transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:00] Hey, Better Babes, welcome back to Getting Better. Can you believe it is April? It is Earth Month. And on that note, today, we're gonna go on a beautiful, gentle journey of understanding the connection between plants and nature and our history in America. We are traveling all over the place. We're learning all about trees with someone who I love so dearly, Dr. Beronda Montgomery. Now, if that name rings your ears, you may remember her from 2021 and 2022, where we had her on Getting Curious. I have not stopped yamming her about plants and garden questions ever since. I love her so much, but today is the first day that we're ever meeting in real life. Spoiler alert, I'm starting a rooftop garden on our building in New York. So it's just going to be some pots, but I have a lot of plant questions for Beronda today. So come on the journey, happy Earth Month, and let's go chat with Beronda. Beronda, welcome to Getting Better.

Speaker 2:
[00:51] I am so excited to be here. You can't even imagine.

Speaker 1:
[00:54] I have the chills, but the non-sick chills. I'm just so excited to meet you in real life.

Speaker 2:
[00:58] I have been waiting for this moment.

Speaker 1:
[01:00] Because we had you on Getting Curious in 2022, right?

Speaker 2:
[01:03] Yes, I think, well, we did 2021 when the book came out and then did a second one in 2022.

Speaker 1:
[01:08] Oh my God. So I think I, so just to catch you guys up, if you were under a rock, we had you on in 2021, and we first, I think it was because of my garden, and I started interrogating you about my garden, and then I think you maybe gave me your cell phone number, and I was like, you're going to regret this, and then-

Speaker 2:
[01:25] I have never regretted it.

Speaker 1:
[01:26] Oh, thank God. I really like, because we went through the great squash, borer, vine moth tragedy of 2021.

Speaker 2:
[01:33] I do remember that. It was tragic, but also it was loving to see how loving you were with your plants.

Speaker 1:
[01:39] But they didn't survive the great squash, borer, vine mothing of 2021, which was devastating. So basically, if you were like a follower of my Instagram back then, you'll remember the great pumpkin patch of 2021. My pumpkins really have never, that was my most successful pumpkin year in Texas that year that the squash borer vine moths killed. Never could get them back like that. I had my best tomatoes last year that I'd ever had. What were really productive was our loofahs, which you obviously can't eat. But we gave a lot of sponges.

Speaker 2:
[02:13] They're fun to watch grow though.

Speaker 1:
[02:14] They are so fast. But I do love to eat my food. I love to eat my plants. I don't know what Farmer John corn field is.

Speaker 2:
[02:22] You're like, you want to grow for food.

Speaker 1:
[02:23] I do.

Speaker 2:
[02:24] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[02:25] What's that about?

Speaker 2:
[02:26] I don't know. Some people love flowers. My mom loved flowers, but my dad was in your camp. It all had to be vegetables and things he could eat.

Speaker 1:
[02:32] I love flowers too, but I have to worry about my cats because we had the great lily poisoning of 2019.

Speaker 2:
[02:37] No, you have to take care of your babies.

Speaker 1:
[02:39] Yeah. One of my favorite kinds of travel memories is when a trip becomes bigger than you even knew it was going to be. You think you're just going to have a fabulous time with your friends and then suddenly it becomes one of those trips you remember forever. That's what Joshua Tree was like for me. I had my very best of friends for my 30th birthday. We had our own space. We had this incredible pool. We had nature and it was just so extra special not being around a gajillion other people. It felt so much like home. We got up. We made coffee. We just had so much fun. And honestly, when you're traveling with people you love, that shared space matters. It gives you room for the little moments, the late night chats, the getting ready chaos, and the what's the plan for today of it all. Airbnb can be a part of those trips that turn into your core memories. The ones where you get the location, the comfort and the space to live in the moment. Having a place that feels grounded can make such a difference. Whatever your travel needs may be, check out Airbnb for your next trip. If you've been keeping up with the news lately and feeling like it's Groundhog Day with a side of constitutional crisis, you are not alone. So many of us are trying to make sense of attack after attack on our freedoms and trying to figure out how to fight back in ways that actually matter. That's why I want to talk to you about Americans United for separation of church and state. This is how you tap in, you guys. It's all about Americans United for separation of church and state. Americans United has been showing up for almost 80 years defending the constitutional right of church state separation, which protects all of our abilities to be who we are and live as we choose so long as we don't harm others. This year alone, they filed three separate lawsuits against Trump's anti-Christian bias task force, and they've been tracking Christian nationalist rhetoric and working with partners to push back in court. It's easy to feel apathetic right now, but now is not the time to give up. Now is the time to fight back against growing authoritarianism in this country. Consider joining Americans United for separation of church and state. Learn more by visiting au.org/getting-better. Because church-state separation protects us all. Meanwhile, it's April now of 2026, which means we've known each other for five years.

Speaker 2:
[04:54] It's unbelievable.

Speaker 1:
[04:55] It's time. What is that? But it's Earth Month, and so I thought for this episode, I wanted us to just talk about bringing nature into our lives more, how we can learn about nature more, how we can both be mutually beneficial with nature, but nature can be so positively impacting to our mental health, to our community, and I think that a lot of us, especially in adulthood, we sleep on that.

Speaker 2:
[05:18] Absolutely.

Speaker 1:
[05:19] And I know that for me, I was sharing this with you a little bit before we started recording. When I look back on my time at Texas, nature really was the thing that I connected to. It was a different part in my life that even now that I'm in New York, I have a wholly different relationship with nature now than I did before I lived in Texas. And it taught me to slow down. It really, I think, nature, I'm not even being dramatic here, I think it kept me alive in a lot of ways. Because I felt so out of control. And even though I was out of control, the squash, borer, vine moss, and my pumpkins, I wasn't in control of how these plants were going to turn out. It was this relationship that is so special, which leads me to this. Mark and I are going to do a rooftop garden.

Speaker 2:
[06:03] That's lovely.

Speaker 1:
[06:03] Because that's the only place we have for it. But better that than I'm not complaining, because in New York City, it's at a premium. But we're doing a potted garden plants for 2026.

Speaker 2:
[06:11] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[06:12] I'm going to give you a watermelon. I'm going to give you a squash. I'm going to give you a pumpkin. I think a tomato plant and a jalapeno plant. That's my goal for right now. And we'll see what other things Mark has.

Speaker 2:
[06:22] I mean, you're halfway to a salsa garden. You just need some onions.

Speaker 1:
[06:24] Oh, onions. Onions is all I need. I have been the queen of growing rotted onions.

Speaker 2:
[06:31] OK, well, don't do that.

Speaker 1:
[06:32] I have not had it. Are you a successful onion grower?

Speaker 2:
[06:35] I have been able to grow onions. A couple years ago, I had a salsa garden, which is what made me think about it.

Speaker 1:
[06:39] I think like urban gardening.

Speaker 2:
[06:41] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[06:42] We like this. Do you feel like if someone isn't a really heavily urban space, how could they get a little bit more gardening into their lives, a little bit more plants into their lives?

Speaker 2:
[06:52] Well, it's so interesting that you asked that. Because when we met, I was still in Michigan and I was actually doing some work in Detroit helping with that question because a lot of people in cities don't have that. And so we did container gardens. We did just like a community garden, if there's a spot. That's probably rarer. But I'm sure there's some in New York, probably rare in the city.

Speaker 1:
[07:11] But they're like long weight lines.

Speaker 2:
[07:12] Yes, but rooftop gardens and container gardens are great. You can do a container garden even inside if you have a window with enough sun.

Speaker 1:
[07:18] Yes.

Speaker 2:
[07:19] And I think that in and of itself, just watching and building the relationship with plants can happen in any small space that you have.

Speaker 1:
[07:25] Yes, even a window. And I think people really are sleeping on that.

Speaker 2:
[07:28] I think so. I mean, I just remember when I grew up, I grew up in a city, smaller city than New York, Little Rock, and my mom always had a little herb garden on the window in the kitchen. And so you can do it anywhere with whatever small or large space that you have.

Speaker 1:
[07:40] So you're from Little Rock, Arkansas?

Speaker 2:
[07:42] I'm from Little Rock, Arkansas.

Speaker 1:
[07:43] Did you ever go to that like diamond like place where you can like look for the diamonds?

Speaker 2:
[07:46] Yeah, Hot Springs Diamond Mines, yes.

Speaker 1:
[07:48] Did you find one?

Speaker 2:
[07:48] I did not, but I had an uncle who loved to go. He was convinced that I was going to get him out of the Little Rock.

Speaker 1:
[07:53] Well, it's so cool that you can like keep the diamonds that you find there.

Speaker 2:
[07:56] You can, you can.

Speaker 1:
[07:56] I'm just waiting for Sarah Huckabee Sanders to undo it.

Speaker 2:
[08:00] Anything could happen.

Speaker 1:
[08:01] Like to take like the one fun thing about like Arkansas state government, like undo it.

Speaker 2:
[08:05] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[08:05] Nightmare. Yes. Yes. I love that you're from there. Yes. That's so cute. Yes. Okay, wait. So.

Speaker 2:
[08:10] I'm excited about your rooftop garden.

Speaker 1:
[08:13] Is there any suggestions you have like on things that you think that I should grow?

Speaker 2:
[08:15] Is it super, super sunny?

Speaker 1:
[08:17] It's really sunny up there.

Speaker 2:
[08:18] Okay.

Speaker 1:
[08:19] Like it's full sun.

Speaker 2:
[08:20] Yeah. So I mean, I think you'll just have to watch where you put things because some things like the melon, some of them, if you get ones that have too much. But yeah, but you can take care of that.

Speaker 1:
[08:27] You'll mitigate, it'll be fine.

Speaker 2:
[08:28] Yes, that's right.

Speaker 1:
[08:29] Yeah, because Mark, because you know Mark, he is really good about that.

Speaker 2:
[08:31] He has my favorite gardener.

Speaker 1:
[08:33] He has. And I love that we're just not shy about it, you know? Yeah, because I'm like, I'm a little bit like touchy. I'm a little bit like, when I say touchy, I mean, like anxious. I'm an anxious gardener.

Speaker 2:
[08:42] I think it is based on the relationships you build.

Speaker 1:
[08:44] Yeah, Mark's chill.

Speaker 2:
[08:45] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[08:45] Yes.

Speaker 2:
[08:46] Well, that's a good balance. That's a good balance.

Speaker 1:
[08:48] But you and Mark have like the same, like your chill with it. You know what to expect.

Speaker 2:
[08:52] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[08:53] I'm very like a stage mom who's like watching their daughter, like that booked their first thing.

Speaker 2:
[08:57] Yes, there's something going on here. Yes.

Speaker 1:
[08:59] You know?

Speaker 2:
[08:59] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[09:00] Okay. So for you, I mean, you're literally, because remind our listeners that we're like sleeping under a rock. You are a expert. You are a doctor. You're a, because you...

Speaker 2:
[09:12] Yeah. So I have a PhD in plant sciences. I'm a plant biochemist. And so for almost, well, I don't really like to admit how long because I'm only 25, but I've been doing this for 26 or 28 years, studying how plants respond to light in their natural environment.

Speaker 1:
[09:28] That is the coolest thing.

Speaker 2:
[09:31] It's a lot of fun too.

Speaker 1:
[09:32] Ever.

Speaker 2:
[09:33] Yes, a lot of fun.

Speaker 1:
[09:34] So for you, like your brain and your life and your career has been formed around nature.

Speaker 2:
[09:41] Yes, yes.

Speaker 1:
[09:42] So what does listening to nature for you sound like?

Speaker 2:
[09:47] So, you know, I love that question because it's twofold. It's both based on my professional career, but it also goes back to my roots. So my mom had like hundreds of houseplants and also my parents also had like the winner of the Garden of the Week award. So I grew up around plants. So part of it is like returning to my roots and my family relationship. And my mother can grow plants better than I can just because she builds these deep relationships and really understands her plants. But now I also can look at something and say what likely is happening with the biologically, which is what you do, you know, like when you send DM, I have another friend who sent a DM and I'm like, that's a you need to get this chemical or it's likely to need fertilizer. So I have both these this kind of professional, but also a deeply personal connection with nature.

Speaker 1:
[10:33] What do you think you have? I mean, this, I mean, a lot has not happened well since we got to that.

Speaker 2:
[10:41] It's very, very true.

Speaker 1:
[10:42] What do you think? And this is like kind of a random question. Yeah, like and this is really I think we get here more with your book. But what, like, what are we missing out as a culture, as a society? What have we missed out from nature? That if we could learn this from nature, we could treat each other better.

Speaker 2:
[11:00] You know, I think one of the things that comes to mind immediately is that nature is so interdependent. And particularly in the US, we live in this kind of individual success thing. Like if I win, you lose, or if I can hoard millions or billions. And in nature, the interdependence is critical to survival. If you take any plant and try to grow it in isolation, it doesn't do as well as if it's with others. Animals and plants interact with each other. And I think somehow we lose that interdependence and understanding how critically important the smallest organism is to the largest. And all of us have the minor wasp, right? They come close to me, I want to die, but they have an important role as well. And I think sometimes we forget how deeply interdependent we are.

Speaker 1:
[11:44] Because it just doesn't, and ultimately like we are nature.

Speaker 2:
[11:47] We are nature. And that's what's wrong with our planet is that somehow we take ourselves out of it and exploit the rest of it. And that's not good for anybody.

Speaker 1:
[11:55] And it's just not going to be sustainable, which is like kind of what we're witnessing.

Speaker 2:
[11:58] Absolutely. On so many fronts.

Speaker 1:
[12:00] Yes. Which is like why sometimes when I get overwhelmed, I'm like, do we just sell everything and like go live on a lake now? Like, and just like do the pumpkin patch now?

Speaker 2:
[12:07] If you do, can you let me know? I'll be a good neighbor.

Speaker 1:
[12:09] Oh, my God. We together? Can even our garden be a good neighbor? Honey, we would have so much fun. Our garden would be unmatched. Yes.

Speaker 2:
[12:16] Yes. Yes.

Speaker 1:
[12:17] These people. Yes. Oh, my God. The weed I would grow. I didn't say it. OK. OK. OK.

Speaker 2:
[12:20] OK. OK.

Speaker 1:
[12:21] OK. What are so because I mean, I implemented this new rule in my life where I'm not reading the news before nine because like I just start the day with like my nervous system and like full on alert.

Speaker 2:
[12:34] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[12:34] For people who live in a city or don't have easy access to nature, what are three small ways that they can practice nature connection in their lives?

Speaker 2:
[12:43] So I think a small one that I think about is that, well, especially on a day like today where it's raining, even if you can't get in outside, how can you bring some of nature inside, whether it's growing plants, whether I always have live flowers in the house. And just thinking about the fact of where did they come from, not just the joy that they're bringing me, but what was the source of that plant? What do I know about it? What do I know about how roses become beautiful? Just kind of familiarizing yourself. My sister loves to cook, so I asked her to get to know about her spices. What's the source of her spices, right? All of this is inside.

Speaker 1:
[13:14] Oh, yeah. Because what it's like, what's like paprika come from? Is that a plant?

Speaker 2:
[13:19] It is. Most spices are from a part of a plant, and most of us don't know what part of the plant they come from. So just learning about things like that. And then even in the city, when you can get out, taking a walk, you're going to encounter some tree. If you can cut across the park, just to put your foot on some grass. Even if it's not like, you know, being immersed in your yard like you were in Texas, you can still have trees that you watch. It makes me think about one of my favorite writers, Octavia Butler, who was in California. And if you look in her journal, she would document the trees and plants as she was taking public transportation in LA area. So I think wherever you are, there's a way to identify something that you can connect with. Maybe you look at the same tree that you pass every day, but look at it at different seasons.

Speaker 1:
[14:03] So, okay, so I want to talk about When Trees Testify. Yes. Because I really feel like there is not a time where we have like ever needed this work more.

Speaker 2:
[14:12] Thank you.

Speaker 1:
[14:12] And I'm so grateful for you doing this work. And so your new book, it's called When Trees Testify.

Speaker 2:
[14:18] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[14:19] What a powerful phrase.

Speaker 2:
[14:20] Thank you.

Speaker 1:
[14:21] What does it mean to say when trees testify?

Speaker 2:
[14:24] So there is this tradition in the US actually some very old trees have been referred to as witness trees, even by like the National Park Service, trees that would have been standing at the site of a battle and are still there, they would call them witness trees. And so I encountered a witness tree when I was in South Carolina years ago. But when I started to think about how I wanted to meld the science of the trees with personal experience, I wanted to go from just the trees witnessing to that witness being used. And so when you think about the word testify in a judicial way, it's when the witness comes, shares their witness in service to justice. And so I was thinking about how am I going to share knowledge of these trees, the science of the trees, my personal interactions and history, thinking about what it is to have a just and full retelling of American history.

Speaker 1:
[15:14] So you're literally merging nature with history. And so When Trees Testify is really about bringing together American history and the experience of trees.

Speaker 2:
[15:25] As well as personal stories. And if I could just say, I got to that when I was at this former plantation in South Carolina and saw this tree that was 400 to 600 years old. And I was there with my sister and son.

Speaker 1:
[15:37] Will you Sophia Petrillo us into this? Yes. Like picture it, like what year are you in?

Speaker 2:
[15:41] It was the end of 2018, beginning of 2019.

Speaker 1:
[15:44] OK, so we've just had the blue wave.

Speaker 2:
[15:46] That's right. And so we have visited Charleston, South Carolina, and we had gone to Botanical Gardens and an arboretum. My sister and son loved black history and wanted to go to a former plantation. And I really wasn't excited about going because just thinking about the trauma that would have happened in those spaces. But when I got there, as we're touring the grounds, the guy points out this oak tree, a live oak tree that is about four to 600 years old. And so I said to my sister, this tree would have been standing already when people were enslaved on the land. So we get to stand with the exact same tree and see the exact same tree. And then just a pure science fact, I said the breath of that they breathe is captured in the wood of the tree because when you exhale, you exhale carbon dioxide, that gets converted to sugars during photosynthesis. The sugars are used to make compounds that ultimately form wood. So their breath is captured in the tree. And I said, so now our breath can be captured and join their breath in the tree. And I was ready to go on and she stopped and said, wait, you know, that's remarkable. And so in that moment...

Speaker 1:
[16:50] I didn't want to cry.

Speaker 2:
[16:51] In that moment, I saw my knowledge of science coming together with history. But then thinking about the fact that my own family was descendant of people who were enslaved in Arkansas and Mississippi, also these personal connections. So in that moment, I saw my personal history come together with my plant science and African-American history in a powerful way. And I just thought, for me, initially I thought it's just a fact, but when you think about the power of that...

Speaker 1:
[17:19] Oh, like, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[17:20] Yeah. And so I really thought I have this kind of intersection of knowledge that seems like in this moment where we're in a country that is always trying to erase black history, to bring it to a personal level and into organisms that any of us could go and visit still now. And so that's how it started.

Speaker 1:
[17:39] And so you start... So the idea kind of starts here in 2018.

Speaker 2:
[17:44] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[17:44] Little did you know what was going to happen in the elections and the geopolitics between 2018 and now.

Speaker 2:
[17:51] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[17:52] And so what has it been like bringing that book to life in such different kind of cultural era?

Speaker 2:
[18:00] It's been really interesting because, you know, that visit happened while I was finishing Lessons from Plants, right? So Lessons from Plants came out during the pandemic. We were still in a reasonably good, better than now, political moment. And so by the time this book came out, to be honest with you, initially, I wasn't sure we were going to be able to put it out. But the press was very supportive. My son Nicholas, he's 23, delightful, just politically active. And he said to me, mom, your book is going to get banned. He got all his t-shirts. I read. He said, I'm going to be so proud. But he's like, he got all his t-shirts. Did it? It did not, right? But I think that he was afraid of that because of what was happening in the moment. And it gave us an opportunity to talk about the fact that sometimes when you're afraid of that, that's the very thing you need to lean into.

Speaker 1:
[18:47] Right.

Speaker 2:
[18:47] Because people don't ban things that are not impactful.

Speaker 1:
[18:49] Right.

Speaker 2:
[18:50] And so it felt like even more urgent in this moment because as people are trying to erase African-American history from the public record, what I wanted to show in this book is that the history lives in individuals and you can't erase us. You can try, but you can't erase us. And so it felt even more urgent to write it and share it at this moment.

Speaker 1:
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Speaker 2:
[22:35] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[22:36] Why did you choose to structure it in this way?

Speaker 2:
[22:38] So part of it was part of it was a personal pursuit as well. So I have been the first black woman in many of my professional spaces. So I was the first black woman in my graduate school program, first black woman hired as a professor in the department I was in at Michigan State. So often people are celebrating that you're like a first-generation botanist. But I started to understand that although I'm like a first-generation professional botanist, I said to you, my mom grows plants better than I do.

Speaker 1:
[23:07] It's giving indigenous science.

Speaker 2:
[23:08] Exactly, exactly.

Speaker 1:
[23:09] Yes, it's Dr. Jessica Hernandez.

Speaker 2:
[23:10] Yes, exactly. I love her. I love Jessica. And so really part of it was me owning the fact that I come from a legacy and I want to be able to name that legacy.

Speaker 1:
[23:20] Yes.

Speaker 2:
[23:20] So I started to, my sister Renee, who's featured in the book, she's our family genealogist and we had people from the census that she had identified had been listed as farmers in the 1800s. So part of it was a personal pursuit.

Speaker 1:
[23:32] Yes.

Speaker 2:
[23:33] And to really kind of celebrate the fact that there's a long legacy of contributions of African Americans to agriculture in the US beyond the kind of trauma of being enslaved, but actual mental expertise and botanical expertise.

Speaker 1:
[23:46] Like feeding people and like getting like, is like how we understand like fucking like the industry.

Speaker 2:
[23:50] Absolutely. And one of those is rooted in pecan trees. So I started looking at trees. And then this idea that I mentioned that with these hundreds and hundreds of year old trees that you can stand with them, trees felt like a powerful way to explore this. So I ended up choosing seven species of trees that I did have personal stories, African American history and science. And then because I'm descended from people who were in the cotton industry, I didn't know how to write a book without acknowledging the presence of cotton. But there's also this link between cotton and trees in the US in that there were hundreds and thousands of acres deforested to make room to grow cotton. So cotton's explosion is linked to deforestation in the south in the US.

Speaker 1:
[24:32] This is like kind of a random question on that though. Do we know like, did we accidentally like extinct any trees or like species from like deforesting to make room?

Speaker 2:
[24:41] So there is some kind of evidence and people have looked at this that some trees, some species of trees have been a lot of pine and other trees. So there are pines still here, but some varieties of trees were certainly extincted because people weren't doing sustainable farming. Farmers would just grow cotton and once the land was depleted, instead of doing sustainable farming, they just like, let's deforest another hundreds of thousands of acres. And so in that certainly many, many trees were lost and certainly some varieties of trees were lost.

Speaker 1:
[25:08] Okay, so back to the pecan. I'm really proud of my neurodivergence for not interrupting because I got really excited. Was the thing that the person invented, did it have to do with grafting?

Speaker 2:
[25:18] Absolutely. And I thought about you because I remember we were talking about grafting. Yes!

Speaker 1:
[25:24] I'm zero for three, grafting these fucking lemons, you guys.

Speaker 2:
[25:27] I remember we talked about grafting.

Speaker 1:
[25:29] Because you know what happened, you remember? Yes. I had this lemon tree that was like a cute lemon tree.

Speaker 2:
[25:33] And the root stock was still fine.

Speaker 1:
[25:34] The root was fine, but the thing that got grafted onto it died. But it lived through the great icing of Austin in 2021. And then we tried to graft like a new limer lemon onto it thrice.

Speaker 2:
[25:43] Oh, and it didn't work?

Speaker 1:
[25:44] Not once. And I did every single version, but that root thing is still alive in a greenhouse in fucking Texas.

Speaker 2:
[25:50] I told you, it's so hard to do, which is... And if you think about us doing it with all the tools we have, to think about it being successful back in the 1800s, you know, when it was. So there is...

Speaker 1:
[26:02] So what was the pecans right? I mean, in a rough...

Speaker 2:
[26:04] Yeah, so there's a documented story that there was an enslaved man named Anton, who was an expert tree grower. And back then, they wanted to get a commercial industry with pecan. So if you go into the woods in natural pecan trees, they make pecans of all different sizes, some that don't have a lot of nut meat, some that are good. And for something to be a commercial industry, it has to be a tree that makes all the same size of nuts. And so you can do that by grafting. And so he was tasked from the person who owned him to figure out how to get a tree that would make uniform pecans. And ultimately, Anton was able to make the first commercial variety called centennial pecan from grafting. And you can imagine doing this under conditions that you have less tools, less sterile conditions than us.

Speaker 1:
[26:51] And with the pressure of some fucking asshole.

Speaker 2:
[26:53] Absolutely, right? Literally, his life probably depended on being able to do this.

Speaker 1:
[26:58] Do we know what year this was?

Speaker 2:
[27:00] I believe it was the mid 1800s.

Speaker 1:
[27:02] So mid-18 fucking hundreds, and he's out here. So do you think he was just like, this pecan does really good in the winter, so it's going to be hardier, but we need ones that have more consistent like this one. So he was just giving you fucking Darwin.

Speaker 2:
[27:14] He was just trying out several.

Speaker 1:
[27:16] But non-problematic Darwin.

Speaker 2:
[27:17] Non-problematic, yes.

Speaker 1:
[27:18] With the pecan.

Speaker 2:
[27:19] But if you think about the brilliance of being able to do this under those conditions and literally the pecan industry in the US started with that variety. And so to think about the fact that this expertise of this enslaved African started an entire industry that's still going, for me, that started to feel like being in the plant sciences is such a huge legacy. And that's just one example.

Speaker 1:
[27:41] Yes, that is so fucking cool.

Speaker 2:
[27:44] So exciting. And it gives you, you know, it gave me a sense of pride. I've always struggled with this idea of being the first. I mean, I think it's an accomplishment, but it's also like we shouldn't be getting first in the 2000s and knowing you're not the first trying to say what legacy am I standing on?

Speaker 1:
[27:58] Well, I did. It was interesting you telling me that story because when you're like, I was like the first black woman at botanist. And I was like, yes, go.

Speaker 2:
[28:05] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[28:07] But it's like who qualifies? Absolutely. And that's what I remember Dr. Jessica Hernandez was teaching us about when we had her on the pod. And she was like, well, indigenous science is science, but Western doctors will be like, oh, how many years? It's like not real if it wouldn't. It's like, well, just because someone like had $75,000 to pay to go to college or whatever doesn't mean that their knowledge is more important or better than someone whose knowledge didn't go there.

Speaker 2:
[28:31] Absolutely. Indigenous knowledge is complete and whole in and of itself.

Speaker 1:
[28:35] Yes. I love that.

Speaker 2:
[28:36] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[28:37] I love us and I love your book.

Speaker 2:
[28:38] OK.

Speaker 1:
[28:38] What about Sycamore?

Speaker 2:
[28:40] So Sycamore, I love Sycamore because that story in the book, the personal story starts with my sister. Yes.

Speaker 1:
[28:46] I'm sorry. Sycamore trees.

Speaker 2:
[28:48] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[28:51] We being willow, I know I can visualize that.

Speaker 2:
[28:53] Sycamore trees, you probably have seen it and recognize it. So Sycamore trees are ones that their bark sloughs off a lot. So they have these very thin sheets. And then the trunk that's left is kind of ash and gray or white.

Speaker 1:
[29:06] They're all over London.

Speaker 2:
[29:07] Yes, yes. And so you can recognize Sycamore. And that's one of the great things about Sycamore is that you see it and you say that's a Sycamore tree because of the kind of sloughing off a bark and that grayish, whitish.

Speaker 1:
[29:18] And doesn't that happen because isn't aren't aren't they like capturing pollution and like sloughing it off?

Speaker 2:
[29:23] So part of it is it's well now that contributes to it. But part of it is that many trees like oak, when you see them growing, they have all these rivets in the bark. Because the bark expands. Sycamore doesn't expand in that way. And so it kind of works like a snake in some ways that as it's growing, it gets rid of that when it makes a new layer. And so it's different in terms of how it expands. It's not as flexible.

Speaker 1:
[29:46] Another detour, I heard something that I wanted to fact check with you. I think I read it in National Geographic or something since we've talked. Is it true that trees do that thing where the roots grow underneath the ground and then they touch each other and they talk to each other?

Speaker 2:
[30:00] Yeah. So people in public spaces have talked about this as the woodwipe web. But there is, it's well known and in nature that trees are often, their roots can physically touch, but they also are connected by fungi, which are in the soil in something called a mycorrhizae.

Speaker 1:
[30:19] Oh my, we learned about that.

Speaker 2:
[30:20] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[30:21] With our fungus experts. Yeah. Because there's like 28 genders of fungus that are so gay.

Speaker 2:
[30:25] Yes. Yeah. So you can have either, they call them ecto, they're just coat the outside of the root, or endo, they integrate the root. And they connect more than one plant. And they can send signals through those that can actually allow two trees or trees in a community to communicate.

Speaker 1:
[30:41] Only because of The Last of Us? Is there like, is there ever like bad fungus?

Speaker 2:
[30:46] Yeah. So, you know, I have been accused of focusing on the positive, but there are things that happen in the soil that can disrupt communication. I think we talked about black walnut. Black walnut is just notorious for only wanting things for itself. So it will kill other things and just only other black walnut can grow. But yeah, you can have subversion or positive communication happening underground.

Speaker 1:
[31:09] Oh, how interesting. Is there any other trees that kind of like prefer like not to be around other trees?

Speaker 3:
[31:14] There are.

Speaker 2:
[31:15] I can't think of other ones off the top of my head only because I had a lot of black walnut in my youth growing up and my dad was always fighting them. But there are other trees that really basically kill other things and only related species can grow. I think of it as kind of the white supremacy.

Speaker 1:
[31:32] Yeah, it should be called like a white walnut tree.

Speaker 3:
[31:35] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[31:36] Fucking A. That's so interesting. So the black walnut tree is kind of a hater. Is there like a flower version of that?

Speaker 2:
[31:42] You know, there are some flowers that are almost saprophytic, like they feed on other things for themselves to grow. Yes. Like the initial itch. Now that's actually, well yeah, they feed on insects. They do.

Speaker 1:
[31:58] And that is a plant.

Speaker 2:
[31:59] It is a plant.

Speaker 1:
[32:00] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[32:00] There are these plants, like Venus Flytrap, that capture insects and then dissolve them to get nitrogen to help themselves grow.

Speaker 1:
[32:07] So there's Venus Flytrap that does that.

Speaker 2:
[32:08] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[32:09] And then there's that, like there's like kind of like a flower, like isn't there like a circle one?

Speaker 2:
[32:13] Yes. There are some of those.

Speaker 1:
[32:15] Oh, is there like a cup?

Speaker 2:
[32:16] Yeah. They drop into the cup. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[32:18] I see that on TikTok. My algorithm loves to show me that.

Speaker 2:
[32:20] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[32:21] Those are the only ones, right?

Speaker 2:
[32:22] There are some other ones. There are some species that we don't know, like in the South America and other species, but those are the ones that we know the most.

Speaker 1:
[32:31] Have you ever wanted to like exercise like that part of your like Dr. Brain and like go like spelunk? Like for new plans or something? I have.

Speaker 2:
[32:38] Yeah. You know, my son is laughing because I think I want to write a book in the future about lessons from plants, from global plants, and that's because I want to be able to travel and learn from other people.

Speaker 1:
[32:47] Well, with your two adult kids, like they can like, if you like, I feel like you should make them take you.

Speaker 2:
[32:51] I think that they should work so that they don't need my money and then I can.

Speaker 1:
[32:56] Yeah, I was thinking like free assistance.

Speaker 2:
[32:58] I mean, my son is working, yes.

Speaker 1:
[33:00] Well, I was thinking like free assistance. Like you make them like research the hotel, like book the car, like walk over there, make sure there's no like snake or something between like me and this tree, you know, because like we gotta keep these knees and these ankles like healthy, like spelunking in these places, you know, I don't want to keep these joints together.

Speaker 2:
[33:15] I get you.

Speaker 1:
[33:16] I think you got like two young, healthy kids, honey, you can like sacrifice those angles.

Speaker 2:
[33:19] Kids are good for that. Yes, that's what I was thinking. Yes, yes, yes, yes.

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Speaker 3:
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Speaker 5:
[34:46] What podcast, Corinne? Tell us.

Speaker 3:
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Speaker 3:
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Speaker 1:
[35:41] Willow. What did we learn about willows?

Speaker 2:
[35:43] Willow is so beautiful. That's one of my favorite trees. But the thing that's so impactful about willow is that I wasn't sure I was going to include it in the book initially. But in 2019, I was working in Michigan, and I saw a news story about a memorial willow tree that had been desecrated in Arkansas. I see tree in Arkansas, and I'm like, what's this story about? Well, it comes that this tree had been planted to commemorate a 100-year-old anti-black massacre in a town in Arkansas.

Speaker 1:
[36:12] Wait, the tree was planted?

Speaker 2:
[36:13] It was planted to commemorate a massacre that happened in 1919, 100 years before.

Speaker 1:
[36:19] So it was like, it was a sweet tree.

Speaker 2:
[36:22] To acknowledge, yeah. It was to acknowledge that this event had happened. They planted a willow tree because when the massacre happened, some people planted a willow tree back then. But when they named the town, it's the town my grandfather grew up in, my mom's dad. And they said this event was in 1919 and he was born in 1914. And so I say to my mom, how long did he live in that town? He had lived there until he was nine or 10. So we did not know until I saw this news story that my grandfather was five years old in this town when the massacre happened. He never talked about it. And when you talk to people who survived it, a lot of them didn't talk about it because of the fear. And so my interest in willow trees helped us uncover this event that was a deep family history. And I had been fascinated with willow trees because willow trees are the source of the compound that's in aspirin. So like salicylic acid is from willow trees. So I knew about all of this kind of use of them.

Speaker 1:
[37:15] Wait, the salicylic acid for zits too?

Speaker 2:
[37:17] Yeah. It's the source of it is willow trees. Other plants make it, but willows make a lot of it. And so you would see willow bark used by indigenous people. They would chew on the bark to treat their pain. And so willow became this deep connection to my family, as well as, as I said to you before, it's also one of the trees that would mark bodies of water for enslaved people to know where they were moving about. And so it was eye-opening to understand that my grandfather, who was my, in summers, I sat with him on the porch for hours, never knew about this. And because of my interest in willow trees came to know about this. So then I'm thinking about this five-year-old in the middle of this, like, horrific thing. And as the book comes out, then we have five-year-old Liam Ramos, right, snatched off the streets of Minneapolis. So I'm thinking about a country that has allowed a space to stay where five-year-olds can be traumatized because we can't get our, oh, sorry, I was about to say.

Speaker 1:
[38:17] No, you can't, because you can't take your eye out.

Speaker 2:
[38:18] We can't get it together, right? But to know that my grandfather, we didn't know about this. And just to think that's a legacy that, even though he didn't talk about it, he survived it. And so I start to understand more and more how I'm a part of this kind of intergenerational lineage of bravery and what that means.

Speaker 1:
[38:37] That also made me, when you were explaining that to me, it's like we've, I think a lot of us have heard about the Tulsa riots.

Speaker 2:
[38:43] Yes, and so this was that same year, the red summer. The red summer.

Speaker 1:
[38:47] And does that make me think about like all of the other riots that like we've never heard about, the people who had like property, stolen lives, lost, injury, never heard about it.

Speaker 2:
[38:55] And that's the summer that there were so many cities across the US where this happened that it became known as the red summer.

Speaker 1:
[39:00] Yes. And see, this is like another thing, but it made me think about this when you were talking about kids getting pulled out of school.

Speaker 2:
[39:06] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[39:06] In the South, like Pre-Jim Crow.

Speaker 2:
[39:08] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[39:08] And also like these riots, like when you have trauma, that creates ripples.

Speaker 2:
[39:16] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[39:16] It doesn't just like go away.

Speaker 2:
[39:18] Absolutely.

Speaker 1:
[39:18] And then when you think about like the stereotyping and like the cruelty around stereotyping, well, a lot of that is systemic. Kids are getting pulled out of fucking school.

Speaker 2:
[39:28] Absolutely.

Speaker 1:
[39:28] Families are getting fucking separated.

Speaker 2:
[39:30] Absolutely.

Speaker 1:
[39:30] In a way that they were not for people who had wealth and who had money and who had resources.

Speaker 2:
[39:35] Yeah. It just ripples through our society. So this year, I'm in residence at Harvard this year. I'm working on another book.

Speaker 1:
[39:41] Casual?

Speaker 2:
[39:42] But no, I'm saying this because as you're walking across the campus, you see all these beautiful buildings, and then you go to some minority-serving institutions and they look like they're struggling. But when you were able to get your buildings built for free by enslaved labor, there's this generations that continue to allow you to have this sustained wealth that allows you to be the elite, whereas others have just been carrying along, and it's that same systemic nature. Yet we want to say that some people don't have the same aptitude as other people when there are these underlying systems that maintain.

Speaker 1:
[40:16] And it's like everyone has the same aptitude.

Speaker 2:
[40:18] Absolutely. That's what I love about plants. They show us that over and over again. And it's how you take care of them or not that may allow one to struggle versus another. Right. And that's how we end up here.

Speaker 1:
[40:29] The hook of the episode, was that just what that was? Amazing. That is so true.

Speaker 2:
[40:33] It's so true. That's how I started to write lessons from plants. Realizing that, right, you can have two seeds, but if you give one to someone who can't take care of a plant and one who can, they turn out completely different.

Speaker 1:
[40:44] And that's literally people. And it's not, yes.

Speaker 2:
[40:48] Literally people.

Speaker 1:
[40:50] Wow.

Speaker 2:
[40:51] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[40:52] Wow. Okay. Random plant question about willows.

Speaker 2:
[40:55] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[40:56] Is there only weeping willow, or is there like tons of willow types?

Speaker 2:
[40:58] No, no. There are erect willows. Weeping willows are one type of willow that has a gene that causes them to have that kind of.

Speaker 1:
[41:06] But there's an erect willow? There are. Is there like another type of willow that I just need to Google for later?

Speaker 2:
[41:10] There are several different varieties. I think there are actually more erect willows than there are weeping willows, because weeping willows are so easy to spot.

Speaker 1:
[41:16] And because of, well, it's for my girl.

Speaker 2:
[41:18] Yes. That's why I know about them.

Speaker 1:
[41:20] Yeah. Yeah. And my bees. I'm scared of them. So, okay, so willows. So willows, it was like medicine?

Speaker 2:
[41:28] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[41:28] And then because of the salicylic acid?

Speaker 2:
[41:30] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[41:30] And then what else? Did you find about them?

Speaker 2:
[41:32] Well, you could also use, no, I was about to say the wrong thing. So there are some plants that people would use for subversion.

Speaker 1:
[41:40] And what does that mean?

Speaker 2:
[41:42] So like cotton root, you can use the root of cotton. If you give enough of it, it can cause an abortion. So enslaved women used to take it to, if they didn't want to have their baby born into enslavement.

Speaker 1:
[41:57] Okay, but do you know what this pisses me off so much?

Speaker 2:
[41:59] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[41:59] Because do you know like why Roe v. Wade was overturned partially? So Chief Justice John Roberts, it could have also been, it could have been Roberts or it could have been Alito. I forget which one. Actually, I think it was Alito. Alito said that abortion is not deeply rooted in this country's history, which is why the founders could have never thought of the 14th Amendment, even though the 14th Amendment was added like after the Civil War. But he's an originalist. So he's like, well, because abortion didn't exist then, and the founders could have never thought of what abortion is. So the 14th Amendment doesn't guarantee privacy for abortion, because abortion isn't deeply rooted in this nation's fabric of our traditions. When Benjamin Franklin had an abortion recipe in his fucking diary, now I'm learning from you, that women were taking cotton.

Speaker 2:
[42:43] They were too on cotton roots.

Speaker 1:
[42:45] To induce an abortion, like family planning and abortion has always existed.

Speaker 2:
[42:49] And the idea that it hasn't is like Christian nationalist revisionist history. Right. And so, yes, they would use cotton roots. You can use apple seeds.

Speaker 1:
[43:00] Because can't apples also, doesn't apples make like...

Speaker 2:
[43:04] Cyanide.

Speaker 1:
[43:05] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[43:05] Yes. Yes. Yes.

Speaker 1:
[43:06] But isn't it like 19 million apples or something?

Speaker 2:
[43:08] You have to have so many apple seeds to do it. But you can get enough that enslaved people who were cooking would sometimes put it in the food. And then they're like, I don't know why he or she is sick. I don't know what happened to the enslaver. And so there was this kind of subversion that I'm here, but I have ways to fight back.

Speaker 1:
[43:25] Right.

Speaker 2:
[43:26] Yeah. And so I was misspeaking about Willow, but I got excited because I'm a little bit. I use subversion, shaming or teaching instruction to get where we need to.

Speaker 1:
[43:35] Whatever you got to do, whatever you have to do.

Speaker 2:
[43:37] Exactly. Exactly.

Speaker 1:
[43:38] Oh, my gosh.

Speaker 2:
[43:39] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[43:40] OK, OK. OK. And OK, so cotton, we kind of talked about cotton, but is there... This is like a random question about all these plants. But I guess cotton, well, Ampecon, those would be the ones of these one, two, three, four, of these five that were like for commercial scale. Yes, like for like bigger scale. So it was like I was thinking earlier when we were talking about trees, about like palm trees and about like trees that like are planted where they don't like naturally live. And I was thinking about how Dr. Hernandez was like, it's because we don't call she doesn't call them invasive species, they calls them. What does she call them? Not endangered species, but like displaced relatives.

Speaker 2:
[44:19] See, she talks about them, how I talk about weeds. When people talk about weeds, I say that weeds are just good plants that have a bad reputation. Yes, they're growing places. We don't want them to grow at the time.

Speaker 1:
[44:29] Yes, but I was wondering about these, were any of these, is cotton so not really even supposed to grow in the South? Or is it really better somewhere else? Or your sycamore is really great?

Speaker 2:
[44:39] No, there are versions of cotton that grow in the South, although certainly cotton farmers looked for versions that they could grow more of. And so they imported different varieties. So towards the end, one of the cotton varieties that they were growing actually opens up wider and so you can harvest more of it. And so they were always trying to get more per acre, but there are natural varieties that grow there for sure. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[45:02] You write about Sankofa, the idea of returning to retrieve what's been left behind. What did that concept unlock for you while writing?

Speaker 2:
[45:09] You know, it unlocked so much. And I think it goes back to what I was talking about earlier, when part of the journey for me was to try to go back and understand what kind of botanical expertise predated me being the first professional botanist in my family. But I think also, you know, in the US., so frequently we think of enslavement and all we think of is the trauma. But looking back to the ways in which there was so much expertise, we haven't talked about it today, but there were parts of West Africa where people would go to get the women because they were good healers and they had such scientific knowledge about healing that they were valued as much as a young man. And value was telling you how much. And so thinking, looking back and understanding that it's not true that we African-Americans were just brought here because of their brute force, but they were going to seek out expertise that they pretend doesn't exist on the African continent, right? And so that to me, looking back, just uproots the lie about who's human, who's inhumane, and helps me remember not to look to inhumane people to confirm my humanity, because they've lied from the beginning about what we brought to this continent.

Speaker 1:
[46:22] That's so fucked up.

Speaker 2:
[46:23] It is. And just to think, like we know they also went and got women who were the women in certain parts of Africa were the experts about cultivating rice. And so they wanted that expertise.

Speaker 1:
[46:37] But can we really spell out like why that literally is just I know that you know, I just want my listeners to understand. So like eugenics was literally predicated on this idea that white people were the smartest and had like the best knowledge, the best connection to like God. And like we were the top of the pyramid. And so everyone else is below that. But if you were going to find specific people that were experts that had knowledge that you didn't have or a beauty that you didn't have, or it's almost like giving luxury. Like these white slaveholders were trying to like, ooh, they're more luxurious from this part. They're more workers from this part. That literally flies in the face of eugenics. Like that's just fucking rich, exploitative, fucking shitty white men with money.

Speaker 2:
[47:20] And it's the continued what we see, where you have to lie to get this sense of self, as opposed to just say all humans have expertise, all human have things that they can contribute. Absolutely. And so that's what's important is to actually pull forward examples of the lie and to say that it wasn't that you're doing some favor to bring people here and cultivate them. You're handpicking expertise to exploit it to the maximum amount, which led to the richness of this country. And we could talk about richness in so many forms. African Americans have contributed cultural richness, but we have contributed intellectual richness that has gone unappreciated. And so I really felt like this was a chance to try to honor that, learn more about it by myself, but also to honor it and bring it forward.

Speaker 1:
[48:09] Yes, my brain was like, yes, bitch, calm down, settle it down, bring it back, bring it in.

Speaker 2:
[48:14] Absolutely, no, but I think it's so important.

Speaker 1:
[48:18] What for you as a botanist, as a doctor, as a writer, as an author, what for you is, do you wish people watching this or listening, this would take away from this or what is like? I it's annoying because I think sometimes as a queer person, I am asked to be like, what do you wish everyone knew? And it's like, we often are the canary in the coal mine that was warning you first. I think that black women are the original version of that in the United States, are the ones who were saying the truth, saying it first and people didn't listen. So it's a midterm year.

Speaker 2:
[48:53] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[48:53] And we are, it really feels like we are in the middle of a very fascist moment in our history. What do you want people to take from this book, to take from your work to know about your experience to try to make the world better?

Speaker 2:
[49:10] You know, when I think about it personally, I shared that fact that when Renee, my sister Renee and my son Nicholas and I were at this plantation, I said to them, the tree takes our carbon dioxide and carries it forward as a part of its wood, right? Like our ancestors. And so I have personally become obsessed with what it means to live a life worthy of my breath being carried forward, right? And I wish that we would have a more intentional understanding of our place on the planet. We can pass time on the planet and the trees will carry our breath forward. But when they look back, if we knew where you lived in Austin and I went there, I would say these trees were Jonathan's trees. They were marked trees. They carry their breath. And they've done these things, right? And so I wish we would think more intentionally about how we want to move forward. And though this country, you know, in the book, I point out a lot of facts that some of the wealth of this country is built on the exploitation of people, but we can still ask what we want to do with that now. Where do we want to be with that now? You know, you talk about seeing kind of a personal and everything. My son says that I can see, my son Nicholas says I can see a lesson in everything. We were in Houston walking in. If you're in a city, I'm sure you see it here in New York, you get to places where the tree roots are buckling the sidewalk. And that's because that plant is so committed to its purpose and its growth that whatever is in its way is going to move out of its way. And I think in this moment, for those of us who are committed to a more just future, it can feel overwhelming where we are at this moment. But I just want to think about what it would mean if there were enough of us so committed to our purpose that we would move the sidewalk like a route because we're so committed to what we have to do that whatever gets in our way, we just stay the course. And I think that's all we have in these moments. The thing that I love about Black women, and I'm one of them, is that we understand that has to be balanced with joy. So in the middle of all of this, we're learning all the line dances. I was dancing boots on the ground at that wedding in Jamaica till I sweat it. And so understanding that we are whole people, but what would it mean if we were so committed to our purpose that even though it feels overwhelming in this moment, that those fascists who are in power are going to have to get out of our way? There's no other possibility other than I'm going to stay committed to my purpose. And I have to kind of live with that on a daily basis, because some days it feels like you're hitting the concrete and you're going to die. But I've seen roots time and time again move it out of the way. And I think that's what Sankofa is as well. It's looking to how people have done that in the past and saying, I'm part of this intergenerational legacy. And I'm part of a deep intergenerational legacy of the Montgomery family. And I can't drop it today. My enslaved ancestors, my Jim Crow parents, all of them had a tougher time. I can't drop it today. And though it seems impossible, I'm just going to stay committed to break through.

Speaker 1:
[52:15] That, there's no better way to end the episode. I mean, that was like such a hardcore mic drop. That was so beautiful. And to round it out. Well, first of all, get your book. But second of all, I think for those of us that like are instant gratification queens, like when I look back on when I quit smoking cigarettes, that was like two years of being uncomfortable. But I don't think of it as taking two years now. Like in my memory, that was like two weeks. I can definitely remember there being like two years where I was like, I will drive this fucking car off this fucking road right now. I want to cigarette so bad. Like. So it's going to take a minute.

Speaker 2:
[52:47] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[52:47] And like patience is so important, but like that route, it does move that fucking sidewalk out of the goddamn way. But it takes like a minute.

Speaker 2:
[52:54] It takes a long time. But I think every time I see one, it just reminds me. Like you can't see it when it's happening, but what would it mean for us to stay that committed to our purpose?

Speaker 1:
[53:05] I love you so much, Beronda. I'm so glad I got to be here in your life.

Speaker 2:
[53:07] I love you, Jonathan.