So, Life Wants You Dead
new episodes for your pleasure
Hi!
The new season of my podcast, So, Life Wants You Dead is out! We’ve already put out two episodes with some brilliant guests: first, writer and director Daisy Friedman on her film Unholy, which just went to Sundance and will go to SXSW in March. Then we had writer and entrepreneur Georgia Fenwick come on to discuss the miracles in sobriety, facing fears, and how she had to accept her imperfections to embrace her creativity. You can listen to them here.
On this week’s episode, I speak to writer and producer Carolina Barlow about a life-altering car accident she had when she was 28. I love this conversation: there’s so much to learn from each other when it comes to the grief and recovery we’ve sometimes had no choice but to go through. As Carolina put it on the show: “Everyone is going to go through something like this, whether they want to or not. Time steals all, so it's just that our turn was earlier than most, and I think you find out so much through this about yourself, about others, about the capacity for love, the capacity for pain, the capacity for heartbreak and grief and anger.”
It was a special one for me because Carolina and I knew each other as kids, spending long summer days together in the Adirondacks at an artist’s residency where my aunt and her grandmother worked. Then, as often happens in life, we grew up and didn’t see each other for many years. I never forgot about her and her sister, and a surprising twist of fate (and a couple of freak health emergencies) brought us back together a short 25 years later when a friend suggested I invite her on the show.
We discuss the parallels between what we’ve been through (and how we both thought maybe astrology would save us — it didn’t), how essential humour is in recovery, and the inevitable depth of empathy gained through having a “before and after”: whether that’s an accident, illness, or loss. We also agreed that balloon bouquets should be left off gift lists for people in the hospital moving forward since they caused us both (literal) nightmares. Carolina also talks about how it helped to have a little distance from her accident to write about it and that when she doesn’t know what to hope for, she reminds herself that her imagination is limited and trusts that there are greater plans in play than she can even think of.
You can find
’s beautiful writing here on Substack, which I reference about 400 times in the episode.With love,
Nora x
About Carolina
Carolina is currently a staff writer on the upcoming Will Ferrell series THE GOLF WAR, for Netflix. Prior to that she was a producer, writer, and co-host of the Ron Burgundy Podcast as well as the True Romance Podcast with iHeart Media. She is developing an original project with Apatow Productions and recently developed a project with FX with Lisa Harrison attached to produce. Additionally, she has co-produced the Netflix documentary WILL & HARPER and has previously worked with Leslye Headland. She is developing FRANKENSTEIN IS A FRIEND with Will and Mosaic Films.