85. Embracing a Soft Life in a Hard World

It’s the last episode of this season, and we’re discussing a tough question as we enter the summer months. With everything going on in the world, is a “soft life” realistic? Is it responsible? We wrestle with what it means to pursue peace and rest in a world that feels anything but soft. We explore how Black women, in particular, can give themselves permission to step back without ignoring the reality around them. Is it possible to protect your peace and still stay engaged in the world? We don’t have all the answers—but it offers a thoughtful, honest look at the balancing act.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Reflecting on Season 2
• 8:17 Navigating Chaos & Seeking Peace
• 13:36 Defining a Soft Life
• 19:15 Balancing Comfort and Being Engaged
• 26:09 Embracing a Soft Life
• 28:11 Seeking a Soft Life Summer
• 32:15 Disconnecting to Reconnect

Transcript

Sonia Hamlin (00:00)
Welcome back to the Grown and Growing Podcast. I'm Sonia.

Roberta (00:03)
And I am Roberta.

Sonia Hamlin (00:05)
Welcome back, Roberta. This is our last episode of the season. Congratulations. my gosh. How do you feel?

Roberta (00:07)
Welcome back Sonia. Our last episode of the season. Yes! Congratulations to you!

feel good. feel, it's funny, I, when we first started and just the setup and everything and the conversations, I just felt like I was talking to you like regular, like on Zoom. And it wasn't until I saw like the photos we took and the little thumbnail on Spotify. And I was like, wait a minute. We're actually like doing a podcast and it's out in the world.

Sonia Hamlin (00:28)
Mm-hmm.

It is out in the

world. There's no hiding.

Roberta (00:42)
that people can

hear, right? The things that I was just thinking I was talking to my friend about. So it took me maybe another episode or two to get over that. But one, I'm glad I did it. It's been a lot of fun. And yeah, I don't know. I think we've grown more as friends during this season, which I'm very grateful for that as well.

Sonia Hamlin (00:52)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Definitely. I mean, the conversations we've had, we've just, we've never probably would have had them outside of.

Sometimes having a topic just allows us to delve into areas that we either talked about or we talked about a long time ago and we've grown since then. I do think that it has deepened our friendship in a way that I definitely appreciate. One thing I love about having you on the podcast, number one, it did go exactly as I thought it would go, like with our conversations. There are a lot of areas where we kind of see eye to eye,

Roberta (01:18)
huh.

Sonia Hamlin (01:36)
are places where we're just so different. And I love when those differences come to the forefront because it was my thought that I'm like, I more voices, more perspectives to be shared on the podcast. And so I knew you would bring that. And so I'm glad it all worked out.

Roberta (01:49)
Mm-mm.

Nice. Yes.

I'm glad it worked out too.

Sonia Hamlin (01:58)
Yeah, what I'll say is I

think it did challenge me though, too. in that the way that I think. So I was just a solo.

person, just put my head down, do the podcast, do my thing. I didn't have to check in with anybody, which is a good and a bad thing, right? I thought it was, you know, at the time when I wanted to co-host, I thought it was really, I was like, Oh, I just really wish I had somebody to brainstorm with. And now I have that. But at the same time you are giving up like, you know, some of your autonomy to bring in this other voice, this other perspective. And I had to make sure that I was

Roberta (02:21)
Mm-hmm.

Sonia Hamlin (02:34)
consciously trying to do that for you to make it feel like a space that you could belong and you felt like your opinion was also respected. I mean, you know, I have like a bossy tone, but, but you also know that about me, but you still felt open enough to just, you know, leave your opinion and, and lead with your ideas. mean, you're great at like reorganizing the outline. That is just, that is your strength.

Roberta (02:39)
Mm-hmm.

Do ya now?

Sonia Hamlin (03:04)
And another way it challenged me was, which I wasn't expecting, is the banter that we have, some of it is planned because we have an outline, but an outline does not tell the whole story. There is still, you know, in the moment conversations happening. And I had to get used to that because...

When I did solo episodes or when I did things by myself, I could just spend time crafting exactly what I wanted to say, thinking about saying it exactly the way I wanted to say it. And if I messed up, I could go back and record it, because I didn't have to schedule with anybody. I could just redo it and nobody would be none the wiser. But I felt like here I was more exposed, more vulnerable.

Roberta (03:36)
Right.

Hmm. Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

Sonia Hamlin (03:51)
I can see why when people have podcasts and they say, eventually you're gonna say something dumb. You're gonna say something that you regret. Because it is so true, you're doing so much talking in the moment that you're eventually gonna say something crazy. Like everything that I thought did not come out of my mouth in the way that I intended. Did you have any of those moments?

Roberta (03:56)
Yeah.

yeah, like

the first couple episodes, I told you, like I just had a certain comfort level of like me thinking it's just me and you, you know, on a Zoom or something. And I'm like, I kind of need to be mindful of what I say so that I'm not taking fully out of context because I was like, there's a level of understanding and a comfort that you know me and you know my character. And even if I say something that might be like slightly out of pocket in that moment, you have that like baseline.

Sonia Hamlin (04:32)
All

Yeah.

Roberta (04:37)
of like,

you know, trust in like, my whatever. So it's hard to, it was hard for me to speak from a place sometimes of being like fully authentic and honest and open, but having the understanding that the people listening to me don't necessarily have that and they might take something I say the wrong way.

Sonia Hamlin (04:40)
For sure.

Mm-hmm.

Exactly. I was like, wow, I was so carefully crafted before. like, I was like, I wonder if people think like, this person is completely different than the person I was, you know, when I really got to think through what I wanted to say and, you know, crafted in a certain way, crafted in what I would say is a more better, a better thought out. See, this is what happens when you're talking loud. You can't even get it out. ⁓

in a more crafted version of yourself. You're allowed to edit, you're allowed to do all these things, but I don't have that with you, which is exhilarating, but also very vulnerable, so

Roberta (05:36)
Yeah, there no solutions, only trade-offs, this saying I keep. I have two. One was the friendships episode, episode 78. ⁓

Sonia Hamlin (05:40)
Mm-mm. Yeah. So what was your favorite episode?

Mm-hmm. Why? Why that one?

That was a long one. We talked forever.

Roberta (05:53)
That was

a lot of that. think that was why, because it was just more of a conversation. We talked about like certain things that happened in our either recent or like long time ago. They're still impacting ourselves now. And like we were able to reflect each other in ways that like because we remember the person that was 10, 15 years ago and the things that happened and going on.

Sonia Hamlin (06:02)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Roberta (06:11)
So it was a lot of seeing myself and ourselves in that conversation, but also kind of like looking at outside perspectives at the same time. I don't know, it was just really interesting to me in a cerebral way that I like.

Sonia Hamlin (06:16)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Roberta (06:27)
episode 81 which was am I too grown for this which I just thought was funny it was fun

Sonia Hamlin (06:31)
Right. Yeah.

I really liked our lighthearted ones the most. I agree. I loved, one of my favorite things to do is laugh and joke around and talk. And so I'm going to say my favorite one was the anti-aging versus aging gracefully because I think we decided to record two podcasts in one day and one night and we were so loopy.

Roberta (06:37)
Yeah.

Yes, yes, yes, yes. Just punchy and like

whatever. Yeah.

Sonia Hamlin (07:02)
We did not care.

And just like I don't care right now, I'm gonna turn on my fan, because I'm sweating. I think I have like...

Roberta (07:10)
Not a Perry, not your friend Perry.

Sonia Hamlin (07:13)
First of

all, this is not Perry. This is like, it's hot in here, that's all. That's it. I don't know a Perry. I don't know nobody named Perry.

Roberta (07:16)
You

Sonia Hamlin (07:22)
So anti-aging, as I'm talking about my favorite podcast being anti-aging versus aging gracefully. Flicking on the fan. And then get somebody else to do it, which is episode 74, which is the first podcast we recorded together. I really like that one because it was so out of my comfort zone in what I talked about. But I think it was the, that was the episode I think that people felt the most

Roberta (07:33)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Sonia Hamlin (07:52)
that I got the most feedback about. It was fun to talk about. And I just liked it because it was just, you know, again, so far outside of what I probably would have pushed myself to do alone. So it was a good conversation too.

Roberta (08:03)
Yeah, that

was a good conversation. And actually that the topic of that episode is kind of a good segue for getting into what we're going to talk about today. All right. So this last episode is about living well as black women. And we're going to talk a lot about what has been coined the soft life and what that means and like if we're living that. So.

Sonia Hamlin (08:11)
Okay, let's do it.

Roberta (08:31)
I just want to put things in context. So in the last six months in this city, and I'm based in Washington DC, Lord help me, we have seen like mass layoffs and protests and freaking Snoop Dogg headlining a crypto ball here and most recently a military parade costing upwards of 45 million dollars to honor Big Baby's birthday.

Sonia Hamlin (08:38)
Yeah.

Not a big baby.

And it was a flop. It was a f-

Roberta (09:04)
There's a

f- but like this is just last six months and this is on top of already like one of the most disappointing elections in like the history that I have of voting and knowing about it. And so I say all that to say like it's I think it's really important to seek peace.

Sonia Hamlin (09:11)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Roberta (09:24)
and actively find peace and comfort in this chaotic world because the only thing that we seem to be able to control is ourselves and the amount of joy in our lives.

Sonia Hamlin (09:29)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I wanted to do this episode too because number one, think summer is a perfect time to reassess, to take a break, to slow down if you can, if you have the privilege of being able to do that. And so it's our last episode and it's definitely something that I want to leave people who listen to this podcast with.

You know, make sure you take care of yourself. But to that end, right, all of that things, all of the things that 45, 47 has been doing in the last six months, on top of that, we have a budding war, that has the potential to expand into something greater.

happening right now and it's like, what do you do? What do you do? So I was scrolling social media, I think it was last night, and I happened to pass this article on The Guardian. And when I say I felt seen, I felt like, I was like.

There's a word for this. There is a word to encapsulate what I've been feeling for the last six months since Donald Trump has been in office. And it was an article that really talked about these two parallel worlds that we're living in. One, where our governing systems are basically being destroyed And then there's this other parallel where you have to go on living your daily life.

You have to pick your kids up from school. You have to go to work. And you may never acknowledge or never talk about the fact that the thing that has kept our government, I'm not gonna say working, but sustained for all of our lives is crumbling before us, but we don't talk about it. And they call that hyper-normalization.

Roberta (10:57)
Yep.

Sonia Hamlin (11:15)
And that's exactly how I feel. I'm like, this is what I feel. I feel like when I go to work, we're talking about campaigns, we're talking about what we're gonna do in the next three years. And in the back of my mind, I'm like, is this gonna exist? And no.

Roberta (11:26)
Alright. What's for dinner?

Sonia Hamlin (11:35)
for dinner,

you say hyper normalization. Yes, are we going to Disney? You're like planning vacations. And it's like, okay. But it is this dichotomy. And I probably am more on sensitive side when it comes to being hyper aware of what's happening in the world because that kind of stuff appeals to me. And it's just hard for me to just go on normally.

Roberta (11:37)
Yeah.

Right. Yeah, I think that is happening with a lot of people. I think there might be two reasons for that. I think one reason is that we are experiencing some unprecedented times, some really crazy bat shit.

Sonia Hamlin (11:57)
Do do do do do, the world's not ending.

Roberta (12:15)
stuff and that is out of the ordinary and those things most of those things one we don't have control over it you know so there's nothing that we can do there's very little action that we can do to change that thing from happening

Sonia Hamlin (12:21)
Yeah.

Roberta (12:27)
So it's that part, I think, that is pulling our attention. But also, I think we've been conditioned, like trained, like literally, physically, our bodies in the kind of like scroll culture of like stories. So like on Instagram, like you literally could go from one story to the next. You can see Palestine and like some terrible shit going on there. And then you can have like puppies in your next story six seconds away. And like you're just having through all this stuff. TikTok, I mean, that is pretty much what the whole thing is. Platform is just like a whole bunch of

Sonia Hamlin (12:40)
Mm-hmm.

Yes. Yeah.

Roberta (12:57)
like stories. And so you're just, your brain and your emotions are like ping-ponging all over the place constantly. And so we've trained ourselves to be able to swipe to the next thing, which is good, but also like it's a coping mechanism. Like what are we, we're going to desensitize ourselves to the point where we're going to lose even more empathy than we're already lacking.

Sonia Hamlin (13:02)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

I was gonna say. Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. It is a, what can you do about it? To live in a constant state of awareness and vigilance is very, very tough to do, right? So what does a soft life look like in the era that we're living in now? how would you define the word soft life? It hasn't been around that long, but...

Roberta (13:47)
It hasn't. So when I looked it up, there's, okay, there's one thing of like what just how it's been branded in my brain of like what I think about when I hear it. But then there's also like actual trend of like, you know, this phrase being a thing and a definition. So wait, so first I'm gonna start with the definition. Soft life refers to a lifestyle characterized by comfort, ease and minimal stress.

Sonia Hamlin (13:53)
Mm-hmm. What?

Mm-hmm.

Roberta (14:09)
It's about prioritizing well-being, self-care, and finding joy in the everyday, often in contrast to the pressures of, quote unquote, hustle culture. And they're saying this concept originated in the Nigerian influencer community and gained popularity as a way to intentionally create a more relaxed and enjoyable existence. So yes, like those things is what...

Sonia Hamlin (14:22)
Mm-hmm.

Roberta (14:30)
You know, sure, soft life, but like what's been branded in my head is. ⁓

Black women specifically marrying older rich white men. Like if you have a soft life, like this is adjacent to the other phrase which.

Sonia Hamlin (14:40)
Okay. Wait a minute.

If you have a soft life,

is it due to the white man? Like, what, you married?

Roberta (14:53)
That's how it's been branded

in my brain because that's what I've seen so much on social media going back the last few years. But then there was a whole separate side movement of hard wigs, soft life.

Sonia Hamlin (15:04)
Wait a minute, hard wigs? I

missed that. What is that? What is a hard wig? These things don't seem to go together. Is that a part of the hyper normalization? What the heck? What? What?

Roberta (15:17)
It was...

need you to Google right now. Hard wig soft life Or go on Instagram. ma'am. Okay, so I think that is that part. Like that kind of labeling is what make me think of black woman, rich white man kind of thing.

Sonia Hamlin (15:25)
What?

thing.

Roberta (15:38)
But regardless, the notion, the underlying kind of like things that we just want to be treated nicely. We want peace, we want ease, we want comfort. And that those things, we are entitled to those things and we should pursue them.

Sonia Hamlin (15:55)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

To what end?

Roberta (16:05)
to our own comforts. To the point where we feel like we soft.

Sonia Hamlin (16:05)
Yeah.

To what end? Because that sounds great to me, but there is a part of me that's like, to what end are you living a life of ease and comfort and joy when you're in a world that's so tumultuous?

Roberta (16:32)
So okay, think yes, that is a very valid question. think, ⁓ well, one thing in like the whole soft life notion and peace and then there's other examples that are right. There's other, there's like that ministry who like emphasizes rest and resistance and all these things.

Sonia Hamlin (16:36)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Roberta (16:49)
I think there's value in that, that we can normalize that rest is just a necessary part of life and we don't view it as a vacation. And the thing that we can temporarily do to recharge ourselves so we can get back to what we were before, no. It should be normalized that soft life, shouldn't be a trend, it should just be a thing.

Sonia Hamlin (17:03)
Yeah.

I agree. I agree. think the term soft life is misleading. And I can see why it's kind of fading in the distance because it assumes that...

I feel like there is a sort of a privilege to having a soft life and that you don't have any problems, that you are just golden all the time. that's not really how life goes. Nobody's life is well There are people who definitely live a soft life in that way. But the majority of us don't have that luxury of living in that.

Roberta (17:43)
Right.

Sonia Hamlin (17:44)
But

at the same time, I do think that the soft life is, like you said, is a counter to hustle culture, sleep when you're dead kind of thing. That's the, but.

Roberta (17:57)
Right.

Sonia Hamlin (18:00)
I think what we gotta learn is how to combine the two. Yeah, and I feel like everybody's moving away from the term soft life. I don't know why, but I think for the world that we're living in now, people are saying, I'ma sit this one out. This is not our fight. Is that the new soft life? Like, this is not our fight.

Roberta (18:18)
Bye!

Sonia Hamlin (18:19)
It's not a soft life, it seems you're hearing that more so than you're hearing I'm over here living a soft life with my, you know, fan.

Roberta (18:29)
Right, I mean the context I've heard it like you, Softlife, is not in opposition to anything. It's not saying that I'm not gonna do this anymore or whatever, whatever. It's more like, no, I want someone to pamper me. I don't want to have to do anything. I don't want to work. I don't want to do these things. It's like my choice of to do these things. And it's more about that and more about agency and not wanting to participate in certain things.

Sonia Hamlin (18:36)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Alright.

Right, I was gonna say, it's not about avoidance of, is it about avoidance? Or is it, I was gonna say it's not about avoidance until you finished your last sentence and I was like, maybe it is about avoiding work. Avoiding the things that bring you discomfort and disease. Yeah.

Roberta (19:01)
So

Maybe, I mean, I could maybe see that, but for me, a soft life is, yeah, ease and comfort. And if I want to go volunteer and do something, then I'll do that. It's not laziness. It's, just need an extended, indefinite nap.

Sonia Hamlin (19:23)
Yeah.

Yes. Right.

Okay, I need an extended indefinite nap. So I think in the time that we're living in, like if you wanna live a soft life and however you define that, look, I feel like people can go and define. At the end of the day though, I feel like we need to balance living that soft life to also being an engaged citizen and how do we...

Roberta (19:37)
I just need to rest.

Yeah.

Sonia Hamlin (19:59)
you know, make room for both. How do we make room to be soft and also be engaged to be able to fight for the country that we want to live in? It's...

Roberta (20:11)
Yeah.

Sonia Hamlin (20:12)
In a lot of ways, they can be opposing concepts, right? They can be opposing because the urgency in which things happen in the world, people getting kidnapped off the street, there's Israel dropping bombs, nuclear conversations happening. Those are all interrupting what we would consider a soft life. And so there's always this pushback

Roberta (20:37)
Wait.

Sonia Hamlin (20:37)
and pull of being engaged doesn't have a stamp on it. It doesn't come when it's convenient for you. It just kind of happens. And so I think that's what makes it hard to try to maintain these two things.

Roberta (20:54)
Yeah, I completely agree. think there's one stance of, know, it could be selfish for you to choose yourself and to choose rest and all these things. It might be, but I'm no good in the fight. I'm no good in the resistance, if I haven't rested.

Sonia Hamlin (21:03)
Mm-hmm.

Correct. Right, you're burnt

the heck out, right? If you're burnt out, I do. And I think we have to, I think what I'm learning in this time period in listening to other people, particularly around black people, I think black people have a unique...

know, perspective about this. And I'll even go as far as to say black women have a unique perspective about this because...

there's so much that we already carry, right? There's so much, I think back in our, in my favorite episode, you know, where we talked about, you know, just living in this new world with, you know, Trump in office, I said that like black women tend to be the conscious of the country because we know that anything that happens is going to negatively affect us almost double than what it does somebody else. And so,

Roberta (22:00)
Yeah.

Sonia Hamlin (22:01)
we're constantly looking out for what's in the best interest of everybody else, which is ultimately in the best interest of ourselves. And so we just have this unique experience with being engaged. Like we put our bodies, not we, but our parents, our grandparents, put their literal bodies on the line to...

Roberta (22:18)
Yeah.

Sonia Hamlin (22:21)
put all of these civil rights act into place to get us to where we are and people are literally undoing it as we speak. ⁓ And forgive us if we don't want to run out there and be like, you know what, we're gonna do that again. We're gonna do that again. ⁓ Because now, you know, I was gonna say this time, but this time they come up for everybody. you think it's, hey.

Roberta (22:31)
Yeah.

Right.

Sonia Hamlin (22:48)
Thumbs up, you agree? You think it's just us, but ultimately it's coming for everybody. And so I do think to some degree we get to pick and choose how we want to be a part of this movement, because it's gonna take everybody, so.

Roberta (22:50)
you

Yeah, yeah, think one piece of this is maybe to not necessarily put them in opposing contexts. So instead of saying, okay, like, well, we have to choose one or the other. can't do both at the same time. Perhaps they're way, you know, that both can be accomplished. can be engaged citizens who enjoys a soft life. But.

Sonia Hamlin (23:12)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Roberta (23:26)
So I think that requires a level of reflection on your values and seeing how you can design a life where care for yourself and for the world has some overlap and they reinforce each other.

Sonia Hamlin (23:29)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, there's definitely things

that, different ways that resistance look like. Like it can be boycotting Target. It could be boycotting Target, Walmart, and Amazon, right? It's like pick your own adventure. You could be the level of your capacity, yeah.

Roberta (23:47)
Right,

Well, the level of your capacity and that again, I think that

ties in with your with the soft life.

Sonia Hamlin (23:57)
Yeah, I think that's

so good. Like the level of your capacity is so true because again, like they always say, you can't pour from an empty cup. And so you can't give what you don't have to give. that's why I think what's so nice about everybody working in their own capacity, in their own way, because that allows us to pick up when somebody needs to rest. So you're doing this over here, okay, you're resting, I'm doing this over here. I'm gonna read this different book and educate you

Roberta (24:06)
Yes.

Sonia Hamlin (24:26)
Let's all read the same book. Let's all give back to the local communities that we're in so that people who are closest to us in our neighborhoods don't have to suffer as much. Or they're not suffering as much as they could under, I was gonna say a regime, but under an administration that doesn't give a crap about them. again, many ways to...

to look at how you're engaging with people. I like the idea of what you said about making sure you encompass both, because I think it's the joy, it's the ease that makes you feel energized to wanna go back and fight the good fight.

Roberta (25:01)
Yeah. ⁓

Yeah, yeah, because you're choosing to and it's more of a choice versus I have to do this thing.

Sonia Hamlin (25:15)
Yeah, and honestly I feel like if you don't have those pockets of ease, joy, rest, it just makes you more like the enemy. It makes you bitter. Mean.

Roberta (25:24)
Yeah, yeah, and again, not even pockets,

but just have a level of like, can live your day-to-day life and have enough of that that you feel full and sustained, of rest.

Sonia Hamlin (25:35)
Exactly.

Roberta (25:37)
So a couple things we talked about was ways to incorporate a soft life that you both deserve and can afford and with time and or money. So one thing was letting go, letting go of the things that don't serve you. So material items, but also habits and people.

Sonia Hamlin (25:42)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Roberta (25:56)
eliminating some of the news and the potential overwhelm. think letting go of certain things will bring you more into that softness, into that ease and that peace.

Sonia Hamlin (26:01)
Yeah.

Yeah, think, know, like I said, we had a podcast about the soft life and all of those things. One of the things that I think everybody should brush up on before you kind of enter the soft life, because you want something that is sustainable, that you can maintain over the long run. And in order to do that,

I feel like you gotta have the right boundaries in place. So I always recommend that book, Set Boundaries, Find Peace by Nedra Tawab. I think that's her name. But that's definitely the name of the book.

Roberta (26:35)
Okay.

Sonia Hamlin (26:38)
But it's such a good read on how to set boundaries around your family members, around, which is probably the most important, your work. It does a really good job of helping you establish those boundaries for you to, in order for you to maintain the peace that you are seeking, there has to be boundaries, because people gonna try you.

They gonna try you, okay? Like even the people that love you the most are going to try you. so having, knowing when to say no, knowing when to say yes to things, yes to yourself, super important. You can't do that though if you're gonna feel guilty about it two seconds later.

Roberta (27:05)
Yeah.

Yeah, that's why you gotta fully embrace, fully embrace the softness of your piece.

Sonia Hamlin (27:23)
Fully embrace it.

Don't ask me why I sang that, I'm sorry.

Roberta (27:26)
Nice little jingle.

Sonia Hamlin (27:30)
Sorry. So to be examples, we're going to be examples. What are you doing this summer to lean into? Yeah. Your soft era, your softness, to lean into softness.

Roberta (27:33)
Yes. Yes. My soft, my soft life. soft life era.

What would venture to say? I have a pretty soft life. I don't want to say cushy, but I mean, I, it's pretty drama free. Um.

Sonia Hamlin (27:47)
You do have a pretty cushy life. You do. It's pretty cushy. Yeah. Yeah.

Roberta (27:57)
Yeah, no, summer, I can't believe summer is here, like here, here, not even like spring, but summer. So the good thing about my job, many good things about my job, but one of the good things is that, so I'm currently hybrid, and July and August, we're fully remote, so I feel like I get my wings back. So,

Sonia Hamlin (28:00)
Mm-hmm.

Roberta (28:17)
What I would love to do, what I could absolutely see myself doing is spending a couple weeks, two or three weeks in working from Italy or south of France. no, a soft life would mean somebody else is paying for it, like there's somebody gonna flewed me out. It's just, that's a real soft life. No, the ability to do it is a privilege, it's a blessing. But anyway.

Sonia Hamlin (28:25)
This is why you have a self life currently, but go ahead. Yes. Would be living there.

Mm-hmm.

Roberta (28:38)
That's what I would love to do. Have I planned anything? No. So I'll likely be here in DC and or West Grove, Pennsylvania.

Sonia Hamlin (28:39)
Mm-hmm.

Is it

Italy or bust or is it south of France or bust or can you work from Mexico? Can you work from Spain? Can you work from Virginia Beach?

Roberta (28:53)
Look, give me a laptop.

I'm there, I'm logged on. No, it can be anywhere. I didn't want to go anywhere that was too hot. mean July and August are hot months in most places. Well.

Sonia Hamlin (29:01)
okay.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, and expensive.

Yeah. I'm sure you'll figure it out. I will, yeah, you will be... you know what? We didn't even say your wine today. What are you drinking? What are you drinking? ⁓ What is it? Bubbles? What kind of bubbles? Champagne.

Roberta (29:13)
I'll figure it out. You'll open Instagram and I'll be on some beach somewhere. ⁓ And I have bubbles to celebrate our last episode.

So this, okay, this is one of

the, no, this is sparkling wine from California. One of the fun things about actually working in the wine industry, especially retail, is that you could, you do wine, you do tastings. so people, distributors, makers, just give you wine, taste it, see if you wanna sell it. So this is what this is. This is my first time having it. It's actually,

Sonia Hamlin (29:42)
Mm-hmm.

Do you wanna sell it?

Roberta (29:54)
I I could, I need to talk to my business partner. It's in a can, so.

Sonia Hamlin (29:56)
Oh, it's in a can. I

can't see it because you have your fuzzies on, but bring it closer. Okay, come on, influencer. There you go.

Roberta (30:01)
doing my influencer thing.

Boom,

focus. Okay. But now this is Los Cuernos. This is a Brute Bubbles. California, what grape is this? That's one of the first things I always try to look for. What grape? I'm not finding a grape. Wait, what is this? Yeah, womp womp. That might be a hindrance. But anyway, I'm drinking Bubbles.

Sonia Hamlin (30:11)
Mm-hmm.

I just had the dumbest thought. I just had a thought.

I was like, why don't they make wine out of other fruits? Do they?

Roberta (30:38)
Yeah, wine, mean, sake. I mean other things. Yes, there's honey, well that's not a fruit either, honey wine.

Sonia Hamlin (30:40)
That's not a fruit.

Like what's similar to a, mm,

okay. Like an apple.

Roberta (30:51)
That's a cider, like a beer.

Sonia Hamlin (30:52)
⁓

okay, well I guess they do, okay. Like a strawberry. Strawberry doesn't have a lot of juice to it though.

Roberta (31:00)
There's a pawpaw wine, but I think it's mixed, it's like a hybrid, it's like a mix with grapes, like grape juice. Yeah, I've seen a lot of things blended.

Sonia Hamlin (31:07)
Mm.

Blend it but no,

hmm, maybe there's a market there. I'm gonna take this thing that was thousands of years old and I'm gonna flip it on its ear. Well anyway, well, thanks for having bubbles.

Roberta (31:14)
haven't had all the wines. Right, I mean, there's...

All right. Anywho, summer.

Yes, I will celebrate our last episode of the season. So, yeah, that's my summer plans. That's how I'm going to kind of soften up my life. What are you doing this summer?

Sonia Hamlin (31:29)
Mm-hmm.

Well, I thought you'd never ask. So I am having what I am calling an analog summer. Analog, I'm going back, back. I'm going back because I, so analog summer to me doesn't mean I'm dressing in 80s gear because, know, it's not necessary to do that. But I wanna log off more.

Roberta (31:43)
Hmm?

Okay, you're gonna dress in the 80s gear? does that mean?

you

You

Sonia Hamlin (32:02)
I want to log off of social media more. I even want to take a break from my beloved podcast more. I'm an avid listener. I love listening to all kinds of things. I'm actually listening to this podcast about the death of this lady who lived in Georgetown. She was a painter. Anyway, and she was having an affair with JFK and she ended up murdered on the Georgetown towpath. Anyway, I'm listening to that.

Roberta (32:09)
Yeah

What? All right, you gotta

send me that one.

Sonia Hamlin (32:32)
I,

and it's by, what's her name? She was a reporter on CNN. shoot.

Anyway, so I just want to take a break from listening to podcasts, being, definitely being on social media because social media, God, it's like a double edged sword. First of all, it's a time suck. You go on there and you're like, I'm gonna do one thing. And then 20 minutes later, you look up, murder on the tow path with Soledad O'Brien. That's the name of it. Yeah.

Roberta (32:44)
Yeah.

Also with dad so raw

Sonia Hamlin (33:03)
Anyway,

it's also, it's not just about her having an affair with the president. It's also about an attorney who represented the guy. Of course they blamed it on a black man. said of course. They blamed it on a black man. A black man. And his defense attorney was a black woman at the time. So anyway, it's very, it's good. I'm going to take a break from them. I'm gonna take a break and I'm going back to my first love, which is books.

Roberta (33:22)
huh?

Mm-hmm.

Sonia Hamlin (33:30)
Actual books with pages, yes. So I just, love, I picked up audiobooks when I set this goal for myself a few years ago to read 50 books in a year. In order to do that, I had to, I switched to audiobooks, and I was very anti-audiobook at the time. But I switched, because I was like, anyway, I'm gonna be able to read 50 books if I can only read when I'm sitting down.

Roberta (33:31)
Books, pages.

Yeah. ⁓

Sonia Hamlin (33:52)
⁓ with

a reading light and that's the only thing I'm doing. So I picked up audiobooks, read the 50 books, and I just continued to read audiobooks because I can listen when I'm walking, while I'm washing dishes, I could do so many other things. And so I decided to get back to reading books because it will slow me down.

Roberta (34:04)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now I have audio. Yeah.

Sonia Hamlin (34:12)
It is something that I gotta slow down to do. I have to find the time to do. I enjoy it. actually, this is actually, I've already started that. I read Kennedy Ryan's book that's out now. My memory. Look, if I did know Perry, if I did know Perry.

Roberta (34:17)
Yeah.

She

is sitting right next to you.

Sonia Hamlin (34:35)
If I

did know her, she would be taking my memory. Because I can't remember anything. I can't remember anything right now, even the last book I read.

Roberta (34:43)
You know, I don't even think that that I think that

might just be a just general age thing because my homeboy over this weekend, oh my God, he could not remember a thing. Like literally, there was like in each conversation, like at least one thing that he could not remember.

Sonia Hamlin (34:55)
Yeah.

So before I like, can't get enough, can't get enough, child, I read that. It was so good, but to get back into the act of reading a book, it's a whole thing. It's like, you have to get your imagination involved. You have to think about, it's just a, I was a little rusty. I was surprised. I'm like, I'm a little rusty because the story is not being told to me in the authors, in the way that the author would have me have them, right, in their voice.

Roberta (35:03)
Yeah.

Yeah, Like literal voice, yeah.

Sonia Hamlin (35:24)
and sometimes they have sound effects nowadays, Child is a whole Production. But I was a little rusty at it, but at the end of that book, I just felt very energized, like I wanted to read more. So I'm going back to reading. I'm reading Octavia Butler's, the next one is Kindred, which is, and then I'm reading another, look, I said I wanna live a soft life, but I feel like I'm setting myself up.

Roberta (35:35)
Okay.

Okay.

Sonia Hamlin (35:50)
I'm have to mix maybe a little romance

Roberta (35:51)
You're an engaged citizen.

Sonia Hamlin (35:54)
in between these two or something to break it up. So that's one. Getting back to reading books. The other thing I'm doing is getting back to writing. I recently took a five hour writing course just to kind of jump start your creative writing. Loved it. And it just made me want to tap into that again. So I will be journaling more. I will be looking for another.

Roberta (36:02)
Okay.

Sonia Hamlin (36:16)
writing class to take. I know AI is out here taking everybody's job and making it easier, but for me, I feel like there will always, I don't feel like AI could really capture what an author can do, and maybe that's a challenge to me. I will eat these words probably in 25, wait, according to them, 10 years, 15 years, but there's something about writing that I love and that...

Roberta (36:17)
Okay.

Yeah.

Sonia Hamlin (36:39)
I don't do as often, so I'm gonna do that. So that is my analog summer. I have a beach vacation coming up where that's what I plan to do. What do mean now? I know you're not talking.

Roberta (36:43)
Okay.

Where you going now?

Didn't you just get back from Belize?

Sonia Hamlin (36:50)
Yeah, but that was a long time, yes. But my family didn't go. They need something to do. We're going to the Outer Banks. And so that's what I'm doing. It's gonna be chill. We don't have too much planned. I'm going to see Beyonce in Houston. But other than that, I just look forward to coming home, not editing a podcast.

Roberta (36:55)
okay.

This reminds me of Unplugged Sundays where I used to do when used to live in Philly.

Sonia Hamlin (37:15)
Mmm.

Mm-hmm.

Roberta (37:19)
When I was in Philly we had unplugged Sundays so basically from Sun up to Sun down I did not have any kind of phone like nothing on the phone nothing No TV. Yeah, no TV. No Right. It was just completely analog and I would always end the evening like this. I would go to this one Sun set Yoga class and it was candlelit

Sonia Hamlin (37:23)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

Dang, sun up to sun down? You taking it to another level.

That's so you. And

I don't know if I'm taking it that far, but I do like the idea of unplugging for a day, right? And first of all, I would just love to unplug for a day and just read an entire book. Like get through the whole book from cover to cover. Like leave me alone, that's all I wanna do. Like if I could do that, then it would, I could definitely do that and not wanna get online. The book is really good.

Roberta (38:07)
Yeah, well, what you got to set yourself up?

Sonia Hamlin (38:09)
I do, think I may take that. I think I may take that. Look, I don't know if it's every Sunday. We'll work my way up, I mean.

Roberta (38:14)
Yeah. Actually, and honestly,

after doing it for, I think I just did it for a summer. I did get the Sunday scaries less.

Sonia Hamlin (38:23)
You should do it with me.

Roberta (38:26)
Let's do it. I think I posted this on Facebook, like, or somewhere, like, I don't know. This is like two years ago. I know, I know. I think I posted it, I was like, anybody wanna do it with me? And I think one of the person did and we never did it. yes, let's do it. That's all that matters. So yeah, so we can start doing it. I don't know how we hold each other accountable because we can't text each other.

Sonia Hamlin (38:29)
Girl, I check my Facebook. You're not even on Facebook anymore.

It's okay, social media thinks you did, and that's all that matters.

What do you mean? You could call. Wait, okay, what are the rules? What are the rules? What did I sign up for?

Roberta (38:54)
Unplugged, no. So okay, well, when I did it, when I did it,

it was completely like, I did not even like have phone conversations or any kind of contact with like another human being unless I interacted with them in person. Well, no, but it encouraged me to like make plans before Sunday to meet a friend in person. Like I was more intentional because I was like, okay, well, if I know I'm not gonna be able to call this person on Sunday, let me make plans with them to meet for coffee.

Sonia Hamlin (39:07)
that's too far. That's too far. Nobody's doing all that.

Roberta (39:22)
So I already know I have that baked in, which will mean a certain time. and. No, that no, I was trying to be more mindful and intentional, like, yes, about my daily actions, but also it's more about like my connections to people and kind of in a way forcing myself to have more in-person interactions. And it really helped like it really helped.

Sonia Hamlin (39:26)
So you were trying to isolate yourself. intentional about, right.

Mm-hmm.

That's lovely,

but I don't wanna go that far.

I don't wanna go that far. I only wanna go as far to say no social media, no podcast, no YouTube. That's my other new love, YouTube, outta nowhere. You gotta find shows. You gotta find shows. It's like podcasts, really, too.

Roberta (40:02)
can't, I don't.

I don't need another thing

that's gonna like absorb all my time.

Sonia Hamlin (40:11)
Well,

here's the thing. I don't watch TV as much anymore. I don't watch the news. I used to watch CNN. Now I listen to independent journalists on

Roberta (40:14)
more TV.

My blood pressure.

You're such a nerd. You and your books and your independent journalists.

Sonia Hamlin (40:26)
I listen to independent

journalists on. But it's so good. was so, anyway, I was so proud of them. I'm like, they're trying to mimic, like, I mean, they're never gonna be as polished as CNN because they don't have the staff and the money, but they do a good job. I said, I trust these people, and they're a lot less, you know, stuffy. But I can't, I can't turn on mainstream media because it's just, it's awful. So, yes.

Roberta (40:31)
Okay.

Sure.

No.

So, okay,

so this summer we're gonna have more analog, more, again, soft life, chill time, resting. Oh, we sound so old. Couple years ago, I might, but this is gonna be hot girl summer. Yeah.

Sonia Hamlin (40:56)
Chill time, more time outside for me, more walks, yes.

No, no,

no, I can't even get my knees to, no. Sitting too long. Just sitting for these little 45 minutes, right? I know I'm pay for it when I stand up. Who am I to sit down for 45 minutes straight?

Roberta (41:18)
You

said who are you to sit down? Okay, and on this episode of grown and growing, two old broads signing off. We'll be back, we'll be back in the fall. In my season, I'm a Libra, somewhere in there.

Sonia Hamlin (41:27)
Yeah. Signing off. When are we going to sign back on, Roberta? When are we signing back on? In the fall.

that means, but yes. Okay, we're signing back on in the fall. New episodes, we're gonna try to do, well, look, we don't know what we're gonna do, because we're gonna be so rested, the ideas are just gonna flow. So, we will see you in the fall.

Roberta (41:50)
Stay tuned. Right? We might just...

In the meantime, like check out our past episodes this season. Check out our faves.

Sonia Hamlin (42:01)
Please, yes, we will still be promoting those

on our social media sites. We will still be promoting those.

Roberta (42:08)
Stay tuned.

Sonia Hamlin (42:09)
Thank you guys for watching and listening and we will see you next time.