah. It's a powerful feeling to have to put something down, to know that you're going to have to get to it later. But, yeah.
- [58:48]
Paul Swanson
Yeah, I was going to reach out to you through your P.O. box because it's like, I was going to share that story about just the first time I really dropped into your album and how moved I was by it. And then I was like, I don't want him to think I only am writing him this letter because I want him to be in the podcast conversation. So it's funny how I got in my own way, and I've been trying to learn this thing when it comes to letters. Every now and then, I'll be just like, I got to write this person a letter. I remember I wrote 10 years ago, 15 years ago. Yeah, at least 15 years ago, I wrote Lawrence Ferlinghetti a letter because I was reading his poetry, and there was something that really sparked me, and I realized it's not a. I just need to write it to him. I hope he got it. I hope it marked his day. But I also didn't need him to write back. I just wanted to be able to share something and to slow down enough to write it.
- [59:45]
Jeffrey Martin
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. There are so many stories of authors who had really meaningful correspondences throughout their lives with other writers. And, you know, some of them have published their correspondences and stuff, and it's a great. It's just. It's like my favorite writing practice to like. It's hard for me to sit down at a blank page often, but if I am trying to convey an idea or responding in kind to someone who wrote me this really thoughtful letter, like, that's such a great starting point. And yeah, I get a lot of letters from people who say either at the beginning of their letter or at the end, like, please don't feel the need to respond. This was just a. This was a much needed, like, way for me to express. Invent these feelings after listening to this thing. Yeah, I get it. Yeah.
- [60:51]
Paul Swanson
I love those books too, where it's a published exchange of letters. And I keep thinking we'll never see that with email. Like, it just is. There's something about email as a medium that is. Just doesn't hold the same pace and depth that I think is required for a letter to land in that kind of correspondence.
- [61:14]
Jeffrey Martin
Yeah.
- [61:17]
Paul Swanson
I was reading this quote just yesterday. It was by Soren Kierkegaard about. I'm going to like, not get it exactly right. But he was talking about how a poet is an unhappy person who conceals their anguish in their heart and it's through their sighs and cries that pass through their lips that create the beautiful music of poetry. And I really love. I like, had an immediate response to this quote, but I also disagree that. I don't think I disagree with the unhappy part because I think it's more about the. The sensitive person or the vulnerable person who allows life to like, allows life to. To hit them that hard, that it does kind of get digested in the heart. And then through that come the sighs and the cries comes out the beautiful music. As a songwriter or as a poet.
- [62:09]
Jeffrey Martin
Yeah.
- [62:11]
Paul Swanson
And just thinking about our conversation that was going to happen today, I was wondering for you, like, I get the sense that you don't seem like an unhappy person, but you seem like a person who's sensitized to the fullness of life and that hits you and you absorb it and you process it. Do you feel like you need that visceral, embodied response for songs to come out or lyrics to come out in that way? You can just tell me it's all mumbo jumbo too. I will not be.
- [62:47]
Jeffrey Martin
No, it's not at all. It's the opposite. I just want to respond. Well, I mean, on the one hand, it doesn't feel to me like there's any choice in the matter. So it's hard to have opinions about things that you have no control over. I move through the world in this way, and I receive the world or I experience the world in the way that I do. And a lot of my writing is a way to make sense of things that I end up holding that I don't even know that I'm holding. And I'm not a very immediate writer. I wish I was so that it would be a lot more useful of a tool. I wish that shit that happened to me yesterday I could release into a song. But there's about a year delay, I feel like, in me. And so many times I've written a song and thought, like, that's weird. I have no idea where that came from. And then, like, a couple days later, fully, like, realize where it came from. Like, oh, yeah, that definitely came from a thing that happened a while ago. And there's a specific type of person that sometimes comes to a show who experiences me as a very unhappy person, and they hear all my songs as sad songs. And some of these people, like, they'll come talk to me after a show with this, like, sense of concern, like, are you okay? Just a couple weeks ago at a show, a guy kind of waited around till everyone left after the show and came up to me and he's like, hey, I just. I really enjoyed the show, but I was just wondering, like, do you enjoy doing this? Like, are you a happy person? And I wanted to tell him that how this feels, to be on tour and playing these songs and writing and getting to do this for a living in this moment. It's so far beyond any notions of happiness and enjoyment. It's like, I don't even know how to describe it, but I know that happiness is not a part of the picture at all. Happiness feels way, way, way too small. I ended up telling him, like, that just my idea of happiness is so much bigger than a happy song. And that I've been immensely happy at very sad moments in life. And oftentimes, especially if you're having a very sad moment with someone you love, there's that deep, deep, deep, quiet happiness that follows that moment when there's some hint of a light at the end of the tunnel or something, and you both just sit in that place and like, yeah, I just. I mean, when you read that quote from Kierkegaard, I kind of had the same feeling you did. Like, I agreed and I disagreed at the same time, I don't. I don't feel. I'm not this, like, brooding, terribly unhappy internally person who, like, oh, I gotta write these songs. Or I'm just gonna explode or something. But I've never understood people that feel very uncomfortable in a space that's less defined. And there's some people that just desperately want to hear, literally, like, a song about a rainbow. And that's okay. That's okay, too. But it's kind of a. There are unhappy moments and there are happy moments, and then there's this bigger thing that transcends all those moments. And that bigger thing is like, I don't know, it's somewhere. Somewhere around contentment.
- [67:20]
Paul Swanson
I don't know.
- [67:23]
Jeffrey Martin
I feel very content right now to be chasing this thing. And I've done a lot of, like, some of my best friends are totally non musical, totally non, like, in this world at all. And before I was a teacher, I used to build houses and things and did construction for a long time. And I love those people in my life because sometimes I feel like if all you do is think about the art that you're making and all you surround yourself with is people that are trying to inhabit the same ethereal space all the time. And you can, like, forget that, like, what it feels to just, like, hang a piece of drywall.
- [68:22]
Paul Swanson
And.
- [68:25]
Jeffrey Martin
I don't know why that came to mind. It just feels like right now I just feel so grateful, I think. And if I have to go back to hanging drywall, I hope that I can remember this time too. But, yeah.
- [68:45]
Paul Swanson
That'S so well said. I. You know, listening to your music and immersing myself in it, my sense was never like, a what of unhappiness of a person who listens deeply to life. And it made me want to hang out because I feel like you're probably funny as hell. People who feel this level of expansiveness also know how to laugh and, like, have a good time.
- [69:17]
Jeffrey Martin
Yeah, I think I do. Yeah.
- [69:21]
Paul Swanson
And I was like, yeah, I bet you Jeffrey's just a really fun hang to be able to. Because I know for me, like, the people that I like to hang around with are those that I can.
- [69:32]
Jeffrey Martin
Be.
- [69:32]
Paul Swanson
Myself in that full spectrum of humanity. Like, I can.
- [69:35]
Jeffrey Martin
Oh, yeah.
- [69:36]
Paul Swanson
I can cry at the things that make me sad. I can laugh at the things that make me laugh. And I can be Let it all hang out as. As it needs to. And it's interesting to hear what you said, too, about having a diverse crew of folks that you are engaged with in friendship. So that's not all the same thing. Because in the. There's nothing more annoying than hanging out with a bunch of people who are considering themselves to Be contemplatives, because pretense runs high.
- [70:12]
Jeffrey Martin
Yeah.
- [70:14]
Paul Swanson
Being able to. Just as I always like to think, you know, you gotta belch between meditation practices. It's only the. The goofball of paradox that helps me remember just how fun it is to be human and what a gift it is and allow that gratitude to transcend. Like you were saying.
- [70:42]
Jeffrey Martin
Yeah. Yeah. Happy.
- [70:43]
Paul Swanson
Sad because it's too small.
- [70:47]
Jeffrey Martin
There's a couple of songs that I have not recorded on albums, and I don't think I will ever. But I'll play them live. And I love doing this thing live where I'll play, like, a really heady, dark song and then I'll follow it up with no introduction, no explaining with one of these songs that are, like, just the complete opposite. Like, I. I don't know. Just, like, sometimes I just get this need to write a song that's very. Not serious. And I. I really love what happens to a room when people. When people are in this space of like, holy shit, that was, like, the darkest. Or like, I need to go think about my life now for a little while. And then I like. But I have this song that starts with. The first line of the song is, joseph Stalin came from somebody's vagina. And that's like. I just really love feeling a room. Like, what. I mean, there is some headiness to that song, but it's also. It's a funny. A funny song, but. Yeah, I know what you mean. It's a really. Yeah, man. I feel like if I didn't have this outlet just writing in general, I would be a much more serious person. I think it's like the best feeling to create a little world in writing and to feel like you got enough of that world right with the words that it exists now. It takes up some space somewhere. And, yeah, that means that that world takes up a little less space inside of me in a weird way.
- [72:41]
Paul Swanson
Yeah, that's so interesting. I was just thinking about how, like, obviously I love this album so much, but if in your next album, if it feels completely different, there's this part of me that's like. That's fantastic. Like, this is part of Jeffrey that is. Was not expressed in this album, but is over here. And I find that to be. I mean, we were talking about Dylan earlier. Like, Dylan's had some misses with me that I just didn't connect with, but that there's his willingness to follow what was coming to him at that time.
- [73:21]
Jeffrey Martin
Absolutely. Yeah.
- [73:22]
Paul Swanson
I admire that so much because there's a lot of sameness that I think can be a chain of, well, this is what people liked before I got to do it again. And a security that becomes artistically limiting and how one person's discovering their own unfolding path. And.
- [73:45]
Jeffrey Martin
Yeah, I agree.
- [73:46]
Paul Swanson
I think that. Yeah, it's so fun to see that in your career, just the different, like, the evolution of your songwriting.
- [73:55]
Jeffrey Martin
I'm glad that you see it. I mean, I really. Yeah, I hope that that's a tenet of it, that it keeps evolving. There's this really great interview with Neil Young and Rick Rubin I listened to a while ago where Young is saying, like, he's a firm believer that people like consumers of music, they don't know what they want. They only feel really strongly that they know what they want and that they think they want Harvest Moon over and over and over again, but they don't. They want to encounter something that was unexpected. And even if it means that they have to more or less, like, suffer through three albums that they didn't enjoy as much as Harvest Moon and then land on something else that Neil Young makes that hits them in a completely different way, but they didn't know they needed. And I feel that way so much as a listener, I get the urge. I mean, you hear a record you love and you want to hear it more and more and more, and you WISH There were 20 more songs. Yeah. But, yeah, I agree. I love being hit by an artist, by, like, wow, I didn't know that was in there. I didn't know that was coming. Yeah.
- [75:26]
Paul Swanson
I feel like it strengthens the relationship as a listener to the art is like, getting frustrated. They're not doing what you want them to do. I think that's fantastic. And, like, I would love the song Don't Think Twice, but, you know, if you wrote Don't Think Thrice, you know, it would feel like a pale imitation.
- [75:53]
Jeffrey Martin
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
- [75:57]
Paul Swanson
What's. I would love to know. The album's been out for a little while now and you've been touring. What's this next stretch look like? Do you have projects on the horizon or is it the next year to focus on bringing your work on tour to more places and people?
- [76:21]
Jeffrey Martin
I mean, the honest answer is I don't know what the next stretch looks like. I've covered so much territory with this new record, and I'll continue to through this year, and I'm feeling like the fall, winter of this year is going to be some much needed, like, home time to process some of all this. And it's Been a very encouraging year in terms of, like, growth and people coming to shows and getting to new territory and stuff, and things are going well. But I do, like I mentioned earlier, that itch kind of starts, and I just noticed it a little while ago. Like, I need to spend some time writing and reading, too. I haven't been reading. I've just. It's really hard for me to read on tour. I don't know why. I have a lot of time on tour, but it's hard for me to get into that headspace. But I think there's going to be a lot of writing this winter. And I've never made a band record. And I don't mean like a. Some, like, blown out, overproduced band record, but I would love to sit in a room in a studio with two or three other musicians and make a record that way. And I'm not sure what shape that'll take, but that's where I'm leaning right now. And with that, I feel myself pulling back a little bit. Like, in the songs that I'm working on right now, the newer songs, I'm keeping a little bit of a band sound in mind and realizing that I can leave a lot more space lyrically in the songs. But the. I just really. I'm enjoying the challenge of, like, trying to say what I want to say with even fewer words and not at all compromising the lyrics to make some, like, dance album or something. But, like, that's the newest challenge. Yeah.
- [78:38]
Paul Swanson
Well, I'm along for the ride. I cannot wait to see where the muse takes you next. I hope you get down to New Mexico.
- [78:51]
Jeffrey Martin
Me, too. Where are you in New Mexico?
- [78:54]
Paul Swanson
I'm in Albuquerque.
- [78:55]
Jeffrey Martin
Okay. Okay. Yeah, yeah.
- [78:58]
Paul Swanson
But, yeah, you get anywhere in New Mexico, I'll try to be there.
- [79:01]
Jeffrey Martin
Okay. Sounds good.
- [79:03]
Paul Swanson
All my. Any friend who's seen you play.
- [79:08]
Jeffrey Martin
I.
- [79:08]
Paul Swanson
Get immediate texts from them saying how much they enjoy the show. And so I'm just grateful for.
- [79:17]
Jeffrey Martin
The.
- [79:17]
Paul Swanson
Art you create and how you do it because it deeply resonates with me. And I think that authenticity, even through all the different pipelines of connection it radiates through, and I think that matters. So thank you for what you're doing. Deep appreciation.
- [79:36]
Jeffrey Martin
I often feel listening to contemplify. Like, I just often have these moments, whether it's out of your mouth or the mouth of one of your guests, like, oh, someone just said something that I didn't know how to say. And I just the other day listened to that short that you put out about Maurice Sendak and that letter that he wrote to a fan who ate it, who ate the picture that he sent. And I just like, I really love stuff like that. That was like what, five minutes long? That little short. And it kept me thinking all day long. So thank you. Thank you. Thanks for having me.
- [80:16]
Paul Swanson
It's my pleasure. And I have a thousand more questions. I would love to do this again someday.
- [80:22]
Jeffrey Martin
I'm totally down. Yeah, let's do it.
- [80:25]
Paul Swanson
We have all these themes that we didn't even explore that are. Or outside of music, that however they happen, I'll look forward to it. But I do want to close. I always love to close with a question of embodiment of. If you're going to pair our conversation with a drink, Jeffrey, what would be your drink of choice and why?
- [80:46]
Jeffrey Martin
I just got this really nice bottle of tequila and I've never been a tequila drinker or when I was. It wasn't out of any sense of appreciation of tequila. And just recently I've like gotten. I've loved whiskey for a long time and scotch, but just with this new bottle, I've started sipping on tequila and it's like, it feels to me like opening a door that was just sitting there the whole time and I didn't know that it was there there. And in some that's. That's what comes to mind. This conversation feels the same way, like discovering your podcast and everything. It just feels like finding a good tequila and beginning that journey.
- [81:32]
Paul Swanson
I love it. I hope we can sip tequila someday soon.
- [81:37]
Jeffrey Martin
I would love to. Yeah.
- [81:38]
Paul Swanson
Be a joy. Thank you for listening to this slow cooked episode of Contemplify. May its delights spark wonder and may any sour patches be sweetened by their folly. Head over to contemplify.com to find the show notes for this episode. Sign up for the monthly Contemplify non required reading list and also the weekly Contemplative practice. Lo fi and hushed. If you are enjoying Contemplify, rate and review it on your podcast player. The Internet tells me this helps spread the contemplative cheer. The theme song for Contemplify is called Langside by Charles Enns and Darren Hovius. Fellas, thanks as always and of course I am looking forward to bringing you more musings and more conversations with contemplatives kindled the examined life in the world. Until then, be well.