Podcast Summary: The Slowdown – Episode 1352: Blue by Jodie Hollander

Host: Maggie Smith
Date: September 15, 2025

Overview

This episode of The Slowdown centers on the theme of how color—both literal and metaphorical—shapes our perceptions, emotions, and memories. Host Maggie Smith uses a vivid, personal reflection on color in her home and life as a lead-in to Jodie Hollander’s poem “Blue,” which explores the deeply personal and sometimes isolating nature of emotional experience—particularly sorrow—and the subjectivity of memory and healing.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Power of Color in Our Lives

[01:35–03:30]

• Personal Anecdotes:
  • Maggie Smith describes her home as “full of bright, bold colors. Every wall is covered with art or lined with bookcases, or both.”
  • She recounts her post-divorce choice of “shiny lemony lacquer” cabinets and the sometimes-surprised reaction of loved ones:
    • “My dad said, oh no, they sent the wrong ones. I laughed and told him, no, they were exactly the right ones.” — Maggie Smith [02:15]
  • Discusses her preference for green:
    • “Green is another color I’m especially drawn to. It feels like the color of possibility... both calming and energizing at once.” — Maggie Smith [02:45]

2. The Emotional and Symbolic Weight of Blue

[03:30–04:10]

• Blue as Beauty and Sorrow:
  • Contrasts the serenity of blue (ocean, sky) with its longstanding association with sadness:
    • “But what about blue?... when we’re sad, we say we’re blue. We have the blues, might listen to or sing the blues.” — Maggie Smith [03:45]
• Introduces the poem as a meditation on how personal experience colors perception.

3. Poem: “Blue” by Jodie Hollander

[04:10–07:16]

• Summary and Thematic Highlights:
  • The poem is set in the Denver Art Museum and explores the narrator’s recollection of the past, colored “blue”—not a simple blue, but one full of depth, sharpness, and pain.
  • The narrator questions the objectivity of memory:
    • “Is this picture true? Or perhaps it’s a little bit distorted? How to ever really know for sure?” — Jodie Hollander [05:00]
  • Attempts to view the memory differently (“once a friend told me it was green... a shrink suggested it was red”) are met with profound resistance.
    • “I flew into a rage. How could it be red, or any other color for that matter?” — Jodie Hollander [05:20]
  • Explores the idea of confronting, immersing, or even being engulfed by sorrow—the color blue—wondering if transformation is possible:
    • “What if I dive in and immerse myself in the blue waves... let myself be dragged all the way down, down to where the blue turns into black? If I survive, do I get a brand new picture?” — Jodie Hollander [05:55]
  • Ends with powerful imagery of destruction and rebirth:
    • “Once I dreamt the picture went up in flames…But then something emerged from the ashes, rather like this lovely picture here, a soft, almost inaudible fluttering of a blue butterfly escaping into the light.” — Jodie Hollander [06:45]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Once someone walked into my house and said, well, someone’s not afraid of color... Every wall is covered with art or lined with bookcases, or both.”
  — Maggie Smith [01:35]

• “Green is another color I’m especially drawn to. It feels like the color of possibility. After all, when someone is new at something we say they’re green. Green like a tiny shoot making its way out of the soil in springtime.”
  — Maggie Smith [02:45]

• “It’s deep and sharp. It’s not a common blue, and though I hate to look at it, I look and look. I cannot help myself.”
  — Jodie Hollander [04:30] (on memory’s blue)

• “So how to live within a blue picture?... Lakes are blue, as is the ocean ahead. What if I dive in and immerse myself in the blue waves... If I survive, do I get a brand new picture?”
  — Jodie Hollander [05:55]

• “A soft, almost inaudible fluttering of a blue butterfly escaping into the light.”
  — Jodie Hollander [07:10]

Key Timestamps

• 01:35 – Maggie Smith introduces her home’s bold color palette and reflects on color after her divorce.
• 03:30 – Explores associations with blue—beauty vs. sadness.
• 04:10 – Full reading of “Blue” by Jodie Hollander.
• 05:00 – The narrator questions the objectivity of blue (memory and sorrow).
• 06:45 – Imagery of consuming fire, surviving sorrow, and the emergence of a blue butterfly.

Episode Essence & Takeaway

The Slowdown thoughtfully invites listeners to examine how individual experience shapes our perception of the world and ourselves. Maggie Smith’s approachable, vivid storytelling and Jodie Hollander’s introspective poetry together offer a meditation on the resilience of the human spirit, the trials of memory and grief, and the hope that something beautiful can eventually emerge from darkness—perhaps, like a blue butterfly, escaping into the light.