Forgiveness Part II
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Oh, it's the Jan Arden Podcast and Show. And it's season two, episode 100 and... It's episode 32 of season two. Episode 32 of season two. Welcome. It is a beautiful sunny day here in Calgary. I'm here with Sarah Burke. Welcome, everyone. Thank you once again for joining us. You might be listening on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your favorite podcasts.

How are you, Sarah? I like how you have sunshine. Here in Toronto, it has been pouring rain all day. Lots of thunderstorms. I kind of like a good storm though. So aside from my hair getting wet, I'm fine. Nobody feels sorry for you. Okay. You know, Toronto is basking in the sun like in May and June, and we're getting snow in the prairies often in May. True. We can get snow in August. True.

Anyway, enough of the weather talk. There's lots of things going on in the world. But I did want to address last week's show, we talked about forgiveness. I was sharing stories about my brother and getting a birthday card stuck in my gate and, you know, just feeling so conflicted about how to have some kind of a relationship that doesn't negatively impact me or somehow...

that I don't feel like it's taking away. Anyway, you can listen to last week's if you want to get the recap. How do you feel? I feel good. I haven't done anything yet. I haven't written a letter. I'm going to write a letter. I'm absolutely going to write a letter. I texted with him a little bit. He's got a job. That's exciting. He got a really cool job that he's very excited about. And he's traveling around to all these small little towns in Southern Alberta. And

And I'm really happy for him. And it's amazing when people find purpose, when people are finding their way back to their own lives, especially after being incarcerated for a long time or maybe in a long bad marriage or a long relationship or a job that they haven't. When you find your way back to your passions and what you want to do, all of a sudden they're not so reliant on you. You're not getting...

phone calls and you're not getting, you're not the person that's the center block in their world. They discover that there's life out there. So yeah, I think what I was curious about, Sarah, is I know that we had some people and we asked people this week to write us, to leave us voicemails, to drop us a note on how the conversation was

played out in their lives if it triggered, you know, oh gosh, I'm dealing with that with my old brother-in-law or a friend of mine. And we were just curious to see what your responses were. And did you get anything, Sarah? Oh, we got lots. We got lots. So let's start with some tweets. Okay. Stacey...

had two things here and I was floored by both of these comments. I took time to think about both of these things. So Stacey says, I've always been fascinated by how it's so easy to forgive someone when they're no longer alive. My mom always said when they're dead, they're saints. Why is it harder to forgive someone that's still with us? Interesting point, Stacey. Well, yeah. When someone passes away...

You know, I've sat at many funerals and going, are we talking about the same guy here? Yeah. Because I think your past is somehow, it just evaporates. We are more forgiving when people aren't here anymore. I mean, all the stuff, don't speak ill of the dead. Right, right, right. There's so many things that are ingrained in us socially.

that you don't want to go to a wake and suddenly start hurling bombs around the room of how crappy this person was. Reader's second one, yeah. How does one get over the idea that in order to heal, one needs the offender to say they're sorry?

Someone I know, not me or anything, requires validation for their feelings, mostly from the people I love the most. Wait, they're the ones they love the most. Why is this? Why are you trying to hurt my brain? Stacey. But it's a good point. And I mean, I talked about a friendship on last week's show, but I was thinking about a professional relationship where honestly, like an apology would mean the world to me for something I'm still thinking about from over a year ago.

And I just have to somehow find peace in knowing I will never get that apology. It's a hard thing. Is that the same realm as forgiveness? I don't know. I guess it's in the same family. I guess it's the neighbor next door apologizing for some kind of transgression. Those are really, really great questions, Stacey. And obviously, Sarah and I are being very little help to you because I think you have to just decide what you need.

And I don't think what you need should ever be based on what another person can give you. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

I think if you need something that another person has to give you, I mean, anyway, we're not helping you, Stacey, but thanks for writing those questions. Next. Yeah, we got to ponder that further, I think. So Russ Richards, I mean, he's one of our most loyal listeners. He said, please see my pinned tweet. He says it's about his father and he thanked you for sharing so much about your difficult situation, saying that he faced something similar and he decided he could not forgive. Listen, that's up to the person, I guess, if you're going to forgive or not.

If it doesn't affect you adversely, Russ?

Whether you forgive somebody or not, if you can carry on with your life and throw your shoulders back and not feel that you're somehow being stolen from, good on you. And I totally respect that. Here's one from Pauline. How do you forgive someone who hurts someone you love? So like you're kind of a little further removed from the situation. She goes, I hate this person. It makes it really hard. I don't hate anybody. I know what you mean, Pauline. And I don't think you can do anything. I think that's between...

your friend and the individual. But that's why forgiveness is this word, we kind of throw it out there and it really is such a blanket statement about how we feel we need to be recognized for being done wrong. We just need people to go, listen, I know I did something bad to you and

I'm really sorry. And then it's on you to go, okay, you're going to forgive them or not forgive them, Sarah? Like, I don't know. I think some people just hold that in their pocket like it's some kind of a tool of destruction. When someone does apologize to you in earnest,

And there's lots of people that do this, that you defiantly stand there and you don't accept their apology. That's fine. You're apologizing, but I will never forgive you for stealing my man or, you know, running over the dog.

I will never forgive you. So I think forgiveness, and I thought about this after last week's show, is completely different for everybody. It means something different. It signifies something different. It feels like something different. I know what it means to me, and I thought about that afterwards. I would never impose forgiveness.

that on anyone. But I do know if you go through your life holding grudges and thinking that by being mad at somebody for 20 years is going to hurt that person, I will say this again, it's not going to do anything to them. It's going to unravel you and it's going to hurt your life. That's what we need to figure out. I think Kelly almost touches on what you were just saying here. So this one's from Instagram, Kelly Williams.

Forgiveness is a tough word. I have landed on release as my word. It means more to me that way. It releases me from the bonds that tie me to that person or situation while visually seeing it float away.

much more palatable and true to the nature of what the word forgiveness tries to accomplish. By the way, this podcast has seen our whole family through the pandemic and Jan specifically has been with me since her beginning. She has seen me through so many heartaches, loves and confusing times forever grateful. That's a nice message. Thanks, Kelly. Well, thank you. Thank you, Kelly. You know, that sums it up. So whatever it is to you, release. To Kelly, it's releasing someone. I release you from any expectations.

So I don't expect anybody to forgive me or I love that. That's given me something to think about, Kelly, for sure. And then this is the... Oh, we've got more. There's actually more than this. We just can't get to them all. But keep the comments coming. This is a conversation we'll continue. Don't worry.

Yeah, yeah. Donita says, love the episode. So transparent and vulnerable. And thank you. Tough one for sure. I've been learning that protecting my soul is important. It isn't about the other person. It isn't my place to take on and wear their stuff. Lord knows I have enough of my own. It's my choice to speak my own truth from a clean place and then to let it go. I actually let a helium balloon go one time to watch the energy just float into the sky. So maybe it's not a letter for you. Maybe it's a balloon. Well, let's please not make it balloons.

Oh, yes. For the environment. Yeah. They're not good for the environment, but I get it. Metaphorically. Yes. You know, a lot of people will write things onto a piece of paper, you know, at a bonfire in their backyard and they will burn the things that they don't want in their lives. That's a better way for the environment. Yeah. And, you know, you just write it down, you throw it in the fire and it's done with.

I think when you stay in the moment and live in the moment, you have a better chance of not living, looking over your shoulder all the time. And especially with yourself. For me, what that conversation triggered with you last week was I'm responsible for how I live.

go about my day and, and I'm responsible for what I choose to carry. And Kelly touched on that. I am responsible for how I react to how people treat me. I am responsible.

So when you put the onus on other people, like I was saying earlier, if you expect to get better or feel better or feel recognized by what other people are going to give you, then you're missing the point because it's all inside of you. I know easier said than done. It sounds really esoteric and kind of like I sleep under a pyramid and, and, you know, have an oxygen tank beside my bed and like,

chew on rainbows, but it really is all about how you perceive yourself and what you expect from other people. And if they don't, if other people aren't giving you what you need, walk on.

The response to this show last week, to this podcast last week has just been overwhelming. And we've still got messages that we want to read for you. We think it warrants us exploring, because a lot of you, you want to be heard. Did we get any voicemail, Sarah? I love how Jan's calling it voicemail. It's a voice note. It's a voice note. It's a voice note. You just wait till you're 41. Yeah.

So I want listeners to know that they can send us their voice. You know the same way in your iPhone you can send a voice note and a text message? You can do that in Instagram. So open at Jan Arden Pod. Open a message. There's a little microphone that you can send us your voice telling a story. Our very first voice note on this topic is Sarah. Sarah with an H. I'm just going to play it for us, okay? Okay.

Hi, Sarah and Jan. My name is also Sarah with an H, the only true way to spell it. I loved your talk on forgiveness and I wanted to say that I've been reflecting on how forgiveness doesn't always mean that you make up with the person and everything's okay and you carry on having a relationship. Sometimes it's just

accepting that whatever's going on with that person, whatever that person did or didn't do, doesn't really have anything to do with you and letting them move on with their life and you move on with your life and just kind of wishing them the best. And yeah, how it's not always so warm and fuzzy, but forgiveness is, it still exists even if it's just, you know, you going your own separate ways. So that was my thought.

And thank you for sharing both of your stories. I think it's so true. Really good point, Sarah, with an H, which is the only way to spell it. I think at the end of the day, you just want peace. You don't want to live... I don't want to live with angst. And my whole point about talking about my brother last week is it bothers me a lot. It keeps me up at night thinking about...

how I can do it differently, react differently, how I can just find a place where it's a soft place for him and for me, that it's without contention. That's what I'm struggling with. I just don't quite know how to facilitate that. You know, we talked about writing a letter that you may or may not ever send, but I got to deal with it. I got to sort it out. Now, if you can go through your life and things don't bother you, they don't keep you up, that you don't give a crap,

That's good too. That you don't, you know, if it, if things don't bother you, if there's people out there that you've had battles with or fights with or an old workmate or whatever, but I know for a fact, I have friends that are divorced that are to this day. And this is like 20 years later are so bitter and still talking shit about the guy or the woman. And they're still talking shit about it. And every time you go for coffee or get together, uh,

I have an old friend from school and I literally don't spend very much time with her because I cannot take the gossip. I can't, I just can't listen to it. And so I've just backed up, backed up, less phone calls, less everything. It's like a dark cloud, right? That follows you around and then it starts impacting your other relationships. But everybody's done her wrong.

And I hear the same story. So I don't want to inundate people with the same story about my brother and, you know, what should I do about it? I need to be proactive. It's only been a week. And I hope that next week when we're speaking, that I can tell you guys that, yes, I have written a letter. I'm actually going to be going away, but we'll be doing the podcast. My computer and my mic is coming with me. Everything's coming with me.

we actually might be doing the podcast from Iceland next week. So that'll be interesting. So I think we'll concentrate more on that next week, but yeah. So thank you. Thank you for writing that, Sarah. I get it. It's, it's really important. Obviously a big topic for us. I didn't expect to have the kind of response that we did have, but yeah, I'm glad it's, it's opened some doors and some windows for,

for all of us to think about what it is and what it means. I got one more here from Sheila. Let's see what you think. Let's do it. When I listened to Jan talk about her brother, it really brought home how I had to put distance between my sister and myself when our parents were sick. Parents being sick is so hard. Dad with cancer, at the same time, mom with Alzheimer's. God.

My sister would not deal with it, so between my husband and I, we became their POAs, their caregivers, even though we lived in Calgary, dad in Saskatoon, mom in Ottawa. I had to eventually move mom to Calgary with her Alzheimer's, even though more family in Regina and only me and my husband were in Calgary.

It took about a year after mom's passing. My sister and I started connecting more. It's not a close relationship, but I had to let the anger go and move on as a family. But I could not deal with her while they were alive as it made me angry.

She never, ever said sorry to me in her total hands-off approach. You know, in this case, Sheila, if I'm being honest, like I want her to thank you. You know what I mean? Like for her to acknowledge all the work you did. She says, I have not totally forgiven her, but we moved on. We are family. We love each other. And, you know, it's better for our nieces and nephews if we proceed this way. She makes a good point. You have to consider the people around you.

Especially if you're not forgiving a partner or a sister with a situation like that, when your kids are involved, so they miss out on their aunt, they miss out on that relationship, your crap shouldn't affect other people. At some point, you do have to decide to lay down your arms and

and and move on and i'm glad they're finding their way back and i think i can do that with with my brother my sister just had her wedding shower and i got something that kind of goes with this conversation here you want to hear what i thought you were an only child yeah we've gone over this we've gone over this there's gonna be lots of stories about my sister over the next few months because uh yeah it's just the two of us okay i can't wait she's getting hitched so

On my dad's side of the family, there's seven siblings, okay? So big family. And there's three girls. My dad is very close with two of the sisters, one of them not so much. So they're all invited to the shower, of course. I'm sitting there catching up with everyone and whatever. At one point...

When the aunt who threw the shower for my sister came down to where this particular aunt was sitting to say hi to everyone, she turned her back physically because of a grudge. Your family's going to be listening to this. I would love for this aunt to hear that because at an event where you're celebrating something, by turning your back on your sister, look at how it affects the other things going on in your life. Yes, that's what I'm telling you. You've got to think how it's not just me.

Now it's your sister's frickin' little gathering. Yeah. Supposed to be a happy time to celebrate her nuptials. And you're doing the old back turn. I mean, that's just so... It's childish. It's...

It's unfortunate. It's unnecessary. It's all the uns. All the uns. I know. Unkind. It tells you, though, that there's something going on inside that made her uncomfortable in that moment. Will they ever sort it out? Or is this going to be 25 effing years of this?

Of turning your back, of ignoring. And it started when Bubby, the grandmother, their mother, passed away. And it's been like this for, I think it's got to be six, seven, eight years. Yeah, it gets really ugly. But my point is that if you're at the point that you feel at a celebration, like you need to behave this way, I think there's something inside you need to look in the face. Well, I'll tell you right now.

No matter what has transpired between my brother and I, I would never be in a room with him and do that. So shame on you. It's just not right. Grow up, be cordial, and act like a responsible human being. I would go up to my brother and give him a big hug.

There's no hatred there or I don't despise him in any way. I love my brother. I don't always love his decisions. And I'm a pain in the ass too. I'm sure I'm a huge pain in the ass. I can be really quite judgmental. I can be quite hard on him.

You know, I expect so much from him. And the guy's broken in a million pieces. He's been sitting in a jail cell for so long. I have no idea what he's been through. I can only even imagine. But to be in a room, I would throw my arms around my brother and give him a hug and sit down and offer him something to drink. You want a sandwich? You want a piece of cake?

That's what I would do no matter what. That's not the time. That's not the place. Exactly. Get it together. That makes me mad. In wrapping up our conversation about forgiveness today too, I thought of this question last week. I wish I asked you this question last week. I was curious. Do you think your brother has read your books? Yeah. I don't know if he's read the latest one. I don't know if he's ever read If I Knew Then. Yeah.

I've written songs about him over the years, and he always feels so blue about it. There's a song called Hanging by a Thread that was written about my brother. And it was inspired by something my mom said when we were shuffling out of the jail, one of our hundreds and hundreds of visits to the jail. It was cold. I remember the wind blowing and us staggering over to the visitor parking lot, which was about a mile away from the penitentiary.

And I'm holding onto her arm because it's icy and we're trying not to wipe out. And it's depressing coming out of there. And she goes, I'm so tired of looking at my feet. I knew exactly what she meant. She's tired of having her head hanging down. I'm tired of looking at my feet. That's heartbreaking. And so I wrote a song called Hanging by a Thread. And my brother, it made him really profoundly sad to hear it.

And he didn't hear it for years. He had no access to it. They don't have the internet. They can't go. I mean, when I wrote that song, streaming wasn't even around. I don't, I don't, I think the internet might've just started. It was years ago, 20 some odd years ago, 25 years ago. So yeah, when you read my books, I, I,

Maybe. I really don't know. I've never asked him. One thing I was going to say too from that Jodi Vance interview, she said it's not about canceling people. It's about counseling people. Counseling. Let's give people access to tools that can help them work through the reasons why they got themselves in trouble.

Remember what I said to you about being incarcerated in this country? This is why I wanted to bring that up. There's no rehabilitation. Yeah, there's nothing. I mean, there's programs, AA, come on and make a pot. Here's a wood burning class. Come on. Really? Do better. Teach them trades. Yeah, and mental health, but there's nothing for them.

It's just, all it is, is like I said, the beatings will cease when the morale improves. Anyway, it's a big topic. We will probably speak about this many, many times over the course of the months and years, hopefully. And thank you for sending stuff in. Yeah. And don't hesitate to send more stuff. I mean, Sarah and I will definitely, you know, read them. And, you know, if it seems like something really important, we'll

We'll talk about it. But we want to hear from you. If there's any things that you guys want to talk about or address or bring up, it's fantastic to hear from you. Send us a voicemail. Shut up, Sarah Burke.

I'm going to send you so many voicemails. Voice note and voicemail, really? To actually leave someone a voicemail, people get annoyed, right? They're like, why don't you just text me? Why did you, I now have to go listen to my voicemail and put the code in and the whole thing. People hate listening to voicemail. Voice notes are easy. You just hit play. It's nice. I do voice notes all the freaking time, but I call them voicemail. Either way, send us more of those. We love them. Yeah. You're listening to the Jan Arden Show on podcast. I'm here with Sarah Burke. We'll be right back.

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Trump just got indicted. I know we don't talk a lot about politics on this show, but I saw a very interesting Washington Post article this morning. It was an interesting angle because I really don't care what the guy does or what happens to him. I just, I really don't care on a lot of level. I don't understand half of the indictments and what they're about. I don't know a lot about it. I'm going to tell you honestly right now,

Anyway, this article was interesting because a guy from that Washington Post had an interesting angle. And he was talking about anonymous sources that did not want to be named that were with Trump all the time, said the guy was absolutely freaking out, panicked, irritable, anxious, didn't have an appetite. And I guess for him, that's like...

If he can't, you know, eat a chicken filet burger and... He wasn't golfing the way he normally does. Oh, maybe, yeah. But he's just panic stricken. He's got something like 31 lawyers.

And he's constantly on the phone, constantly. I guess he's got like five phones going and asking them, what can they do to me? And is this real? And it's nonstop. He's very, very frightened. And then he stands out on his rallies. He got back to, I call it Mariposa, but it's not Mariposa. Marilago? Yes. I'm just kidding you. Marilago. Marilago.

And he gets back to Marigold and he, you know, shakes his fist in the air, defiant, like this is, you know, the bad fake news press. And behind the scenes, like as soon as that camera is out of his face, he's not sleeping. He's really concerned about something happening to him.

You know, I don't know. What's so interesting too about this is even the deflection that we're seeing in those news stories right now, like, oh, suddenly Stormy Daniels, he's going after, like, you got to pay all my lawyer fees all of a sudden, right? And it's like, there's a couple other major things happening at the moment that you might want to take care of first, maybe. Classic deflection. Oh gosh, he'll bring up everything. But it's just so interesting how narcissists operate, right?

It's all smoke and mirrors. It really is all pomp and very little circumstance, as my father used to say. He lies so much. The Washington Post article cited in his little speech to his followers, I guess you could call them followers. He said, if they weren't outright lies, simply unfactual, he said that the shards of truth were so large

exaggerated, that it's just so hard as a journalist to sit there and watch it unfold. And I wonder how is it that we're all so gullible? Not all, obviously the country's still very split, but here's a guy who's indicted, who's now trying to rev up support for a third swipe at the American presidency.

And in similar fashion to the way that he rallied up people for that January 6th event. Well, the judge warned him to say nothing that would incite any kind of ire or, you know, put people up in a flap. He was flat out warned. He said, if you do that, there's going to be dire consequences. But as soon as he got back to his place there in Florida, the vitriol that he was throwing at the judge, the judge's daughter,

The disparaging thing he was saying about her, about his family. Personal attacks. And I'm thinking, does the guy not even see how petulant and how childlike? It's very hard to watch as a... I consider myself somewhat sane most days. It's hard to watch anyone like him. And it's not just him anymore. There's a lot of men and women...

On the far right, they're finding themselves in position of power globally. But just to watch somebody like this do their thing. What's the guy now? 75 years old? 74 years old? I don't even know. Let's look that up. I'm not sure how old he is now. Donald Trump. Let's see. 76. 76. But how determined people are to believe that racism is acceptable, that misogyny is acceptable.

You know, that kind of hate speech is acceptable. Anyway, I just wanted to touch on that. It really, really blows my mind, Sarah. What we're watching unfold, it's so much more than just a former president of the United States of America. Like this person has built an entire narrative, an entire storyline. If you're someone in Canada who says, oh, this hasn't really impacted us, I'm sorry, but...

It does. And we've seen how we've changed. We've seen it change. There's no doubt. I recently watched the story that your, I think she's a good friend of yours, Jodi Vance. I was watching some of her story on CBC and she was talking about, you know, online hate. Oh, yeah.

She had a stalker for years. Yeah, I've been seeing coverage kind of like across the country over the last two weeks with her. And in her story, she said that all of this started around the time that he became president. And no, she's not pointing her finger at him and saying, this is the reason why this happened to me. But it opened a box. There's no doubt that it plays into the collective narrative that we have seen. And it's not just in the US, it's in Canada too, for sure.

Oh, it has. It's that Pandora's box. The lid came up. You know, even if you want to talk about the convoy truckers, there's still small rallies that happen in downtown Calgary and Edmonton in Alberta, which is kind of, I think, ground zero for this stuff. Although it happened obviously in Ottawa too, but I think a lot of them went there from here. You know, calling out any kind of journalists just as...

liars and, and you know, that they're falsifying everything and changing their words. And whenever they were asked questions, they were just questions that no one could answer. I don't know. It's just a weird thing. And you're right. It just, yeah, something has just happened to how we communicate, how media is being used. And as far as I'm concerned, journalism is,

They're on the edge of how democracy holds itself together, that people are able to go out there and report on stories and give their viewpoints and collect facts and present them to people to make their own judgment. But they've just been called out as liars so much. Anyway, it's a little disheartening to watch this unfold today.

And there's so much hate on both sides of it. The people that have been waiting for the last four years for him to be indicted for something.

And that it's payments to Stormy Daniels kind of makes me sad. Like how this week is that what you mean? What happened to the rest of the stuff? Right? I don't even know enough to comment on that. But what I do know is that Stormy Daniels paying for Trump's lawyer fees. I know, but just the whole thing, Sarah, of being indicted for a payment. It went through, you know, one of his guys, Cohen, I think. And this is what they're getting him on?

They can't get him on the massive coverage of January 6th and the insurrection and the people that stormed the White House and people died. And like, it has to be this. Nothing's going to happen to him. Everyone's saying, well, what's going to happen? The guy's not going to go to jail.

They're calling him Teflon Don. Oh, God. That's a lot of the headlines. What does that say? We started off this conversation talking about how anxious he is behind the scenes, right? But the way he's portraying it is, no, I'm totally good. I won't be held accountable for this, right? It's so funny, the dichotomy of his private self and his public self. Yeah, he must have more non-disclosure agreements flying around him than anybody on the planet currently.

But it's pretty sickening to see a guy come in with Secret Service members on the Trump plane and land in New York. And there's just so much surrounding it, so much.

It's almost like we're watching something out of 1350. I really never thought I'd be this interested in following, you know, a porn star on Twitter, but Stormy Daniels has some great burns on all these subject matters. I guess I need to start following Stormy Daniels. No more Dawn. No more Dawn. Dawn is done. No more Dawn. By the time you hear this, I'm going to be in Iceland. So cool. Did this come out of our former guest, by the way, who we had on? Yes, we had on the first lady.

of Iceland, Eliza. Eliza Reid. Who has written a great book called Sprákar. It's about amazing Icelandic women and what makes them so amazing. And the book has been a bestseller. If you don't have it, Sprákar. I'm probably not doing it any justice. Anyway, no, my friend Bev turned a certain age three years ago, so before COVID, and we were all planning on going. So 2019, yeah, let's go.

Planet, dates. Well, that crapped the bed. So here we are, 2023, and we're finally going. I'm so excited. We're going to a place called the Blue Lagoon, which has been recommended by everybody. We're going to see Northern Lights and we're going to, we're going to go see some Icelandic horses. I'm so excited. Oh, you'll love it. To see Icelandic ponies.

By the way, just a really quick update on the horse shit campaign. Our petition was tabled in the House of Commons. The Minister of Agriculture, Marie-Claude Boubeau, told the House that they needed more time to decide and figure out if sending innocent giant draft horses 8,000 kilometers away

halfway around the globe terrified in little boxes, crapping and peeing on each other, and sometimes dying during the flights and breaking limbs and all other kinds of heinous things. They needed more time to decide whether that was a good idea or not. Can we get her on the podcast? Like, come on. She'd never do it in a million years. It's a stalling tactic. It is so... You can see it coming from a million miles away with any government. This country just goes...

Conservative, liberal, conservative, liberal, conservative, liberal. They, you know, just long enough. Oh, we hate the conservatives. Let's vote liberal. Oh, we hate the liberals. Let's vote. It's such a, I get so sick of it. So shut up, everybody. It wouldn't matter who was sitting there when they make promises. No one holds them accountable, but we are going to be persistent. We're going to be consistent. New website. The horseshit.ca website is being given a new look. It's going to be easier to make donations, easier to buy merch and to help us, but we're not going to give up.

This kind of legislation takes a long time. So we've been fighting for this. Well, gosh, the ladies that have been with the Canadian Horse Defense Coalition, they've been fighting since 2006 to end this. So kudos to Lisa Pitts who passed away before she saw this, you know, come to fruition.

Seneca and Lonnie and just a shout out to Rebecca, two Rebeccas of all the people that have been working on this for a long time. How many people are there? Probably, I mean, Wendy Williams-Watt who leads the campaign. It's her marketing genius that has really brought the horses into light. We're getting mainstream media because of her campaigning genius and her marketing genius. And she's got a company called Together Heads.

working at a fevered pitch to get all this stuff done. We've got new items coming up for sale. I can probably say it now. We've actually got some really cool

thousand piece puzzles that are of me and horses. They're going to be, there's, they're so cool. I love a good puzzle. Yeah. So they're going to be on the site soon. I think we're going to have pre-sales up before you know it. But anyway, thanks to Wendy and her team, William, I think is leading up a department, Madison, the other people that they've got there. So, you know, there's thousands and thousands of us that are part of this, hundreds of thousands of Canadians. They say for every person that signs a petition,

There's 100,000 that think about it, but don't ever do it. You know, we had 80,000 signatures on the first one. And then of course, Justin called an election. So that went out the window. The second time around, people misunderstood. They're like, I've already signed the petition. I've already done it. But I know this is a different one. This is a new one.

We got almost 40,000 on that. So when you think about having 400,000 people that would have signed it. Anyhow, that's where we're at with that. This is where I was going with that ramp that I just gave you, Sarah Burke. We are going to see the Icelandic ponies. We're going to see the Northern Lights. We're doing a walking food tour of Reykjavik. I don't know what that entails.

And we're generally in a home. Like an Airbnb? VRBO. But it's on the side of a volcano, kind of. Amazing. An hour outside of town. So next time we speak, I'll be speaking to you from a side of a volcano. Oh my God, we'll have to put out some video of your surroundings. I'll probably be nude. Ha ha ha!

I'll just be holding a puffin over my privates with a sports bra. This might be a good time to say, like, you know, if our listeners are going to send us any messages this week, maybe if they've been to Iceland, they want to give you something that was on their list and they really enjoyed. So let us know what Jan should do. How long are you there? Just six days.

And then I fly from there to London. Is this another Nigel? I'm going to go see my friend Nigel. His mom's turning 87, so we're going to surprise her. She doesn't know that I'm coming. And I didn't know I was going to go there until I spoke to Nigel last week. And he said, you're not even three hours away. So I phoned my travel agent and I swapped out my Reykjavik Toronto portion.

to go over to London. Just a hop, skip and a jump. Yeah. So I'm going to go over there and then I'll fly home a week later. But I go there and I do nothing. That's your break. Well, I've got a lot of work to do. So it's nice of you to say that, but I can't, I don't sit idle. I love waking up and having tea in the morning and I'm still in the middle of my book edits. I have a new book that comes out

November the 7th. I'm not going to tell you the title of it or anything. It's all, you're all going to have to wait, but it's a fiction novel that I've been working on for the better part of a decade and a half. It's going to be out on Penguin Random House and I have a great editor. It's your first fiction or? It's my first fiction. Yeah. So exciting. And many times in this process, I have sat head in hands with,

So frustrated wondering why did I do this? But I have enjoyed it so much. It's been such an adventure. You're using different parts of your brain. Totally. And I've just challenged myself. And here's the thing. Obviously, I want it to do well. And I want people to like the story.

But whatever the outcome, it would never have stopped me from doing this. And I'm already thinking about what I'm going to do next because I love to write. You're so motivated. Is it motivation? It's just you have to have a purposeful life. Like, what are you going to do? You know me in archaeology. I'm still hoping that somebody calls our show and needs a junior, inexperienced 60-year-old who's

that wants to sit in Greece with a little brush and my little trowel and volunteer to dig up, I don't know, some kind of pottery shards. Come on, people, phone me. Leave us a voicemail. I'll rent my own motel. I'll bring my own khaki pants. I've got good hiking shoes. I've got knee pads from high school volleyball. I still have them. That's a lie. I don't have knee pads. I'll buy new ones.

The point is, yes, you are someone who always needs to be doing something. I'm very similar. I have trouble even when I'm sick. The idea of just stopping doing things, it's hard. I understand that. I'm still raging about your aunt at the gathering for the nuptials. I'm still not feeling good about...

The back turning shenanigans, I'm not liking it. Somebody slap me if I ever do that. I just, I do not want to be...

She thinks it's hurting her sister, which it kind of is. It's hurting my sister. Yeah. I was just going to say there's collateral damage here, right? Yes. And that's why also, you know, I have no shame to share that on this podcast. I think that someone acting like that needs to take a real look in the mirror. Oh, I'm going to pester Sarah for the rest of time to get updates on the sisters. Over the next few weeks. And please, hey-

Go ahead. Go ahead. No, no. You go ahead. I forgive you, Sarah. That was a very nice way to bring it all together today. I enjoyed it. Yeah. Here we go. We're pros. We're moving into the bachelorette in the coming weeks. Jesus. Already, I'm losing my mind with the maid of honor. Are you the maid of honor? No, no. I'm not. So I'm dealing with the maid of honor for some of the things. And this woman has assigned people rooms in an Airbnb. There's door tags.

It's kind of cute. Listen, if you ever invite me, if anyone ever invites me to this stuff, don't even include me in that stuff. I'm getting my own hotel. I'm staying in a hotel. I'm not going to be with y'all. I go to bed at seven o'clock at night. I read for two hours. I'm reading a fantastic book right now called Tell It to the Bees by Fiona Shaw. I bought it at a secondhand shop in a little town by where Nigel lives like six months ago. Fiona,

If you're listening, you're one of the most interesting writers I've ever laid eyes upon. It's such a great story. Bad marriage, young son, separation, a rebirth, discovering love and passion and what affection feels like and the magic of bees. I just, I cannot tell you. And I'm in the secondhand bookshop, which I love more than anything. And you can trust me. I'm going to find every bookshop in Reykjavik and I am going to be in that bookshop reading

clutching a cup of tea if I'm allowed to bring in a drink and I'm gonna just be looking at books. - Ma'am, you're gonna have to purchase this. You've been here three hours. - I don't mind. Didn't know a thing about Fiona Shaw. I didn't know anything about "Tallet to the Bees." It was 2.99, two pounds 99. And I walked out of there like I'd swallowed a canary.

She was wonderful. She was waiting for you to leave so she could read. Oh, I'm sure. The bookstore was so magical. Are you a reader when you're traveling? Like, will you take books with you on this trip you're going on? Are you kidding me?

is the Pope a Catholic. Okay, so you find room in the suitcase. Oh yeah, I'm doing a knapsack. You're going to pack an entire backpack of books? I'm going to take probably three books. Nigel is in publishing, so he and his partner's house is, they got so many great books to read. I'm not so great at reading on a tablet. I did that for a while, but now I love the tactile turning of pages. And I want to know how much of the book I have left.

Like I need to be looking at that, assessing what the F is happening. I've only got 14 pages left. Like I go into panic mode. How's this going to resolve in 14 pages? So,

Anyway, I'm going to bring books, but I'm bringing first time in my life for two weeks, a carry on, a carry on and a backpack. That's all I'm bringing. I just did it for Edmonton for the Junos. It was my first time in life doing it too. Just roll everything, get it nice and tight. I feel like it's game changing. It's going to be great. You can do laundry at Nigel's. Who cares?

Hopefully you guys are listening to this as bonus material on the podcast this week because I've obviously gotten carried away talking to you about my addictions and... I definitely led you down this path. You did! Now, to tie this all up with a bow, we ended on a literary note. We are going to have a literary guest in the coming weeks, aren't we? Yes, we are. Do you want to tease your... You know what? I've talked enough.

I want you to be able to put that out into the podverse. The podverse. It's really exciting. This is really exciting.

Does the name Melissa Gilbert in The Little House on the Prairie mean anything? I'm so excited. I'm so excited. I'm so excited. I'm so excited. I'm emailing with this woman to set it up. And it's kind of wild to me because I grew up on Little House on the Prairie. So did you, obviously. And anyway, she's an American actress. She's extraordinary. She's been in many, many films. She's written...

She's been so involved in the politics of acting. The former president of the Screen Actors Guild. Yes, she's had an incredible, incredible career. And she's still going. She's married to Timothy Busfield. She's done so much stuff. She's still such great friends with so much of the cast.

of Little House on the Prairie. And it's obviously been a huge part of her life and she's very proud of it. But we want to talk to her about child acting. How do you survive that? All we've seen is a litany of child actors over the last 40 or 50, 60 years, even going back to little rascals in the 30s and 40s, where so many fell prey. They worked 16, 18 hours a day. They were putting them on uppers and downers. And it was terrible what they did to these kids to keep them working.

Anyway, Melissa survived it. So we're going to talk to her about all of that stuff and what she's doing now and just her politics and how she's looking at her future. You can just see Jan lighting up right now. Oh, I am. And she's a grandma now. Melissa and I are the same age.

But I could tell you every episode of Little House on the Prairie. It was a staple in our house, and it was right up there with the Waltons. I'm sorry, Melissa, but it was right up there with the Waltons. Anyway, Melissa Gilbert is going to join us. You don't want to miss that. She's so fascinating, smart, funny, so funny. So we got her coming up in the next few weeks. And if you end up having a question for her that we can ask on your behalf, send us a voicemail. Sarah? Sarah?

This is all we have time for. You've been listening to the Jan Arden Podcast and Show. You can get it on iHeartRadio or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. Give us five stars and give us a review because that helps people find us. And you can hit the subscribe button and that way we're going to pop up in your mailbox week after week and you won't have to go searching for us. Whatever. Thanks for listening. We love you. Thank you for your support. We'll talk to you next time. Toodly-doo.

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