The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily

Episode 1380: Like Apple from Seed by Molly Johnsen
Host: Maggie Smith
Date: October 23, 2025

Episode Overview

This episode of The Slowdown is a meditation on the evolving roles that personal storytelling and poetry play in family and daily life. Host Maggie Smith reflects on her experiences of becoming both a parent and a storyteller, using these roles as a lens through which to introduce and contemplate Molly Johnsen’s poem, “Like Apple from Seed.” The episode gently explores how stories, much like seeds, carry the potential for growth, nurturance, and transformation through generations.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. On Parenting and Multiplicity of Roles (01:07–02:26)

• Maggie shares how parenthood comes with a constant layering of new, unanticipated roles—ranging from nurse, personal chef, and repairwoman, to storyteller and cheerleader.

• She humorously admits feeling “underqualified for most of these positions,” letting listeners in on the universal humility and improvisation involved in family life.

  “Let's be real, I'm underqualified for most of these positions.”
  — Maggie Smith (01:25)

2. The Comfort of Stories and Lullabies (02:27–03:29)

• Smith reflects on the everyday use of songs and stories as instruments of comfort and stability for children: from lullabies at bedtime to tales spun on demand in stressful moments.

  “So much of parenting small children is providing comfort and routine, and songs and stories are part of that.”
  — Maggie Smith (02:31)

• She recounts her daughter’s growing insistence on original, improvised stories, pushing Smith beyond familiar fairy tales.

  “‘No mommy, make up a story. A new one.’ No pressure, right?”
  — Maggie Smith (03:11)

  • Maggie describes inventing fables tailored to her own life quirks, like birds afraid of heights or forgetful squirrels—a light, relatable touch that connects parent and child on their own everyday terms.

3. Stories as Seeds, Stories as Growth (03:30–03:58)

• The central metaphor emerges: stories as seeds, from which so much potential can grow in family and in life.

  “Stories themselves are like seeds in our lives. So much can grow from them. There is so much potential waiting inside.”
  — Maggie Smith (03:52)

4. Reading of the Poem: “Like Apple from Seed” by Molly Johnsen (03:59–05:17)

• Smith reads Johnsen’s poem, beginning with the comforting tales the speaker’s father told about the moon and evolving into the speaker's own stories for a new generation.
• The poem blends memory, imagination, and change: from a comforting image of the moon “hooked and hanging on a bamboo fishing pole” (04:26), to the speaker’s own tale of the moon being consumed, then growing new, “like apple from seed.”
• Generational change and the cyclical nature of storytelling are woven through the poem, as the speaker and her child now stand under the tree where “the moon will weigh down the branch till it cracks.”
• The poem closes with a gesture of support and interdependence: “I have to save it, I say, and you make of your hands a stirrup.” (05:14)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On parenting’s many hats:

  “I'm underqualified for most of these positions.”
  — Maggie Smith (01:25)

• On creative storytelling for children:

  “‘No mommy, make up a story. A new one.’ No pressure, right?”
  — Maggie Smith (03:11)

• On stories as potential:

  “Stories themselves are like seeds in our lives. So much can grow from them. There is so much potential waiting inside.”
  — Maggie Smith (03:52)

• From the poem, on transformation:

  “So the moon came back new and grew like apple from seed, like me and you and the tree where we now stand.”
  — Molly Johnsen, read by Maggie Smith (04:46)

• On interdependence and generational support:

  “I have to save it, I say, and you make of your hands a stirrup.”
  — Molly Johnsen, read by Maggie Smith (05:14)

Timestamps for Important Segments

• 01:07 — Maggie reflects on the expanded identity of parenthood
• 02:31 — On the rhythms of comfort and bedtime stories
• 03:11 — Children’s demand for imagination and tailor-made stories
• 03:52 — Central metaphor: stories as seeds
• 03:59–05:17 — Full reading of “Like Apple from Seed”

Tone and Delivery

Maggie Smith’s style—gentle, self-reflective, slightly humorous—sets the tone for deep yet accessible contemplation. The reading of Johnsen’s poem continues this warmth and intimacy, inviting listeners to consider both the comforting and weighty responsibilities of tending narrative legacies within families.

Summary

This episode offers a brief, meaningful meditation on the way stories are passed, adapted, and grown within families, using the rhythms of daily life and poetry as both subject and vessel. Through Maggie Smith’s relatable storytelling and the quiet beauty of Molly Johnsen’s poem, listeners are invited to reflect on their own roles as creators, transmitters, and caretakers of stories—seeds from which futures may flourish.