Top of the Tops: Stephen's Journal | Suleika Jaouad

Summary

The Late Show Pod Show with Stephen Colbert

Episode: Top of the Tops: Stephen's Journal | Suleika Jaouad
Date: May 10, 2026
Host: Stephen Colbert
Guest: Suleika Jaouad

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Episode Overview

This episode centers on the transformative power of journaling and creative expression, featuring an intimate conversation between Stephen Colbert and author Suleika Jaouad. The two discuss why journaling matters, personal anecdotes about creativity, and how Suleika’s creative practice—especially during hardship—became a guiding force in her life and work. Suleika shares insights from her new book, "The Book of Alchemy," exploring how creativity can turn life's difficulties into meaning. The discussion is heartfelt, at times humorous, and offers a moving perspective on living fully and authentically.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Stephen & Becca: On Breaks, Hiking, and Journaling

• Stephen and Becca begin with light banter about their upcoming vacation plans
  • Stephen plans to hike in Switzerland and into Italy with his wife, Evie, reflecting on how hiking has become their new routine.
  • He jokes about Evie's superior fitness and reminisces about difficult but memorable hikes in their past together.
  • Quote (Stephen): "She is so much healthier than I am on so many levels. Mentally, spiritually, physically… probably endocrine on every level." (02:20)
• Discussion about hiking styles and the perks of a comfortable bed after hiking
  • Becca: "The end of the day, it's like 400 thread count sheets… that's the ideal." (03:46)
• Stephen's perspective on hiking snacks and hydration
  • Declares himself a "gorp man" (Good Ole Raisins and Peanuts / trail mix) and jokes about "Gorp core" as both a snack and genre.
  • Stephen: “It’s one of the few times I drink water.” (05:10)
• Transition to the first guest segment—introduction of Suleika Jaouad and her new book, The Book of Alchemy
  • Becca previews Suleika’s focus on creativity and the potential healing power of journaling (05:36)

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2. Stephen & Becca: On Journaling (05:45–13:09)

• Stephen reflects on his sporadic journaling habit
  • Attempts to journal during Lent by writing just a few sentences per day; finds meaning despite lapses.
  • Shares envy for disciplined journalers like David Sedaris.
  • Quote (Stephen): "I put the lowest possible pressure on myself… couldn't get in more than five or six sentences." (05:54)
• Childhood and adult journaling
  • Becca and Stephen discuss the embarrassment and value of rediscovering old diaries.
  • Stephen speaks about finding his mother’s late-life diary—mostly about her children—and finding a stranger's Bird’s Eye Frozen Food diary from the 1950s.
  • Stephen on the found diary: "It's his daily diary… about the challenges of getting people to buy into the new frozen food world." (09:04)
• “Book raft” as emotional life support
  • Stephen describes keeping meaningful books and the frozen food diary bedside for comfort.
  • Stephen: “It’s not a pile of books. That’s a life raft… I have lashed those books together so in the middle of the night when I wake up, I can grab any one of them and I know what they're giving me.” (11:19)
• Name mispronunciations: A humorous aside
  • Stephen jokes about mispronouncing both Suleika’s and Steve Buscemi’s names for years.
  • Stephen: “I’ve been calling her Sulaika for 10 years... But I just felt terrible. I’m not only a friend, but I’m a fan.” (12:49)

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3. Interview: Suleika Jaouad on Creative Alchemy & Journaling (13:14–25:07)

Introduction & Book Overview

• Stephen welcomes Suleika Jaouad, author of "The Book of Alchemy" and renowned chronicler of personal transformation
  • Briefs on her previous books and her work with the Isolation Journals.
  • Stephen: "My next guest is a best-selling authority. Her new book is the Book of Alchemy." (13:14)

The Philosophy of "Creative Alchemy" (13:45–16:35)

• Suleika explains creative alchemy
  • Creativity as a universal birthright lost or injured in adulthood but recoverable for healing and meaning.
  • Suleika: "The alchemy I'm writing about in this book is creative alchemy…how we can transmute a difficult passage in life through creative expression into something interesting and meaningful and maybe even beautiful." (13:45)
  • Childhood experiences foster uninhibited creativity, but critical moments (like disheartening feedback from trusted adults) instill “creative injuries.”

The Role and Power of Journaling (16:35–18:47)

• Journaling as a grounding practice

  • Journaling is about showing up authentically, not aspiring to beauty or perfection.
  • Reframes journaling as a daily habit open to everyone.
  • Suleika: "Journaling isn’t beautiful writing…there’s no right or wrong way to do it. You show up as you are…write your way back to yourself." (16:43)

• Journaling as a lifeline during illness

  • After a leukemia diagnosis at 22, journaling becomes essential, helping her process emotions and connect inward and outward.
  • Suleika: "Journaling went from being a sort of pastime and hobby to something that really felt like a lifeline… It allows us to alchemize what may feel painful into something purposeful." (17:28)

Creativity, Community, and Healing with Jon Batiste (18:47–21:09)

• Suleika and her husband Jon Batiste's shared creative journey
  • The book is dedicated to Jon; he inspires her to embrace play and creative collaboration.
  • On tour, Jon plays piano while Suleika reads—a shared performance meant to make creativity communal.
  • Suleika: "John challenged me… to practice what I'm preaching… to dust my bass off for the first time in many, many years, which was terrifying for me and so joyous." (19:13)
  • Band camp origins and a defining hospital visit: While Suleika was gravely ill, Jon and bandmates performed in the hospital, transforming a hard day into a celebration.
  • Memorable moment (Suleika): "The saints marched in today and they played that song too." (22:10)

Reading from Her 12-Year-Old Journal (22:27–23:21)

• Stephen requests Suleika to read an excerpt from her childhood journal
  • Goals ranged from being "first bass in a high class orchestra" to writing on toilet seats and existential musings.
  • Reflects on her budding existentialism and lasting creative quirks.
  • Memorable moment (Suleika): "Number three, die. And for a split second after, realize what I thought was, isn't." (22:51)

Living with Illness: Perspective & Purpose (23:21–25:07)

• Suleika gives an update on her health and philosophy
  • A third leukemia recurrence brings difficult advice: "live every day as if it’s your last," which she finds flawed.
  • Offers a gentler alternative: “live every day as if it’s your first,” embracing beginner’s freedom and creative curiosity.
  • Suleika: "If we were all living every day as if it were our last, our world would be chaos... Instead I've had to shift to a gentler mindset. I'm trying to live every day as if it’s my first…with that sense of pure, uninhibited creative freedom." (23:28)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Creative Resilience:
  "Creativity is a gift that we all have access to as kids... and that starts to change as we get creative injuries and it gets knocked out of us as adults."
  — Suleika Jaouad (14:13)

• On Journaling’s Purpose:
  "It was a first massive interruption for me, and I had so much sadness and so much anger... the act of externalizing those emotions on paper was transformative."
  — Suleika Jaouad (17:28)

• On Found Comforts:
  "It's not a pile of books. That's a life raft."
  — Stephen Colbert (11:19)

• On the Performance of Creativity:
  "We wanted to enact the idea of creative alchemy to show an audience what creativity can do in a communal space. How it can connect us to one another, how it can leave you feeling transformed."
  — Suleika Jaouad (19:13)

• On Facing Recurrence:
  "If we were all living every day as if it were our last, our world would be chaos... I'm trying to live every day as if it’s my first."
  — Suleika Jaouad (23:28)

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Key Segment Timestamps

• Stephen & Becca discuss hiking and vacations: 01:44–05:35
• Journaling and favorite books: 05:45–13:09
• Name pronunciations and comic interlude: 12:10–13:05
• Suleika Jaouad interview begins: 13:14
• Creative alchemy and childhood "creative injury": 13:45–16:35
• Value and practice of journaling: 16:35–18:47
• Jon Batiste, music, and hospital healing story: 19:13–22:10
• Reading childhood journal entry: 22:27–23:21
• Living with leukemia and embracing wonder: 23:21–25:07

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Tone, Language, and Flow

The episode maintains the Late Show’s signature blend of warmth, humor, and candid introspection. Stephen Colbert balances wit and self-deprecation, especially in reflections about his own creative habits. Suleika Jaouad is open, articulate, and deeply personal, inviting listeners into the power—and vulnerability—of creative journaling, especially when life is at its hardest.

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Summary Takeaways

Listeners are treated to an engaging exploration of journaling and everyday creativity as essential to both processing difficulty and tapping into wonder. Through shared stories, laughs, and Suleika’s powerful testimony, the episode encourages reclaiming creativity, honoring mundane joys, and approaching life not as something to conquer in the face of uncertainty, but to begin anew each day—with openness, curiosity, and hope.

Transcript

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[Stephen Colbert]

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[Becca]

Hey everybody. You're listening to the Late Show POD show with Stephen Colbert. Hi, Stephen.

[Stephen Colbert]

I'm doing good. How are you doing, Becca?

[Becca]

I'm doing great. I'm happy to be here. It's breaking. We're having a nice time.

[Stephen Colbert]

We are on break. What are you doing? You got any plans?

[Becca]

I'm going to Asbury Park, New Jersey.

[Stephen Colbert]

Oh, fantastic.

[Becca]

For the Memorial Day weekend. Okay. You're gonna never been there before.

[Stephen Colbert]

You gonna see Bruce?

[Becca]

Oh, is Bruce. Oh, I don't know.

[Stephen Colbert]

Welcome to Asbury Park. That album.

[Becca]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Stephen Colbert]

I'm actually going hiking over this.

[Becca]

Hiking.

[Stephen Colbert]

My wife Evie, you may be familiar with her work.

[Becca]

Yes.

[Stephen Colbert]

My wife Evie has been kind of warning me, but also informing me that we're gonna be hiking in the future. That as we now we're in our 60s, there's gonna be a lot of hiking. Cause it's fairly low impact but strenuous and she's so much healthier than I am on so many levels. Mentally, spiritually, physically, cardiovascularly, everything. Probably endocrine on every level. She's, like, elite, and I try to keep up with her. And so I've taken. I'm dipping my toes into our new hiking lifestyle, and we're gonna go h. In Switzerland.

[Becca]

Oh, in Switzerland, we have a wedding.

[Stephen Colbert]

A friend's daughter is getting married in the French Alps.

[Becca]

Cool.

[Stephen Colbert]

And so we're gonna go over to Switzerland and do some hiking.

[Becca]

Okay. Because I was gonna ask, when people are like, how do we feel about hiking? When going on a trip somewhere, people

[Stephen Colbert]

say, how do we feel about hiking?

[Becca]

Yeah. And the question is, what kind of hiking are we talking about? Are we talking about there's a backpack on and you're maybe camping while on. While on the hike? Or are we talking about going a beautiful nature walk that involves, you know, some terrain, but it's not.

[Stephen Colbert]

We are. I think we're doing a combo platter here. I think. I think we're doing a day of, like, hey, let's go out and walk this beautiful valley and maybe get into some heights. Get up in those pine trees over there.

[Becca]

Yeah. Beautiful.

[Stephen Colbert]

But then we're. But then at the end of the day, it's like 400 thread count sheets.

[Becca]

Yeah. Yeah. That's the ideal.

[Stephen Colbert]

That is exactly ideal.

[Becca]

Yeah.

[Stephen Colbert]

And, like, I would be a pilgrim in, like, the Middle Ages, like, walking to Santiago de Capostello if I could have those 400 thread counter sheets, you know, just like Jesus did.

[Becca]

Yeah.

[Stephen Colbert]

And. But. And then I think the second hike we're doing is going to be a serious one. We're hiking into Italy.

[Becca]

Whoa.

[Stephen Colbert]

And so that's going to be. That's going to be backpacks and stuff like that.

[Becca]

You got boots you're breaking into?

[Stephen Colbert]

I already broke them in. I do. We do some. We've done a few. We did. We hiked Sedona last year.

[Becca]

Oh, wow.

[Stephen Colbert]

It was a lot of fun.

[Becca]

Okay. This is going to be beautiful.

[Stephen Colbert]

It's going to be. It's going to be fantastic. I think it's going to destroy me, but other than that.

[Becca]

Yeah, but you're heavy. It's nice. It's a good exercise.

[Stephen Colbert]

On our honeymoon, we went hiking. We hiked in Waimea Canyon, and I had to stop coming out of Waimea Canyon. And I thought, she is gonna divorce me. She just. She could ask for an annulment right now, because I can't even get out of this damn canyon. How am I gonna, like, pick up grandkids yeah, man.

[Becca]

I mean, walking. Sometimes there's the end of the road. Sometimes there's the end of the road. You gotta sit down. But you do good. You do. Any good hiking snacks? Any good hike snacks?

[Stephen Colbert]

I'm a gorp man.

[Becca]

Gorp, Gorp core.

[Stephen Colbert]

Yeah, Gorp core.

[Becca]

Gorp core.

[Stephen Colbert]

Is that a. Is that a musical genre I don't know about?

[Becca]

Yeah, something like that. Something like that. Gore Tex.

[Stephen Colbert]

Yeah, I like, I like a. Give me a good old Clif bar.

[Becca]

Yeah.

[Stephen Colbert]

You know, yeah. I'll take a cliff. I'll take trail mix. As long as I'm on a trail.

[Becca]

Nice.

[Stephen Colbert]

It's one of the few times I drink water.

[Becca]

Yeah, you gotta stay hydrated. You gotta stay hydrated when you're, when you're doing the big walks. Okay, well, beautiful, beautiful hiking time. And this is a nice podcast to listen to on a hike. This is a friend of the show. Dear friend of the show, first time on the show, but knows you very well. Knows members of the band extremely well. Was just on. She's a lovely. She just put out a book called the Book of Alchemy.

[Stephen Colbert]

Oh, Soulca.

[Becca]

Joie. Yes, sure. Yes, Sulaika. So wonderful. Such a lovely interview. Wanted to put it on the pod.

[Stephen Colbert]

Perfect.

[Becca]

Do you do any journaling? That was something I wanted to ask.

[Stephen Colbert]

I journaled over Lent this year. I've tried to journal many times. Like when I travel, I sometimes journal.

[Becca]

Yeah.

[Stephen Colbert]

Like when I was a kid, I'm a kid mining like in my 20s and I'd hiking around Europe, I journaled. I filled a whole journal that summer and that's the last time I seriously journaled. And I'm 61 now. I was probably 24 or 25 then. And I started journaling again over Lent and I really enjoyed it. And I put the lowest possible pressure on myself because I journaled in a. Someone had given me a beautiful leather bound calendar, old fashioned, like analog calendar. And I went, well, every day has got entries that just go all across both pages, like the butterfly of both pages. And I went, okay, I'll just fill just that one day. And you couldn't get in more than like five or six sentences. Oh, that's so good. And I'll just like, what was the highlight of the day? What the day mean to me? And then think about Lent.

[Becca]

Yeah.

[Stephen Colbert]

And I, I forgot it when we went on our last break and so there was a whole week missing. And then I went, hell with it.

[Becca]

Yeah, yeah.

[Stephen Colbert]

And I stopped. But I got a couple weeks in there.

[Becca]

Yeah, no that's really nice.

[Stephen Colbert]

I feel the value. I swear, I feel the value of it. I envy people who have, like David Sedaris. He's been journaling since he was a child every day for his entire life. That's great. You can look back.

[Becca]

Yeah, yeah. No, I'm the same way. The discipline of it is like, if I can get in a groove, that's great. But yeah, as soon as there's blank pages, I feel like, well, I already blew it. But the more you do, that's like a bullet point.

[Stephen Colbert]

Mindy Kaling gave me a journal. Beautiful leather bound journal with, like, gold embossing everything when I got this gig.

[Becca]

Yeah.

[Stephen Colbert]

And it is my journey to the Late show given to Stephen Colbert by Mindy Kaling. Is what it says on the COVID Very important for her to, like, be part of the story.

[Suleika Jawad]

Yes.

[Becca]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Stephen Colbert]

I started that when we first started. When we first started the show, I journaled.

[Becca]

Oh, that's nice.

[Stephen Colbert]

I journaled for a while.

[Becca]

Cool. Yeah.

[Stephen Colbert]

I've gone back to read it. No. Great pearls of wisdom.

[Becca]

Yeah.

[Stephen Colbert]

That's the danger of journaling. You go back and go like, ooh, what was I now in perspective? I can see what that was like. What was I taking from the day? Almost nothing.

[Becca]

Yeah, totally. Oh, I found an old high school diary over the last break. So hard to read. So hard to read.

[Stephen Colbert]

When my mom passed, I. I took her diary.

[Becca]

Oh, nice.

[Stephen Colbert]

And she diaried late in her life. And it's beautiful. It's mostly about us kids.

[Becca]

Yeah.

[Stephen Colbert]

On the street once in New York when we used to live on 86th Street. I was walking to the subway and there was a pile of books just on the side of the road. Like, I think they might have been, like, meant for the trash can, but the trash can was full. So somebody just put a pile of books next to the trash can. And they were old books, so I looked through them. There was nothing much that interested me. But the top book was this beautiful green leather book, like a daily diary. And on the front of it, it had this symbol, this golden bird, stylized bird on the front, which I realized is the symbol of the Bird's Eye Frozen Food Corporation. And it was a diary of a man who worked for Bird's Eye Frozen food. Like in the early 50s.

[Becca]

Yeah.

[Stephen Colbert]

When Bird's Eye was new. Like, frozen food was this new because you had to have frozen shipping containers and stuff like that. Or like truckers and stuff like that. You had a continuous chain of freezing the entire way. And there's this guy, he was some. I don't know. I couldn't tell whether he was in sales or some sort of administration or accountancy or something within the Bird's Eye Corporation. And it's his life in, like, 1952, New York. And I picked it up right before we left the city and moved out to New Jersey. And he had friends in the Journal who lived on our street in New Jersey.

[Becca]

Whoa.

[Stephen Colbert]

And I've always wanted to. I've never taken the time to go, okay, I wonder if I could find this family. Do they still live out there? But it's talking about, like, trying to. It's all about trying to convince people. Like, it's his daily diary about just his life and everything, but also, like, the challenges of getting people to buy into the new frozen food world.

[Becca]

That's so interesting.

[Stephen Colbert]

It's something we take for granted.

[Becca]

Yeah.

[Stephen Colbert]

And then one day, one journal entry is like, stop by the Havishams for drinks with Barbara. Great night. Or whatever like that. And then it's all him walking home from his office in midtown to their Upper east side place. And then the next day, it says, went to the dentist. Seven teeth to be pulled.

[Becca]

Oh, gosh.

[Stephen Colbert]

Lower than a snake. Meaning, like, his emotion. Like, you know what? It's great. And it's just this guy's life. And I've thought, like, I wonder if I could create, like, a theater piece out of this. I just have this man's life from 1952.

[Becca]

Wow. That's really special.

[Stephen Colbert]

Yeah. That's so cool. I still have it. It's still. I think it's actually presently on my bedside table. I always. I don't know why. There are certain things I was just like, I just keep nearby. Like, I keep 100 selected poems by E.E. cummings nearby.

[Becca]

Yeah.

[Stephen Colbert]

I keep, like, either Franny or Zoe or Raise. Hi. The roof Beam Carpenters and Seymour introduction or nine stories nearby. You know, I keep a copy of the New Testament, Proverbs and Psalms. I keep it nearby. It's just always kind of there. One of my favorite sci fi books, in case. From my childhood, in case I need to read it to calm myself down. Because certain books are just Xanax for me. And Evie's always complaining, like, what are you gonna do with that pile of books? I'd be like, it's not a pile of books. That's a life raft.

[Becca]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Stephen Colbert]

I have lashed those books together so in the middle of the night when I wake up, I can grab any one of them and I know what they're giving me. And one of them is this guy's diary.

[Becca]

Yeah, this would be. I wonder if there's a way that, like, the last 10 seconds of the good night act, you could just like,

[Stephen Colbert]

read a quick page on this date. Yeah, this date. Oh, that'd be funny.

[Becca]

And then see if anyone, like, calls in with, like, I know who this guy is.

[Stephen Colbert]

Do you know who this guy is? And then I read. I read something just like a page. Like, it's the last act before I say goodnight. Like, all right, let's go to this guy's diary. And I read. I read something from 70 years ago.

[Becca]

Yeah. In New York. I think it's really cool.

[Stephen Colbert]

All right, we'll try it.

[Becca]

We'll try it.

[Stephen Colbert]

We'll try it. We'll talk to Tom.

[Becca]

Great.

[Stephen Colbert]

You gotta sell it.

[Becca]

I will. I'll pitch. I'll be ready.

[Stephen Colbert]

All right, great.

[Becca]

All right. Well, speaking of journaling, this is Suleika Jawad. And this is the Late Show Padro.

[Stephen Colbert]

And by the way, I'm just gonna jump in here. I have known Sulaika for 10 years.

[Becca]

Yeah.

[Stephen Colbert]

And I call her Sulaika.

[Becca]

Okay.

[Stephen Colbert]

And I, right before she came on the band said, it's Suleika. I said, what? It's Suleika. I said, it's Sulaika. Nope, it's Sulaika. And I said, I've been calling her Sulaika for 10 years. And they said, cause she's married to John Batiste.

[Becca]

She's famously married to John Batiste. Yeah.

[Stephen Colbert]

And they go, that's what John calls her. I said, wait, what? So John calls her by the wrong name. And so later I apologize to her. And she goes, it's fine. Both of them are fine.

[Becca]

Yeah.

[Stephen Colbert]

But I just felt. I felt terrible. I'm not only a friend, but I'm a fan.

[Becca]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Stephen Colbert]

All right, all right. Just ask your friends what their actual names are.

[Becca]

Yes.

[Stephen Colbert]

By the way, it's Steve Buscemi.

[Becca]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Stephen Colbert]

I thought it was Buscemi. It's Buscemi.

[Becca]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Stephen Colbert]

All right.

[Becca]

Yeah.

[Stephen Colbert]

Yes.

[Becca]

Okay. This is the POD Show. Thanks, Steven. Always a pleasure.

[Stephen Colbert]

Bye.

[Becca]

Bye.

[Stephen Colbert]

Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Late show, folks. My next guest is a best selling authority. Writing includes Between Two Life Interrupted and the Isolation Journals. Her new book is the Book of Alchemy. Please welcome to the Late Show. Sulaika Jawad.

[Suleika Jawad]

It's so good to see you.

[Stephen Colbert]

The new book is here. As I said, the Book of Alchemy. Suleika. What kind of alchemy are we talking about here?

[Suleika Jawad]

The alchemy I'm writing about in this book is creative alchemy. And it has become a kind of philosophy of life for me, which is how we can transmute a difficult passage in life through the vehicle of creative expression into something interesting and meaningful and maybe even beautiful.

[Stephen Colbert]

And is that an invitation to everyone, or do you have to be a lifelong artist to do this?

[Suleika Jawad]

So I'm of the opinion that creativity is a gift that we all have access to as kids. We have such an organic relationship to our creativity. We play make believe, we tap into our imagination, and that starts to change as we get creative injuries and it gets knocked out of us as adults. And I can remember the moment that that happened for me in the eighth grade. I was a kid who had this kind of uninhibited freedom when it came to creative expression. I played the bass, I painted. And my first great love, which was keeping the journal, was where I found a sense of refuge and belonging. And in the eighth grade, my English teacher invited our entire class to write a creative short story over spring break. And I was thrilled about this, given my love of writing. And I spent that entire spring break filling up an entire 40 page yellow legal pad with a whole novella. Now, I didn't have quite the same vault of life experiences to draw upon for inspiration, and I had been reading Nabokov's Lolita at the time. And so. So when I handed in this short story, which ended up being about 40 pages long, I was awaiting praise from my teacher. I was awaiting possibly a literary agent, maybe even widespread publication. But instead, everyone received their assignments back. Everyone except me. And I was summoned to meet with a very different figure. The school psychologist. And, you know, I can laugh about this now, but I was so humiliated. And this beloved English teacher of mine never said a word to me about my short story. And it would take many, many years before I dared show my writing to anyone. And I still journaled relentlessly because there are parts of yourself that you just can't shut down. But that sense of uninhibited freedom, of purity was gone for me. And I think that's the case for a lot of us as adults.

[Stephen Colbert]

Has your journaling always been for other people or is it completely private?

[Suleika Jawad]

So I, you know, this book is about the value of cultivating a daily creative practice. And the creative practice that to me feels the most accessible, has always been journaling. Because journaling isn't beautiful writing. It's not even necessarily grammatical writing. There's no right or wrong way to do it. You show up as you are, you take a few minutes, or however much time you can spare to write your way back to yourself. And so for me, journaling has been a touch point. It doesn't require fancy equipment. It doesn't require any technical prowess.

[Stephen Colbert]

You say it saved your life.

[Suleika Jawad]

It saved my life. How so? When I turned 22, I was diagnosed with an aggressive form of leukemia. And even though I had been journaling for my entire life, journaling went from being a sort of pastime and hobby to something that really felt like a lifeline. It was a first massive interruption for me, and I had so much sadness and so much anger, and I felt so deeply isolated, and I didn't know how to carry all of those feelings inside of me. And so the act of externalizing those emotions on paper was transformative. But what surprised me, I think, more than anything, is that it allowed me to be in conversation with myself, and in doing that, to be able to be in conversation with the people around me. And that, to me, is the power of a creative practice like journaling. It allows us to alchemize what may feel painful into something purposeful.

[Stephen Colbert]

Well, one of the people around you is our old friend John Baptiste, who is your husband. And on your book tour, it wasn't just you. John went out with you on the book tour and played piano while you actually read from your book. And it's not every book tour that also sees a double bass on stage. That's you and John playing on stage. What was the vision for this?

[Suleika Jawad]

So John and I met at band camp when I was about 12 years old and son was 13. And from the very beginning, this book is dedicated to him. He is, I think, my first teacher, in a sense, in this notion of creative alchemy. And we wanted to enact the idea of creative alchemy to show an audience what creativity can do in a communal space, how it can connect us to one another, how it can leave you feeling transformed. And John challenged me at the very beginning to practice what I'm preaching in this book, which is this idea of returning to that uninhibited sense of play and experimentation that we do as kids without worrying about if we're a good artist or a bad artist, and to dust my bass off for the first time in many, many years, which was terrifying for me and so joyous. I'm returning home from this tour, wanting to take bass lessons. Not for any reason other than that it was so much fun, but it also, in a way, was a reenactment of this sort of creative alchemy that John first embodied for me, along with some of the members of this band when I was 22. Yeah, let's give a shout out to the band. I found myself here in New York City in the hospital where I'd been for many, many weeks. And things were not going well for me, cancer treatment wise. None of the chemotherapy was working and I was going into bone marrow failure. And the day that I received that news was the day that John learned that I was sick and stuck in the hospital and showed up.

[Stephen Colbert]

You were not a couple at the time.

[Suleika Jawad]

We were not a couple. We were just old friends from, you know, band camp. Band camp Showed up with the band unannounced at my hospital room door. And as the sound of John's melodica and Joe's tambourine and abandas, tuba and Eddie Sachs began to float out into the hallway, patients and doctors and nurses started to filter out of their rooms. And right there in the hospital corridors, everyone began to clap and dance and sing. And they alchemized what was one of the hardest, most frightening days of my life at that point into the most joyous of second lines. And I remember writing in my journal, the saints marched in today and they played that song too.

[Stephen Colbert]

Well, we gotta get going here, but could you read? Could you read. I'd love if you could read a little bit of your journal from when you were 12 years old. OK, this is a little bit. This is the journalist who got shut down by the teacher who sent her to the therapist. Yes.

[Suleika Jawad]

Okay. So I wrote this entry this summer that I met John, and it is titled Goals and Predictions. And these are my goals and predictions for the rest of my life. So, number one, be first base in a high class orchestra. Number two, travel around writing philosophical and political messages on toilet seats under the name dsoo. Number three, die. And for a split second after realize what I thought was, isn't. I think I was just beginning my foray into existentialism that summer. Feeling a lot of big feelings. And the last one, create a base suit by cutting eye and leg holes in my double base case. So.

[Stephen Colbert]

So much left to Achie. How are you feeling now? How are you feeling now? How is your leukemia now? Has it returned?

[Suleika Jawad]

So I learned a year ago that my leukemia was back. And when you learn for the third time that you have cancer, it's easy to feel like you have a sword of Damocles hanging over you. It's easy to feel like you're drowning in an ocean of uncertainty. And when I expressed this to my doctor, he gave me the advice that a lot of people give you when you find yourself in a situation like mine. And he said you have to live every day as if it's your last. And respectfully, I've come to believe that this is terrible advice. It is exhausting to try to make every family dinner as meaningful as possible and to carpe diem the crap out of every moment. And I think that if we were all living every day as if it were our last, our world would be chaos. We'd be cheating on our spouses and emptying our savings account and declaring bankruptcy. And so instead I've had to shift to a gentler mindset. And I'm trying to live every day as if it's my first to. Wake up with that sense of pure, uninhibited creative freedom, that sense of wonder and curiosity that a little kid might. And the way that I do that is through my own tiny acts of creative alchemy.

[Stephen Colbert]

Well, the book is the Book of Alchemy. It's your writing. It's John Baptist is written in here. Gloria Steinem, Salman Rushdie, Lena Dunham, other contributors. It is out and available now. The Book of Alchemy. The writer Soleka Jawad, everybody. Thank you for listening to the Late Show POD show with Stephen Colbert. Just one more thing. If you want to see more of me, come to The Late Show YouTube channel for more clips and exclusives. You can't reason with the sun. Trust us, we've tried this summer. It's time to put that angry ball of fire on mute. Columbia's Omnishade technology is engineered to protect you from the sun's harsh rays that can burn and damage your skin. The sun is relentless, but so is our gear. Level up your [e-mail] to spend more time outside and less time slathering on aloe lotion. You're welcome. Columbia Engineered for Whatever Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. I don't know if you knew this, but anyone can get the same Premium Wireless for $15 a month plan that I've been enjoying. It's not just for celebrities. So do like I and have one of your assistants assistants switch you to Mint Mobile today. I'm told it's super easy to [e-mail].

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