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Description

The pandemic has asked us to think about our lives — and our relationships — in so many different ways. For some of us, it meant more time than ever before with our families at home, but for Jeremiah Fraites, one of the co-founders of the band The Lumineers, and his wife Francesca Lazzarin, it meant going from making art and living on tour to moving to Italy and being stuck together ALL OF THE TIME. This week’s practice is about being present in your relationship and how to keep your curiosity even when it’s hard.

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Learn more about today’s guests:

• Listen to Jeremiah’s album latest solo album Piano Piano 
• Subscribe to Francesca’s podcast In Giro Con Fra

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Transcript

SPEAKERS

Claire, Jeremiah Fraites, Francesca Lazzarin

Claire  01:28

Hi, I’m Claire Bidwell Smith. Welcome to NEW DAY. Lately, I’ve been thinking about lessons we learned during lockdown. As we begin to go back to a more normal way of life, I find myself missing parts of the pandemic that I never thought I’d miss. It’s funny how that happens, isn’t it? How we can look back fondly on a time that once felt miserable. For me being cooped up with my husband and kids felt utterly insane most of the time. But now I remember those weird months with a smile on my face. There was one day in particular when I had to give an important interview and I decided that the safest place to escape the zoo inside my house was to sit in my parked car in the driveway. But not five minutes into the interview did the front door open and one by one the kids all trickled out to the driveway throwing balls, grabbing bikes, yelling back and forth at each other while I tried to form eloquent answers in my interview. Finally, my husband came out and whisked them all out on a walk and I sighed in relief.

Claire  02:23

Except then the front door opened again and my eight-year-old came out trying to figure out where everyone had gone. She started be lining for the car when she saw me and I scrambled to lock the doors. But desperate she stood with her face pressed to the glass for a solid five minutes while sweat ran down my back and an attempt not to completely lose my shit while still responding to serious questions from this reporter not to mention silently cursing my husband for not doing a better job with the kids while I was trying to maintain my professional life. The couple I’m talking to in today’s episode had a relatable quarantine experience except Jeremiah Frates and Francesca lesbian aren’t your ordinary couple. Jeremiah who also goes by the name Jer is one of the cofounders of the band The Lumineers and his Italian wife Francesca is an event producer, a podcast host she launched Lemonada’s first foreign language show and a new mom of two she was eight months pregnant when we talked. Having spent most of their relationship on tour, they’ve never lived a regular life. But like so many of us, they suddenly found themselves spending all their time together and writing out the challenges of this new kind of intimacy. But as you’ll hear in our conversation, necessity is indeed the mother of invention. Necessity in this case being the need for autonomy and creativity. I love this couple’s sweet love story and all that they created during quarantine.

Jeremiah Fraites

Welcome, Jeremiah, welcome, Francesca. I think you got by […]. But it’s nice to say both of your beautiful names first. Welcome to NEW DAY.

Jeremiah Fraites  04:01

Yeah, thanks a lot for having us.

Claire 

So you guys are our first couple that we’ve talked to. And I want to dig in a little bit into family life, couples partnerships. But I’m really curious about how the pandemic was for you guys. I know you started off with a tour that got canceled. You were home in Denver, recorded an album on your own at home with a family. Tell me about that, you guys.

Jeremiah Fraites

So we were on tour and it was I think we both agree Francesca and I was the most fun we’d ever had on tour. We had done about a month in Europe. And then we were on tour in the United States and Canada and Francesca being you know, born, raised in Italy. It was a lot worse there before it got to America. And we were in America and it was sort of this very confusing time. Nobody really knew how serious should we take this? Is it like the flu is like a common cold. Is it something they’re really worried about? So that was just a crazy time. Outside of that, right before we got any news, though, that COVID was becoming what it became. I think we were really having the most fun we ever had. It was me, Francesca and our son, Tommaso. We had our own tour bus. The shows were amazing with the band. It was kind of paradise in a way. It was just a lovely experience.

Jeremiah Fraites 

How long had you guys been together at that point?

Francesca Lazzarin

2013.

Jeremiah Fraites  

Yeah. So coming on eight years, or going on nine? I guess at some point.

Claire 

Okay, so you had a good established relationship going into a big global change? And how did you guys meet?

Francesca Lazzarin

I was working in the music industry, and these guy call me and say, hey, do you want to help me to organize this festival in Milan? And I said, of course. So, yeah, we met that day. And can I say the true story, the true story. The true story is that I was absolutely single. But I didn’t want to commit with anyone. I was just enjoying my life and work a lot at the time. And I don’t know, I just liked him. As a person. I think that we’re really connected as humans, you know, like, Jair’s energy is really like, calm. And I think it’s really easy to understand that he’s a beautiful person. When you talk to him, you feel relaxed, you never feel uncomfortable. So I think that we’re really connected that day, but in a different way.

Jeremiah Fraites  06:43

But So Jer, like, what, what was your first impression of her? Did you was it like, that’s the woman I’m gonna marry? Or you wanted to go on a date? Like, how serious was this?

Jeremiah Fraites 

I mean, my first impression was very normal, typical impression, like, wow, I think she’s absolutely beautiful. Here we are in Italy. And I remember we were playing me and some of the band members, we were playing, […]. And there was just a lot of time to kill you eat, let’s eat some lunch. And you can talk and I just remember thinking I want to chat her up, I want to talk to her. I tried to put on my A game. I don’t even remember, you know, it was, I don’t think I spoke a word of Italian. And I do remember her, even her accent. And her vocabulary was much smaller back then. But we could, you know, still communicate in simple and creative ways. But yeah, it was crazy. I mean, we, I left that night and probably went on to play either no show in Italy, or maybe we went up to Switzerland or Germany or something, you know, from there. And we kept in touch with Skype. Very, like I would say sparsely though. It wasn’t like, no, it wasn’t like every day, no, nine-hour phone calls type thing. And our first date was in London. And I think it was that November. Yeah. So this was, you know, four or five months after we had initially met at one time in person. So pretty wild, a typical sort of love story.

Jeremiah Fraites  08:12

I love that. Were you guys nervous that second time when you met up?

Francesca Lazzarin 

I was.

Jeremiah Fraites

Oh, yes, she was. Yeah, I mean, didn’t on our I guess you could call her first date she shorter sort of brought her chaperone. This guy, you know, I don’t know..

Francesca Lazzarin 

No, it’s like my best friend lives in London. And then. So let’s say that I booked the ticket in a really weird moment of my life. So there is a sad story in the fun story. So my dad had a really bad motorcycle accident or the time and I was keeping in touch with Jer like, real randomly. And I switched. Something happened one night where I was at the hospital at 4AM. And he texts me. And he asked me, hey, how’s it going? How are you? And I told him about my dad. And he called me immediately at 4AM. And I was like, wow, like, people that I know, are not doing that. And this guy who’s a random guy that I met one time on the show, is calling me in the middle of the night. So something changed for me. And yeah, we decided to go to London, but I don’t know, I was really in my bubble. I was really confused at the time. And when I booked the ticket, two seconds later, I was like, what the hell I just did. Like, who was this guy? So I call my best friend and say, listen, you need to show up at the hotel. You need to spend the day with me, like translate, do what you want, but I don’t know, I don’t want to be along with this guy. Because I don’t know why I booked this ticket. I feel really nervous. But that was, I mean, it worked perfectly, because we had a lot of fun that day.

Jeremiah Fraites  10:07

And I love that guy, I consider him a friend. And I’ve seen him numerous times, even without Francesca when we go to London as often as we do. So it was just a really funny, just sort of crazy situation. And I think, largely, in part, the reason why probably, it worked, and then us getting married was that I think we were simply interested in just each other and who we were as people, you know, for Francesca, I think, I feel sort of compelled to be like, she was the antithesis or the opposite of like, the person, like, really enamored with like, oh, there’s a guy and he’s in a band. And, you know, it’s like, this very still normal interpretation of another human being. And, you know, thankfully, it was, I think, every next year that we’ve gotten successful, I think if I were to start now, hypothetically, it would just would be a different. So it just was, I don’t know, really, like, I think a blessing and a great, you know, I don’t know, what’s the right way to word, it. Just credit to Francesca as a person that she wasn’t interested in that sort of aspect of me as a person, but just was interested in me as a person.

Claire

I love all this; we’re going to get back to the pandemic. But can I go back for just a second to that phone call in the hospital, because I feel like that’s what this show is really about. You know, I’m a grief therapist. I’m constantly talking and working with people who have gone through a lot of loss or huge trauma in their life, or just big changes. But often what I’m exploring, in addition to the pain and the things that happen are the kind of beautiful ways that our life changes as a result of hard stuff that we go through. And I know that Jeremiah, you lost your brother when you were growing up. And I can’t help but imagine that, that was the kind of thing that changes a person so that when they hear that, you know, Francesca’s dad was in the hospital, you pick up the phone, right? Like that, that becomes part of who you are.

Jeremiah Fraites  12:01

I think about myself that, I think because of that experience was my brother. And when that happened to Francesca, I think in those larger than life, sort of shocking moments of tragedy or shocking moments. I almost feel a calmness, sometimes or just, I feel maybe better suited sometimes to handle those really bad things. Like if I spill some milk on the table, I get like, my brain explodes with like, a little frustration or like, you know, like stupid things that literally don’t matter them and the big things happen. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not. But yeah, when I heard that, I felt compelled to reach out to her because I remember when that terrible thing happened in my life, a lot of people want to reach out, but they don’t know how so they end up not reaching out. And it’s not like you don’t remember everybody that didn’t reach out, but you sort of do. And the people that do reach out, you really remember, I remember a lot of the first people that really reached out. Even if it’s something small, they thought it was insignificant. It means the world to that person going through a hard time.

Claire 

Yeah, it really does. I lost both of my parents young and I can still remember all the people who really showed up and all the people to who I hoped would show up, but they didn’t quite know how, because that hurts, too. But, okay. So you guys were 2019 You’ve got an established relationship, a beautiful connection, you’d already had one child, you had your son, he was born, you’d had this great tour that you’d been on. And then and then the world came to a stop.

Jeremiah Fraites

Yeah, we were in the tour bus, just the three of us and the driver, obviously. But we were going back to Denver. And we didn’t really know what we were going back to. But I remember that first trip I took to Target. I had like two masks on and was wearing gloves. And I remember there was a guy next to me at the self-checkout. He was coughing and he didn’t have a mask on obviously. I don’t know if he had COVID. But just the whole thing was like crazy.

Francesca Lazzarin

Yeah, I think of course, like anyone else was a really weird time. But we try to make it functional somehow. So Jer, I don’t know. I remembered that we were walking the dog and I one point I said, why don’t you record your album? I mean, what else we have to do?

Jeremiah Fraites  14:15

And what do you mean to be by your album. What did you have an album kind of waiting in the wings of your soul?

Jeremiah Fraites 

Sorry. Yeah, definitely. That’s a good way to word it. I released an album called Piano Piano, which was a solo sort of, you know, just Jeremiah Fraites outside of luminaires release of all originals that I’d written over the last 10-12 years of my life. And she had known that I want to record it like next year or two, after the World Tour with the Lumineers had wrapped up I was going to find some time. And when she said that, to me, I was sort of like, pretty much against the idea and kind of shocked because I didn’t really know, you know, how to do it in house and we had a two-year-old and we have a dog who’s like barking and there was literally I mean, literally a house right next door. we’re being built hammers all day, trucks. It was just a crazy time to try to record. So I nixed that idea. And then yeah, at some point the craziness ensued, I just said, I am going to do it, because it seemed that we were going to be home. Not for weeks, but for months. And I drink a lot of coffee every day, felt an insane surge, like a tidal wave of energy and inspiration to work on music. I think just probably past the time, but I knew that I loved these songs, it wasn’t like a COVID album, that album was going to be made. I’d always wanted to make it for the last probably five years even. I wrote some of the songs during that time, but it was, you know.

Jeremiah Fraites 

Do the songs kind of reflect back through your life, like all different times of your life?

Jeremiah Fraites

Yeah, there’s a lot of songs that just it’s sort of like a journal or a diary from the last decade of my life that reminded me of I can remember, you know, being in that green room in Germany writing this idea, or this guitar part in my bedroom in Denver doing this or whatever. So, it’s a really special album in that way. And to record it at home. There’s one song called Arrival. And in the second course, if you listen with headphones, you can hear Tommaso, he makes a guest appearance because he was upstairs. And he must have been playing with Francesca and he made this like, you know, sound of jubilation and joy or something. And he made it to the record. So there’s little beautiful things like that, too. And, you know, it’s an imperfect album, which I really I love that about that. But yeah, it was, it was insane, like Francesca would, you know, put tomato to sleep. And she would say go now. And normally, when you record, you can record at midnight or 9AM over coffee, you can do it whenever you want. That’s the way we do Lumineers albums, we, you know, have this amazing, these amazing luxuries that we have as artists. This was like, okay, he’s asleep. And you either have like 45 minutes or two hours, we don’t know how long he’s gonna nap today. And sometimes I do a great take. And then a helicopter would be overhead or a hammer, or Tomasso would wake up. And it was really, really frustrating to do it that way. But after probably 7 or 10 days, I got used to it and developed a very thick recording skin.

Francesca Lazzarin  17:17

We had a good strategy. Yeah. Eating lunch 11AM putting Tomasso asleep. Get in the dog. Bring him in the basement. Yeah, feed the dog constantly. Because spaghetti, which is the name of the dog. He sings usually when Jer plays the piano, so it’s impossible to record. So I was constantly feeding the dog in the basement by myself. So at the end of this adventure, the dog was huge, poor.

Jeremiah Fraites

Pretty psychotic. When you remember all the details. Like, I don’t think I’ll ever do that again. It’s fair to say, but it was amazing to do it that way. And it was the only way to do it.

Claire

It was such an insane time, right? We had three kids in the house. And my husband and I were both home working and trading off. And I remembered like constantly trying to be in the car in the driveway, doing interviews or recording stuff and like, and then of course, the dogs would come out and the toddler would come out and it was just constant shit show at our house. But I mean, we had amazing moments, but we also had a lot of friction. You know, like I would get frustrated if he was working a lot or then he would get frustrated. I was working in different household duties. You guys went from being on tour to in the house? I mean, that must have been a big change.

Jeremiah Fraites  18:31

Yeah, I mean, we I mean, I’ll say quickly that we went from a lot of this travel over the last five years to being around each other all the time in the house. And it’s a big change.

Francesca Lazzarin

Yeah, I mean, it’s also true that as Jer said before, we’d go from 24 hours together to don’t see each other for a month. And this is our balance as a couple and I love that. So to don’t have a project really messed up the whole situation of course, I think that actually we had a project, the project was to move in Italy, and we moved in Italy during pandemic was a big deal. But we didn’t have a date, because we were waiting for Italy to say, okay, now you can come. So I think that the album, the kid, and dreaming about moving was the thing that kept us. I don’t know. Sane? I would say.

Jeremiah Fraites 

Yeah, no, that’s true. I think moving to Italy was sort of like the biscuit the treat at the end of the road. After being you know, cooped up for five months at home in Denver.

Jeremiah Fraites 

Wow, that’s a big change. How was it? How has it been? I mean, you are going home. But how was that for you, Jeremiah?

Jeremiah Fraites 

For me, it was pretty rough. Because I knew that I loved Turin, where we live and where we move to, but we were moving in the middle of a pandemic. And our house was nowhere near Ready, and you know, me and Francesca and our son, luckily, you know, I have a great relationship with Francesca’s parents who are my in laws, which typically, you know, it’s like the stereotypical you have these issues or these oddities, and they’re both lovely people, we get along great. And we were in their apartment for four months. And Francesca was going to our new house and was with like, the plumbers and electricians and an architect and doing all this stuff. And even if I want to, I couldn’t really be much help in that context, because I can’t speak Italian. And so I was trying to, like take Tomasso our son to the park. But you’re also having to avoid all these other children and parents. It’s starting to get dark and winter. It was a pretty rough time at times, definitely remember that. It was like a very difficult winter. It’s a mentally but like, you know, I remember our son Tomasso would be like, super bundled up, it was so cold. And we’d be in like a little cafe, a little bar. And he’d be like a little like chocolate, you know, brioche like a pastry. And I’d be having my little coffee and like, in that moment, everything was okay and then like, you start to put zip the coat back up and you realized you’re going back out into this like, pretty harsh world of like, like you said, trying to entertain your children or your kid in our instance.

Jeremiah Fraites 

So like little moments, you guys clung to. Like that little moment in the cafe.

Jeremiah Fraites 

I think I literally like physically and mentally got addicted to sugar. Cuz I never, I eat a very typical American breakfast which is you know, like maybe some cereal or like eggs and that type of thing. The Italian breakfast is very small, and sort of like a little pastry or some little cookies, coffee. And I think my brain got hooked on that pastry with chocolate or cream like every morning that I will be like, come on Tomasso […] like because I and I think it helps because I mean, you know, it was during the pandemic and I needed that boost of endorphin so I think I literally got kind of addicted to sugar in those four months.

Jeremiah Fraites  24:54

Francesca, how was all of this for you? How was it to bring Jeremiah to Italy and into your parent’s home and in a pandemic.

Francesca Lazzarin 

If course, I was happy to, to go back home. But it’s like you are not in a beautiful place. But you’re in a cage, what can you do? Nothing you can see from the cage and see that the world can be potentially beautiful. But you’re stuck in there. So I think that I was a little bit frustrated because I wanted to show him a lot of stuff, but I couldn’t. So I was really focused on the apartment. And he was really great with Tomasso helping me and my parents, you know, my mom is a great chef, so we can’t complain about food. We had great food all the time. But yeah, it was just frustrating not enjoying my city, which is a really beautiful city. Besides that, I think that for me was the best choice ever. Because I had a tough pregnancy with Tomasso, and I had a tough pregnancy with this one, too.

Claire

How pregnant are you right now?

Francesca Lazzarin  26:00

Eight months pregnant right now.

Claire 

I can tell from the hair. The Hair. It’s gorgeous.

Francesca Lazzarin 

Thank you. So the fact that during this pregnancy, I was here and having to help my family really made the difference, even if the pandemic was, you know, is still going. But I was really thinking like, wow, Jer, imagine if we were in Denver, by ourselves. And I was feeling terrible, like I did with Tomasso, I have this thing called hyperemesis gravidarum. So pretty much I puked for seven months. So I was losing weight instead of gain weight. And with Tomasso was exactly the same. So it was really hard for me in Denver, the first time, really, really hard. I was barely eating and drinking water. Here. You know, with my mom, with my dad, even if Jerry was traveling, I wasn’t completely alone. So for me, it was a big change to come here on a better way of course.

Claire 

That’s a lot of changes. Jeremiah, how much do you associate your identity with the Lumineers? Like, and I ask that because I guess I’m curious if you felt a lot of that gets stripped away with the pandemic and not having the band out there touring or making albums, or, I mean, you’re going to this incredible family time of building your family and home. Just kind of curious about what that was all like?

Jeremiah Fraites 

Yeah, no, I think that’s a great question. I think I sort of recalibrated who I was, okay. I’m a husband. I’m a father and just you know, being a new father, with a young infant. And then toddler, that alone has so much built into, construct a new identity and a lot to, you know, from the moment your eyes open from the moment they eventually close at night. You’re just exhausted, but it’s a different type of exhaustion, it’s a good exhaustion. And I won’t lie and say it’s, you know, wasn’t an easy year and a half. And it’s probably going to be closer to two years, when all said and done before the Lumineers actually get back out there. But I think that was sort of the silver lining for me, I got to spend a lot more time with my son than I normally would, probably more than any normal parent normally would. I guess for better for worse, all parents got to spend more time with their kids on a global level and during the pandemic. And I’ve never met a person that hasn’t said who’s older than us. .Oh, the first few years of their life. It’s not important. Like, literally, if you meet an older parent, they always say, oh, wow, I wish I could have you know, sometimes you kind of breaks your heart, people will say I wish I could have been more present. I wish I didn’t work as much during the first three years. So thankfully, I got that with Tomasso. I mean, a little bit less with our second child, but still a lot more than I think I would have if everything was just normal, business as usual.

Jeremiah Fraites

I mean, I think you’re right, I think there were so many positives that came out of being thrust into this different way of life from the pandemic. And I think everyone I know, is like taking pieces back into their new life, you know, like things, they learned, things they let go of things they want to keep doing that they weren’t doing maybe before the pandemic like, what does that look like for both of you?

Jeremiah Fraites

For me, I think the one thing that Francesco has instilled in me that I think is really wise and smart. And that’s easy to sort of grasp and put into practice and not be so theoretical about it, is that sometimes I can get, you know, preoccupied in the moment, lose the moment, lose that day and worried me anxious about the future that’s coming, whether that’s months or weeks ahead. And she’s like, there is no certainty and that I don’t know, just try to enjoy this day and the things that we have in the moment and in the present, and doesn’t always work for me, but when it does, it’s great. And it’s something I’m trying to sort of like Again, not make it so theoretical but actually apply to real life situations.

Francesca Lazzarin  30:04

I think that I was saying that to you, because I was teaching that to myself also. But yeah, I think the same, you can’t really control anything, which scares me a lot. But at the same time, is the truth. I mean, this is life. And I think also the fact that when something bad happens, like a pandemic, in this case, or anything in life, it’s not really the end. So I think that if you are a curious person, and you keep your curiosity, during bad times, you always are going to find stimulation in something, you’re always going to find a reason to go ahead. And, you know, like, I say that there’s always the light at the end of the tunnel at some point, maybe takes a long time to see that. But I think that curiosity really saved us. And we did thing that we didn’t have time to do before. So that was precious. And as Joe said, even to be with Thomas all the time, and, of course, I think that I missed two or more than Jer does, because it’s work for him. And it’s fun for me. So but yeah, I don’t know, like I think that gave me also time to find a new how can I say, to rethink about my fears. I remember that at the beginning of the tour, I was like, it’s going to be impossible to travel with a kid, it’s going to be impossible to do this together. And for me, it was probably the best tour ever, travel with a toddler. And I don’t know just exploring. See different playgrounds, meet different kids from different states. I don’t know like, it was a beautiful, beautiful experience. So this time, give me time to understand that it’s possible. You know, if you want to, it’s possible, you can always find a way to make it work. And I’m really proud that we did it and I think I feel more confident today about the future.

Claire  34:46

I’m impressed you guys. I mean, it’s obvious that you’ve both been through individual difficulties and as a family and a couple but it also seems like you guys are so solid together like that you kind of move with each other and the ways that you need to, it looks easy from here, it sounds easy is that am I wrong?

Jeremiah Fraites

You know, I’m really proud of us as a couple. I’m really proud of us, as parents and as individual people that what we’ve been able to get through together, and, you know, deal with, I guess you could say,

Francesca Lazzarin

Yeah, I think Jer, I went through a lot, at the point that we know each other really well. And I think that we can kind of predict ourselves, which is probably not the best for a couple. But it’s, I think that we went through a lot of things. And life is not always easy. And I think that it’s easy for people to think, oh, they have an amazing life, and everything is easy for them. And they don’t have a reason to complain. But the reality is that we’re really jealous of our normality. We are normal people, we are a boring couple, like a lot of couples, we are fun couples, like a lot of couples, and we do normal things. And yeah, and the fact that we never really changed friends, community, hobbies, a think that it’s the best part of us, you know, like, be normal, and go through stuff. And when we don’t know what to do, we ask for help. You know, friends, parents, therapy, whatever, like everyone else. And yeah, I just think that to be yourself.

Francesca Lazzarin  36:35

And we talk a lot, we really, in a brutal way sometimes like we talk we say stuff to each other, like when the relationship it’s not going well, we say that we really don’t try to either we say, to hide the dust under the rug. That’s a way that we have any like to say, so. When it’s not great, it’s not great. And when it’s fun, it’s fun, like every like everyone else. But I think that communication, especially when you are in a couple that doesn’t have an ordinary life like us, you can just go-ahead ignoring problems, you have to deal with those. And especially I think when you become a parent, you have the responsibility to know what you’re doing kind of because, you know, every mood, every vibe in the house reflects on your child, you know, so we already have a not ordinary life, because sometimes we live in a bus for two months. And it’s kind of weird to explain that to a child. So I think that we are trying to keep our normality as much as we can. Because we want transmit that to our kid, two kids, I should say, one and a half.

Claire 

One and three quarters. I love that I think it’s helpful and heartening to hear what it looks like behind the scenes, you know, you’re right, I think people always have some kind of idea of what things look like for people who don’t have an ordinary life or who are in the spotlight. And it’s nice to hear just a glimpse of, you know, the reality of it all.

Francesca Lazzarin  38:17

You know, like, it’s really important, but not just because the pandemic I think in general thing that if you are a lucky person, you need to acknowledge that. But you can forget other people. And that’s for me is the main point that I want to, you know, I’m trying to teach him I’m trying to show him even if right now is really small, but he understands stuff. So I think it’s really important to never forget the others in general.

Jeremiah Fraites 

Yeah, mean just trying to instill that you should be kind, and caring and be able to empathize and sympathize with other people. And yeah, just making sure that he understands that we do have a different life. But yeah. We have time to mold him and sculpt him.

Claire 

You have time. I think maybe what Francesca said earlier about not sweeping dust under the rug, you know, always having hard conversations when you need to. It’s something that you guys know how to do inherently, seems like, well, thank you guys. I can’t wait to see what comes next and in your daughter and more music. Thank you for all of this. It was it was so lovely to talk to both of you.

Jeremiah Fraites 

Yeah. Likewise, thanks so much for talking to us.

Francesca Lazzarin 

Thanks a lot. I should say gracias.

Claire 

There’s so many lessons that we all learned and are still learning from life during a pandemic. And while they aren’t always easy in the moment, there are some lessons that we can find ourselves grateful for in the long run. Just like how the death of Jeremiah’s brother led to him being a more compassionate person who reached out to a woman he hardly knew when he recognized that she was going through something hard. And then that woman became his wife. There are often small gifts to be found within even the biggest tragedies. So after listening to today’s conversation, I’m wondering how was the quarantine for you and your family? Whether you were all cooped up and under one roof, or the opposite, isolated and far away from your loved ones. The pandemic asked us to think about our relationships in so many different ways. We talk a lot about self-compassion in these episodes, but the ideas we’re talking about today, eliminate the ways in which we have to find compassion for others, even when they’re driving us crazy.

Claire  40:38

For this week’s practice, give some thought to how the last year and a half has affected your relationships. What have you learned about your partner, your family? Are there friendships you come to and some you that drop off? What have you learned about yourself in relation to others? I know for myself that I’ve always been a huge extrovert, but the pandemic has shown me that even I need time alone in order to show up for the people around me. Or maybe you learn something even bigger about how you and your partner share work and home responsibilities. Or even if it’s just that you now know you hate homeschooling. That’s cool, too. When you reflect on quarantine, are there moments that were exceptionally hard that now make you laugh or smile. I know that when I look back on that moment in the car with my daughter outside the window when I was so mad at my husband, I just feel so much gratitude for the little family I’ve created, and that even the most important seeming work projects pale in comparison to our time together. I hope these lessons and conversations are feeling helpful. I’d love to hear from you. Any thoughts you want to share questions you want to ask? Email me at New Day at LemonadaMedia.com or leave me a voicemail at 8334-LEMONADA that’s 833-453-6662.

CREDITS

NEW DAY is a Lemonada Media Original. The show is produced by Jackie Danziger, Liliana Maria Percy Ruiz and Erianna Jiles. Kat Yore is our engineer. Music is by Hannis Brown. Executive producers are Stephanie Wittels Wachs, Jessica Cordova Kramer, Lily Cornell Silver and Claire Bidwell Smith. NEW DAY is produced in partnership with the Well Being Trust, The Jed Foundation and Education Development Center. Help others find our show by leaving us a rating and writing a review. Follow us at @LemonadaMedia across all social platforms, or find me at clairebidwellsmith.com. Join our Facebook group to connect with me and fellow NEW DAY listeners at facebook.com/groups/newdaypod. You can also get bonus content and behind the scenes material by subscribing to Lemonada Premium. You can subscribe right now on the Apple podcast app by clicking on our podcast logo and then the subscribe button. Thanks for listening. See you next week.