This episode received a 2023 Gold Signal Award, a 2023 Listener's Choice Signal Award, and a 2023 International Women's Podcast Award Nomination for the Moment of Touching Honesty Category. Content Warning: This episode contains mature themes including self-harm and trauma. After 30 years as an award-winning radio producer in Boston, Katherin’s mentor Michelle Redo left her old life behind, relocating to a farm in rural Maine with her husband to pursue creative ventures. It was a change she never anticipated. Life on the farm has given Michelle time and space to reflect. She hosts the podcast “Daring to Tell,” where she explores her love of memoirs and the intimate bond they forge between author and reader. As someone who’s mainly worked behind the scenes in broadcasting, getting behind the mic has prompted her to explore nuanced themes like uncertainty, change, and trust in great depth; along with how these themes have manifested in her own journey so far. This episode shines a spotlight on Michelle's inspiring transition, her experiences in carving out a new life, and how exploring fear can be the catalyst for rewarding transformations. It's an insightful exploration of the resilience and adaptability that underscores the spirit of "And So, She Left."
Content Warning: This episode contains mature themes including self-harm and trauma.
After 30 years as an award-winning radio producer in Boston, Katherin’s mentor Michelle Redo left her old life behind, relocating to a farm in rural Maine with her husband to pursue creative ventures. It was a change she never anticipated.
Life on the farm has given Michelle time and space to reflect. She hosts the podcast “Daring to Tell,” where she explores her love of memoirs and the intimate bond they forge between author and reader. As someone who’s mainly worked behind the scenes in broadcasting, getting behind the mic has prompted her to explore nuanced themes like uncertainty, change, and trust in great depth; along with how these themes have manifested in her own journey so far.
This episode shines a spotlight on Michelle's inspiring transition, her experiences in carving out a new life, and how exploring fear can be the catalyst for rewarding transformations. It's an insightful exploration of the resilience and adaptability that underscores the spirit of "And So, She Left."
Listen to Daring to Tell.
In this episode, we cover:
Quote of the Week:
"There is something inherently hopeful about memoir. You feel like, well, the person survived to get through and tell their story...through the act of writing it, you know something was okay." - Michelle Redo
Hosted by Katherin Vasilopoulos. Made by Cansulta and Ethan Lee.
Music by © Chris Zabriskie, published by You've Been a Wonderful Laugh Track (ASCAP).
Songs used in this episode include: "Air Hockey Saloon," "We Always Thought the Future Would Be Kind of Fun," "To Hide Their Secrets," "Heliograph," "Does It Exist or Do I Have to Create It?," "Can You Even F***ing Imagine Being a Teenager Today?," "Short Song 030323," "There Are Many Different Kinds of Love," "Cylinder 7."
Used under the Creative Commons 4.0 International License
[00:00:00] Katherin Vasilopoulos: Hi, I'm Katherin Vasilopoulos. Starting my own venture wasn't easy.
After a decade working in the corporate world, I realized that so many things were out of my control, like layoffs and changes in direction. I didn't like the instability. I didn't want that to define my whole career and professional story, and so I left. I started my own company and achieved more than I ever imagined.
Now I'm on a mission to share stories from extraordinary entrepreneurs who are changing the. World and who never gave up on their vision.
Over the last few episodes, I've been talking to our guests about their entrepreneurial journey, their challenges and successes and everything in between, and it's been great. This week I'd like to take a moment to share a bit about my own journey and introduce you to a woman who played a key role in my own, and so she left moment only weeks after I left my corporate job in 2009.
I met Michelle Redo in the summer of 2009 when I was studying audio engineering at the Banff Center for the Arts in Alberta, Canada. You see, as I was contemplating leaving my corporate job earlier that year, I had applied for a scholarship program at the center, never expecting to get in. It was a shot in the dark.
And then one day I received a phone call telling me I was one of the two women in Canada who were accepted in their audio engineering scholarship program. That was the parachute I needed to jump, and so I left. I left my family and friends in Montreal and spent the summer in Banff with some amazing artists and residents, audio engineers and musicians.
At the time, Michelle worked as a producer at WGBH in Boston, and she was invited to mentor the students in the program for a few weeks. She showed up when I was at my lowest, when I was homesick and feeling vulnerable socially. She pushed my boundaries and shared personal and professional knowledge with me that made me feel like I was on the right track.
She even pushed me to interview Pauline Oliveros, the pioneer of deep listening and an artist in residence at the time. This led me to produce my first radio documentary featuring her life and music, and Michelle was instrumental in helping me air it on NPR later in the fall of 2009, and it was a major stepping stone in starting my company, Kvox Consulting.
Today, Michelle generously shares with us her story. How she left the big city just before the pandemic to move to a smaller community in Maine to pursue creativity, writing and podcasting, and to savor the next phase of life after a successful career in broadcasting. And I was so honored to have her on the show today.
I can't believe it's been almost 14 years to the day since our first encounter. You just never know where life will take you and what friends you will make along the way.
Hello, Michelle. Hi.
[00:03:04] Michelle Redo: Hello.
Hi, Katherin.
[00:03:06] Katherin Vasilopoulos: Welcome to the program. I'm so, so excited to have you here today.
[00:03:10] Michelle Redo: Thank you so much. I am so thrilled to be here with you today. This is a great honor.
[00:03:15] Katherin Vasilopoulos: It is a great honor for me because I really want the audience to know how special you are to me. You were a very key instrumental person in my life and in my trajectory in my so-called and so she left moment. You were there for me when I got a scholarship to go to Banff, uh, at the Banff Center and to learn how to become an audio engineer. And you came along as a mentor for two weeks and I learned incredible things from you. So I just wanted to, you know, Say thank you and to acknowledge that without you, a lot of things wouldn't have happened for me, so thank you so much.
[00:03:52] Michelle Redo: Oh gosh. You can't even know what that means. I so appreciate that and I was equally thrilled to be invited to the Banff Center to mentor to teach you for a couple weeks. I think I will also add that we had such a great time. I think a little bit of maybe what we'll end up talking about today is that you never know what early things might happen to you that end up becoming pivotal or crucial in one's life as one goes on in their career and chosen profession.
[00:04:29] Katherin Vasilopoulos: Well, I think we made a good team and I think that 14 years later here we are talking to each other on a podcast platform and I know bringing together our lives and it comes full circle. And as you said, you never know where, when you do something in the past, how it comes back to you in the future. And you yourself are a podcast producer now, and you have your own podcast called Daring to Tell.
So I would love for you to tell us more about that.
[00:04:56] Michelle Redo: The and so she left story for me was that I left my job in radio almost three years ago now and decided to start my own podcast, Daring to Tell, where I talk with memoir writers who read their true stories of personal daring and what I sort of envisioned coming together for this before I knew I was going to be envisioning it was that I loved hearing writers read their own work. And so I started listening to audiobooks probably round about 2015. I was just curious about them, I thought is it worth getting a subscription to pay to listen to this? But my husband, Phil, encouraged me.
You know, like, go ahead, do it if it's something you're curious about. I will also say I was recovering from, um, gastrointestinal surgery around about that time, so I was spending a lot of time listening to things. So it just sort of became this thing that I would find one narrated by an author, and then I'd search for the next one and search for the next one.
In 2020, my husband was retiring from broadcasting at that time, and we were gonna be moving from Boston to Maine. I was in this class, my writing coach, Nadine Kenny Johnstone, was holding a class that was about writers building their own platform. It wasn't necessarily a writing class. She was offering ways for writers to work on this platform thing, and a podcast was one of the things that she had suggested.
And of course I was like, oh, well that would be right up my alley, wouldn't it? So I sort of thought, Okay, what would I do? I liked this idea of the writers reading their own stories. I also suddenly, like, cuz I thought, where am I gonna get to know all these writers? Well, suddenly I was in a class filled with them.
It sort of all came together. I launched it in January of 21. So since then I have a podcast client and I'm also now working on an audiobook with a writer that I met. So it's turned into something that I think is following a path that I never could have necessarily picked out for myself.
[00:07:24] Katherin Vasilopoulos: And yet, these are all transferable skills.
I'm listening to you talking about writing and audio production and interviewing and putting it all together, and these are all things that you did before in your previous professional life, and now it's just a matter of leaping into the new version of what you're producing.
[00:07:42] Michelle Redo: Yes, yes. And I did a lot of interviewing before, but I was never this person, the one talking on the mic.
So that was one really interesting difference for me where I had to think and speak.
[00:07:56] Katherin Vasilopoulos: So how do you feel about that now? Now you are also part of the subject matter in the sense that you are the interviewer and you've inserted yourself into the story, alongside the-
[00:08:06] Michelle Redo: Yeah.
[00:08:06] Katherin Vasilopoulos: -The writer or author.
How does that feel?
[00:08:10] Michelle Redo: Eek.
It's um, you know, sometimes it is very natural and other times it's really scary, I will say. And that's a little bit how I came up with my title, Daring to Tell. You know, it's hard to talk about a lot of these things and there's the phenomena of, you know, we don't have to be intimidated by the things that we don't know.
You know, sometimes I have people that I'm more intimidated by and sometimes I have people I am less intimidated by. And, um, I think largely the vast majority of writers and the vast majority I think of podcasters are exceedingly generous in trying to share and grow. So that's where I try and bring it back to in my head, to not get too like, I'm talking with this person and I have to get it right.
[00:09:05] Katherin Vasilopoulos: And yet I'm so surprised when I hear you say that because I don't ever imagine you being intimidated by anyone.
[00:09:11] Michelle Redo: Oh.
[00:09:11] Katherin Vasilopoulos: Because of the amount of experience that you have and everything that you've done in your life, and that hearing you say that you're still, you get nervous at times.
It, it's kind of humbling and it's, and like, I don't believe you. I really don't believe you.
[00:09:24] Michelle Redo: You don't sit here and. Sweat with me in this room when I'm like, aaah.
[00:09:29] Katherin Vasilopoulos: But what causes your brain to put certain people in the the intimidation category versus not being intimidating?
[00:09:36] Michelle Redo: A lot of it has to do with familiarity.
Sometimes if it's someone I've gotten to know personally a little bit more, I'm more comfortable with that. Sometimes when it is a person who I know is a big deal, you know, it's like, oh, I was able to get this person. And I've been very excited about many interviews that I have been able to get but those, I get a little more, I just go, oh, this is a big deal.
You should be, why are they talking with you? You know, like the whole imposter syndrome, which is something that I know I've heard people talk about on this show before.
[00:10:16] Katherin Vasilopoulos: And we put ourselves in categories or in tiers in society. And in the end when you realize that we're all just working people. And we are here to do a job in the end they wanna do a good job too. Maybe they're intimidated of being on the podcast as well. You don't know what they're thinking.
[00:10:32] Michelle Redo: It's true.
[00:10:33] Katherin Vasilopoulos: You just know they, they show up and they tell you their story. I, but you don't know what they're feeling.
Tell me about why it's important for you to tell these stories in your podcast.
[00:10:46] Michelle Redo: Mm, that's a really good question. Um, I find myself gravitating towards the most important issues that we face as human beings on this earth while we are living and breathing. Um, and so, I definitely do tend to gravitate to the heavy stories, to the serious stories because I know this isn't always true, but I do feel like there is something inherently hopeful about memoir.
You feel like, well, the person survived to get through and tell their story. I mean, through the act of writing it, you know. Something was okay. So I guess the transformative aspect of that is very inspiring to me. How to get through tough stuff. I think that we all benefit from hearing our stories told.
Um, I think there's sections of commonality and sections of difference where we can see ourselves in another person's story and see ourselves. And that's, it's like a compare and contrast of how to say, oh yeah, yeah, I went through that too. And I sort of joke sometimes that quite often we are crying on Daring to Tell, because they are really, really hard stories and I love when someone gets back into their story enough to feel the emotion of what's there, because I know there's something cathartic about not only writing it, but then reading it out loud.
[00:12:43] Katherin Vasilopoulos: Let me ask you this though. When you moved to Maine, how was that transition from big city life to then being in a rural area? And tell me about where you, what, where do you live now? Like, what is it called?
[00:12:57] Michelle Redo: Yeah, it's, so we have called our little, little farm here. Flying Pig farm.
[00:13:05] Katherin Vasilopoulos: I love it.
[00:13:05] Michelle Redo: We have a pig on top of the barn that we have, which is used to be filled with livestock, I believe many, many moons ago, a long time ago.
Right now it holds some paintings and some boxes. Maybe we'll be able to get it to be an artistic space, but we came here to have more space and more time for creative endeavors. We lived in the very heart of Boston and we were in the big city, and I've always been a city person, so we moved to, not rural Maine, but a certainly more rural than where we were before.
And so I look out at our backyard right now, which the lawn needs mowing. There's wild flowers growing everywhere. I was just before, uh, we signed on, I was watching these two blue birds and some tree swallows lighting it out over these bluebird boxes that we have in our backyard. This is all to say I have learned so much about rural life and I have barely scratched the surface.
I mean, we're very close to all kinds of conveniences, but when we moved here, I started a newsletter. Started off every Friday morning, I would sit down and something would pop up about what had happened this past week, and many of them revolving around either household things going awry or bugs. Is one of the themes that I just, I can't get away from.
I really still obsess over bugs. Like, why am I so bug phobic? Which bugs have I started to try and become friends with and which ones? I know, I know.
[00:15:05] Katherin Vasilopoulos: Oh, I'm cracked up. Because it's so funny when you do move to a new place, you get to know the new bugs in the area. Yeah, yeah.
[00:15:11] Michelle Redo: I know. I had never seen a stink bug before.
I will say I'm. Very thrilled that what I have not seen here is, um, oh, those nasty, um, centipedes, the one with those beige colored egg. Ugh. Yeah. I don't wanna think about it.
[00:15:27] Katherin Vasilopoulos: I loved your stories about the repairmen coming in and outta the house.
[00:15:30] Michelle Redo: Yes.
[00:15:31] Katherin Vasilopoulos: Oh my gosh.
[00:15:31] Michelle Redo: I know. I felt like they were all of my new friends, I'm like, oh, is it Steve?
Or, yeah. There's like, oh, your oil tank is about to rust through and, you know, Ugh. All those things.
[00:15:44] Katherin Vasilopoulos: I loved reading those weekly things because it kept us connected to what you were going through and the little details that you would include, like the mouse or the little jogs that you would take out on the streets and get to know some neighbors, and it felt like I was there with you.
So I really, I, I enjoyed that so, so much.
[00:16:00] Michelle Redo: Well, I was gonna say, I think that you hit on a few key things. One is, who am I writing to? Because it's sort of like that question, who is our audience? And my audience, I knew them, so they were friends and colleagues and people who had followed me, and it was very specific.
And I think I also hit on something that gives me a lot of momentum and energy, which is usually like sort of waxing about something I'm slightly freaked out about.
[00:16:32] Katherin Vasilopoulos: Mm-hmm.
[00:16:33] Michelle Redo: And obsessed over doing something totally new, which was moving to a place that I never imagined not being a city person. So that was a big part of it too.
And writing to people who I could imagine telling them what was going on in our lives as we were building a business for myself, even though I wouldn't have said that much at that point.
[00:16:58] Katherin Vasilopoulos: And so now that you're there, do you find that you found your creative space? Do you find that there is this-
[00:17:04] Michelle Redo: Oh yeah.
[00:17:06] Katherin Vasilopoulos: Yeah.
[00:17:07] Michelle Redo: Yeah, and that's the thing that I think that in an earlier time, working in the city, being really busy, busy, busy, go, go, go broadcast 24/7, I couldn't have imagined not doing that. And I guess that's another thing when I think about when one takes a leap away from the known after the fact. It seems like I forgot all the stuff that I did before.
I don't know if that's common for people. Once you make that big leap you go, all right. Well that other thing was good for me, but I was ripe before it. I was really ripe for it.
[00:17:46] Katherin Vasilopoulos: Yeah. Cuz when you leave that previous space, you leave behind the intensity of the work. You leave behind everything that is all consuming and it slowly dissipates into the past.
There's always that moment where it just quietly dissipates and then you don't have to worry about it anymore cause it's not in your space anymore.
[00:18:04] Michelle Redo: Yeah, exactly. It is a very funny and ethereal and dare even say sort of magical thing to try and say, what is the thing that I need to be doing next?
[00:18:23] Katherin Vasilopoulos: How do you make things yours? Because you make a leap, but then you have to make it yours.
[00:18:30] Michelle Redo: I like how you phrased that. Um, that was also scary. I think that part of the journey that I've been trying to live as I've done this, as I've done the writing, I've always oriented myself around the goal of the place that I've been.
It was a big leap to say, what do I want to do? I mean, I recall sitting here at this very desk and going, well, what is my thing that I wanna do next? And that's where it ties in a lot with some of the writing that I'd been doing because that has been about the theme of shedding or excavating, other learned ways of life.
So I grew up in a religion that we did not see doctors, and I also was taken out of science class when we were gonna learn about medicine. It's funny cuz growing up not going to the doctor or not going to the hospital, not taking medicine, we relied on prayer for this. But the coming out of class, like, that's the thing that as I've thought about this and written about this more, that's the part that's almost been a deeper thing to try and find my own confidence in, because I always had this feeling that everyone else is learning about something that I won't know, and what do I not know? So this sort of deficit of understanding the world.
[00:20:12] Katherin Vasilopoulos: Mm-hmm.
[00:20:13] Michelle Redo: Um, that has been a pivotal theme in my writing. As I mentioned, um, in 2015 I had, uh, gastro in...I hate saying the words, gastrointestinal surgery. I had a large polyp in my rectum that had not quite gotten to cancer yet, so I was happy that it got caught in time, but I had surgery.
They removed. Oh, maybe about half of my rectum, and I like to say I still have half of my rectum. The writing has come into play in feeling my gut, a literal thing and a metaphorical thing that what do I really feel? What am I, what do I want? I don't always know. Um, and just discovering that I don't always know has been huge.
And so the question of how do I make something mine, that really is the exact question and I have been feeling my way through that like one episode at a time. Because I feel like, oh, what's the thing I'm curious about? And allowing myself the indulgence to say I'm really curious about this book.
Let me read this book. Who is the person? Where do they live? Can I write to them? Would they be on my podcast with that? Would they talk with me? All these little steps have been part of me. I really feel like I'm walking around with blinders. I'm trying to figure out what the next part is.
[00:21:54] Katherin Vasilopoulos: Mm-hmm.
[00:21:54] Michelle Redo: But I have gotten far enough that I feel like I'm starting to trust myself to go with it. Whereas before, I would always look externally for what should I do.
[00:22:09] Katherin Vasilopoulos: I love that you said that sometimes you don't know what's next or what the next direction is or what you want, cuz I, I go through that all the time. What do I want?
[00:22:20] Michelle Redo: Mm-hmm.
[00:22:20] Katherin Vasilopoulos: I don't know the answer.
[00:22:21] Michelle Redo: Yeah.
[00:22:21] Katherin Vasilopoulos: And they always say, well, meditate or ask yourself again tomorrow.
[00:22:24] Michelle Redo: Mm-hmm.
[00:22:25] Katherin Vasilopoulos: Days can go by. And I'm like, I don't know what I want. I don't know. And I-
[00:22:29] Michelle Redo: Years can go by.
[00:22:30] Katherin Vasilopoulos: Yeah. And you're almost wishing that someone else could tell you what you want.
[00:22:34] Michelle Redo: Yes.
[00:22:34] Katherin Vasilopoulos: But that's not somebody else's job to tell you.
[00:22:37] Michelle Redo: Exactly.
[00:22:38] Katherin Vasilopoulos: And the fact that you were taken out of science class, I imagine that it has made you a very curious person as an adult.
[00:22:46] Michelle Redo: Mm-hmm.
[00:22:46] Katherin Vasilopoulos: I guess I can't imagine as a child feeling excluded from the learning process when your classmates are in there and you're not.
[00:22:53] Michelle Redo: I do think I've always been a curious person, regardless. Um, I, in a funny way, I'll say, I think it made me a very fearful person, um, because it made me feel like the things I don't know might hurt me. And this is sort of conversely, not knowing it could hurt me like. From the religious standpoint, I was taught that believing in it can make it true, yet not knowing it in my full physical, bodily self says, what do I not know? So that baked in insecurity, it's really a toughie.
[00:23:41] Katherin Vasilopoulos: But I imagine also that talking to different people on a podcast, brings up themes and stories and things that help you understand things in life.
[00:23:52] Michelle Redo: Trying to understand my experience through seeing, feeling, reading, hearing someone else's experience. It literally is the thing. It's like those blinders, I go, oh yeah, that part was me. This other part wasn't. There's an author I just spoke with fairly recently, Charlotte Maya. Charlotte had a memoir that came out this past year in February called Sushi Tuesdays.
It was, um, about the suicide death of her husband.
[00:24:28] Katherin Vasilopoulos: Wow.
[00:24:28] Michelle Redo: So right there you go, oh, there's a tough topic for you. I thought, I'd like to read that book. Suicide has been in my family on both sides of my family. Um, on one side it was an uncle on the other side. It was like a great-grandfather. I got the book. I started reading the book.
I thought, oh, I think I'd wanna talk with her. I start reading the book. Well, it turned out she was also raised as a Christian scientist, the same religion that I was.
[00:25:03] Katherin Vasilopoulos: Oh.
[00:25:03] Michelle Redo: So I almost like my jaw almost fell off my face. I was like, oh my God. She had a very different experience than me. I consider myself somewhat angry and quite bitter, and I have been trying to work out that anger.
She was far more accepting and open to different ideas that all might work together. And she didn't have these hard and fast rules that I've always felt this sharpness of rules. That's the part that I've been saying, why do I have to be so rigid about things like to feel that this is gonna be wrong if you believe this thing? And if you're not gonna believe it, then you better throw the whole thing out.
I mean, there's all of these little adages we have throw the baby out with the bath water that sort of simplify those things.
[00:25:59] Katherin Vasilopoulos: Mm-hmm.
[00:26:00] Michelle Redo: So what kind of family legacy do we grow up with? Learning things about our family from past generations that influence us in ways that, who knows what's accurate. You know, I mean, it makes the idea of truth very squishy, which is a huge component of memoir is what is truth.
[00:26:21] Katherin Vasilopoulos: The idea of truth is very squishy. We need a t-shirt with that on it.
[00:26:27] Michelle Redo: Oh yeah.
[00:26:28] Katherin Vasilopoulos: But can I ask you something, as you were talking before about the hard rules versus this woman who figured out a way to not have to obey or go by all those very harsh rules.
[00:26:38] Michelle Redo: Mm-hmm.
[00:26:39] Katherin Vasilopoulos: Does that any of it have to do with, you know, the more rules you put in place, the less trust you have in yourself and the fewer rules you put in place, then the more you can learn to trust yourself and break free from all of those constraints?
[00:26:52] Michelle Redo: That's a very good synthesis of it, Katherin. I like that a lot. Yeah, I think that the rules help us kind of stay in line, but I think it just becomes a lot more confusing when we have to ask ourselves, what is the right thing for me? And you might not know something's not until you've sort of stumbled off the path for a little bit and find yourself covered in ticks. Can we just-
[00:27:20] Katherin Vasilopoulos: Are you thinking about your gardening?
[00:27:22] Michelle Redo: I'm thinking about the gardening. I know I, the ticks are the nemesis here in Maine. Yeah. I think that to figure out what the lived truth is, what the personally applicable truth is, I've always been, uh, so strongly attuned to the idea of how can you know any answers without understanding circumstances?
You know, the circumstances dictate so much and something that's the right choice. And this circumstance might be totally wrong in another one, but make sense. And yet a third, so my writing is to try and figure out how that might apply to me. As I go forward and the podcast is sort of the creative endeavor to help guide me, to put me on a path towards doing something where I think I can really help people.
Do you know, like I had asked Charlotte, I said, so I noticed you don't have an audio book. Were you gonna read one? And she said, oh, I really wanna read my own audio book. And we had a discussion about it and I was like, little Miss Insecurity over here. I said to her that if there's anything I am 100% confident about, it's that you will be the perfect voice for your own audiobook.
You should do that. So it's funny when you're someone who maybe, you realize part of what you love doing is helping other people do their thing. I don't know how much you relate to that, but I-
[00:28:57] Katherin Vasilopoulos: I relate in that I love hearing the story of what makes them happy and what has made them go from one thing that was a stepping stone to then leaving that and then moving on to the next part of the journey.
[00:29:09] Michelle Redo: The other thing, if I didn't say this expressly before, I feel like multiple simultaneous projects, they all help each other. So when I feel stuck about what I'm writing, I can go work on the podcast. When I am finished with one episode and I'm not sure what I'm doing, I can go try and find another book that I wanna read or another author.
Can I tell one little Katherin story I was thinking of?
[00:29:40] Katherin Vasilopoulos: Sure.
[00:29:40] Michelle Redo: When I was thinking about talking with you and about bravery and about my runs that I go on and would go on that you've read about in those newsletters. We met in Banff, it was July. It was light until at least 10 o'clock at night.
[00:29:55] Katherin Vasilopoulos: Right.
[00:29:56] Michelle Redo: And you lived where the students lived in the student housing there and you had to walk through like some wooded areas to get to where we were. And you were talking about the bears, and I was thinking many four letter words, you have to be scared of bears. And you said, I just make all this noise. I sing, I'm really loud.
I walk through the woods singing to myself. Well, one of my newsletters where you might recall, a neighbor had told me she saw something that she thought might have either been like a Bobcat or a links or some wildcat, like, right, and she told me this when I was about as far away from my house as I could have been.
I put jingle bells on my sneakers for like a week after that. And then I'm sure my neighbors all thought I was insane. They probably still do, but I thought, oh, I've gotta be just like Katherin. I'm gonna make as much noise as possible. I often have my headphones on and I'm singing loud anyways, when hopefully no one is listening.
Who knows?
[00:31:01] Katherin Vasilopoulos: That's the best.
[00:31:02] Michelle Redo: But I always remembered-
[00:31:04] Katherin Vasilopoulos: I love that you remember that. Yeah. I still always, I sing to myself all the time just to keep things interesting.
Thank you so, so much to Michelle Redo for joining me today. You can listen to Michelle's podcast Daring to Tell by clicking the link in the episode description. We would love to hear your feedback. Sharing what you liked about this episode in a review would be the best way to help us make the show even better.
And So, She Left is made by Cansulta and Ethan Lee. We'll be back next Wednesday with a new episode. Our music is by Chris Zabriskie, edited for your enjoyment. You can find a list of all the songs you heard here in the episode notes. I'm Katherin Vasilopoulos, and thanks for listening. Love you all.