As I mentioned, like after George Floyd was murdered, there was just so much inbound coming our way that it really helped solve that problem. And so the problem that it created for us was I started to wrestle with a lot of guilt because our business was actually in a really good place.  And just like this long overdue conversation about systemic racism, like why was our business benefiting from that? And so we really turned that on its head and channeled that into like how can we do more good with the good that's coming our way. This is Startup to Storefront, the podcast where we inspire entrepreneurship through truth. Today's guest is Denise Woodard, founder of Partake Foods. When her daughter was diagnosed with severe food allergies, Denise struggled with finding snacks she could safely feed her. So she set out to create some herself, but it wasn't exactly smooth sailing. Her initial attempts were met with responses of this is awful from her daughter. And this is where it's important to note that Denise was able to bypass so many hurdles that plague entrepreneurs as they grow. Denise recognized her own limitations and instead of laboring for a lengthy amount of time, perfecting a recipe, she hired a food scientist. By delegating this task, she freed herself up to focus on getting Partake off the ground and running. Partake is now a nationwide brand with venture capital funding from big names like Rihanna and Jay-Z. So listen in as we cover everything from how tough it was to get allergic customers to build up enough trust in the brand before they'd even try it. Why frozen is the new fresh and why at times she feels like she's flying the plane as she's building it. Hang on, hang on. If you're not subscribed, can you go ahead and do that right now before we get on with the video? Helps us out tremendously. That's all we ask and we're back. Welcome to the podcast. Everyone on today's show, we're talking to Denise, the CEO and founder of Partake Foods. Thanks so much for joining. Please tell everyone a little bit about what your company does and what you're working on. Sure thing. Thank you for having me. Partake Foods is a line of delicious nutritious allergy friendly snacks that was inspired by my daughter's experience with food allergies. Currently we make cookies and just launched a line of baking mixes. You said something about your daughter. What made you wanna start the company? Were you always into food or was this something that you found a problem that affected you and your family and that just drove you to solving something? Definitely more of a second. I've always had an entrepreneurial nature. I always had a side hustle but my real gig was working at Coca-Cola. I spent nearly a decade there and prior to launching Partake I worked in their Venturing and Emerging Brands Division where I had the chance to work on brands that Coke had either invested in or acquired. And that gave me the confidence when my family faced a personal issue that we couldn't find a solution to to leave that career and start Partake. My daughter Vivian turned six on Monday but right around her first birthday we learned that she's allergic to most tree nuts and eggs and corn and bananas. And it was really challenging to find foods and particularly on-the-go snacks that she could eat safely that tasted good and had ingredients that I felt good about. And then most of all that were from cool brands. I think often people with dietary restrictions and food allergies experience isolation and anxiety and really negative feelings around food because they're not able to share confidently in social settings that involve food which is nearly everything it seems. So I wanna ask you this. We have some founders on that have come on that have come from a similar background where they're working at one of these big companies and they sort of understand the secrets or they understand how these companies begin to think and they understand the threats that come on. And so we've had startups that are in two buckets. I'll give you a couple examples. So in one bucket, let's call it a completely natural almond milk where it's four ingredients. The problem is shelf life, but it's completely natural. There's no gums, there's no fillers, it's there's no binders, it's just four ingredients in water shelf life being six, seven days and it comes frozen. And so you have to add water. Now, if I'm a big corporation, I'm looking at these companies as a potential threat, but the reality is for anyone to really make it you're gonna have to mass produce and trade offs will be made. When you were an executive or in the room, let's call it, did any of this give you ideas as to like what they view as a potential threat or maybe even let's call them blind spots, not even the threats, but like blind spots within the food market that because either the market's too small or it's just emerging. What was that like for you? And did it give you any ideas of like, oh, this could be something big because no one's paying attention to this particular problem or segment? I think I saw, because I was my own consumer, I could see where there were gaps in white space and it was around clean ingredients. It was around products that actually tasted as good as their normal counterparts. And then like putting my big CPG hat on, I think where I would view a company like ours as a threat is if we were able to bring other consumers to the category that they weren't able to appeal to, if we were able to gain max distribution and start to eat away at even like fractions of their share points, I think would be eye opening to a big CPG. And so for me, I was really working on solving my family's own problem, but I could see that there was a large market opportunity because I started to research how many people had food allergies, how many people may not have food allergies, but eat a restricted diet for personal or medical reasons and how there was a gap in brands that really could appeal to multicultural consumers. And so I felt like there were a lot of places where our brand could play that could make it a large scalable company. And then what was your first step? And so what was the first product you decided to either recipe, develop or create and probably having your daughter as like the perfect litmus test, right? Or maybe not. Maybe she's giving you feedback saying like, this is awful. I got a lot of, this is awful, which then made me very quickly bring on a professional. We worked with a food scientist who was able to bring my vision to life. I think I didn't appreciate how different it was, kind of the example you described. Like I could make a really good allergy-friendly cookie at home, but then it had no shelf life. It had stuff like, you know, you have to soak dates overnight and then blend them, stuff that just wasn't commercially scalable. And so we needed to bring someone in that could help us make the formula a lot more scalable. And then what was your first line of products that you brought to market? We launched with cookies. So we launched with three flavors of cookies in August of 2017 for a couple of reasons. One, because I wanted like a very simple celebratory product that people could share easily and felt like a nice indulgence. And then two, from a more practical perspective, we needed a top eight allergen-free facility to produce our products in. And there's only two large ones in the country and they could only make a small amount of product. So it was like, you know, I can make baking mixes or bars or cookies. And so I knew that we wouldn't have the capital to be able to start buying fancy custom equipment to make other products. So we went with something they already had. So there was kind of a twofold reason as to why we started with cookies. That's shocking that there's only two of these facilities. Are they around you at least in Jersey or are they somewhere else? No, we actually produced in Idaho. And that was probably one of our biggest challenges in getting the business off the ground because they get to be really selective in who they work with because there's a ton of food start-ups emerging and there's only a couple of places that can make these super allergy-friendly products. Sure, that's tough. And then it's 2017. So Instagram's probably the main social media outlet at the time kind of still is. But how do you go about getting your product out there? Are you doing tastings at different grocery stores? What are some of the first steps that, you know, you're starting to see some, maybe some orders coming in both in the wholesale setting but also maybe online? Well, while I knew I wanted Partake to be a scalable business, I thought it was really important to start small. So we started as a self-funded self-distributed venture, which means I was dipping into my own family savings and I was selling cookies out of my car to natural food stores in New York and New Jersey. And I did that for nearly nine months. And so our major form of marketing was demos.  My husband has a full-time job in finance. He would show up in like a suit and tie with a book bag, with a Partake t-shirt. And after work every day, he was doing demos. We did lots of local consumer trade shows. And so it was really just like in-store events, local events, keeping it very geographically tight in the New York area.   You're probably your family savings or like, how did you view that time? So we speak to a lot of entrepreneurs and they really struggle with this moment where there's two answers, I think. There's one answer of like, do something you love so much you're willing to go homeless for. And I think there's a lot of blind faith that keeps you moving in that direction once you decide to sort of jump in the deep end. But then there's another side of just human nature, which is logical, right?  Like what am I really doing? Like am I really just bankrupting my daughter's college future on a whim? What was that moment, that time? Was it not so bad? Cause you're starting to see probably, there's also momentum, right? Where you're starting to see like, oh, people get it. And so there's these little bits of excitement. Thankfully it was the last. So I am definitely a foolish optimist as I think most entrepreneurs are, but I was also really close to the data. So I could see how we were performing versus our competitors. We had run a Kickstarter campaign that finished in the top 1% of food kick starters at that time. And so we were getting positive indicators from a business perspective. And then because the mission was so personal to me because it was built around my daughter, that also was a lot of the mission and faith and that could force me to continue to keep going. And what were people really responding to? Was it the problem that you were solving or was it just that you're making a delicious product? Like what was the one thing? It was a second and I was so wrong. I'm so glad that we did all of those demos because when I started the company, it was for people with food allergies. And what I should have known being a food allergy mom is that there's a really high barrier to entry with that customer. Like I don't give my daughter anything new unless I've seen it in like a Facebook allergy moms group. And my allergist has told me about it and it's thousands of stores. And that is what I saw as we did those demos. Like the other food allergy sufferers and parents would say, oh, that's a really cute idea, but I'm not gonna try it. I don't wanna be your guinea pig. But there were lots of more broad consumer groups, people who were experimenting with a plant-based diet, people who were gluten-free by choice, moms who needed a school safe snack, even if their kid didn't have allergies, people who wanted to support women or black-owned businesses. So it actually really broadened my eyes to how much larger a partake could be. On a personal note, you mentioned being a black-owned business. I'm a Latino here. Representation is something that has always been really important to me, but more important, I guess the way I view it is more of like forging your own way is the thing. It's, yeah, I came here from Peru and the thing that I looked around and it's like, if I asked you today, like, oh, name a Peruvian that's like, that made it, you'd struggle, right? You'd be like, I have no idea. And so my challenge personally for me, like the life mission has always been like, I need to be that person, right? Because when I look around, I don't see it. And unfortunately, and this is kind of like the hard part, right? The hard part is that means it's on you. That means if you look around and there's nobody, that means you better be the one to start making moves for your family or whoever, just so that even if they choose to be inspired, they have something to point to and go, well, that looks like it's successful. Definitely so. How deep rooted is that for you? It's a huge part of what keeps me going. I think it's unfair. I think there's an unfair, undue pressure on women and minorities to succeed because I do feel this pressure like, well, if I don't do well, then our investors might not ever invest in another woman or black-owned business. Or if I don't do well with that shelf space, Target might not be apt to give another black-owned business shelf space. And so I think it stifles you a little bit because you can't be as risk-taking because you feel so much weight. However, I feel the weight and I know it's there and I want to make people proud and I want to inspire people and I want to leave the door open for people coming behind me more wide than it was for me. And so it's definitely something that I'm very passionate about. Like how do we continue to lift underrepresented, underestimated communities as our business continues to grow? Yeah, I think it's spot-on. It is sometimes this like very annoying pressure. My wife also, my wife, so to give you some context, she owns her own construction company. That's amazing. It is, but how many females do you know in construction? And so one thing she struggles with is always the she has to be perfect. She has to be that much better because they're so used to seeing a 40, 50-year-old male period of any color, but it's an older male being the person in charge.  Kind of to your point. And I saw it too that you just raised a bunch of capital. Congratulations in January in a pre-COVID environment. Very awesome. You have some big names. How did you go about raising that round? What were the indicators from the market that you were getting that said, okay, we're in a position now where we're gonna go at scale. We're gonna get into every store or at least try to get into every store in the United States. Sure thing. So 2020 was definitely a very pivotal year for our business. We started the year in about 350 stores. I was the only full-time employee and we had big plans for the year. We knew that we were going into Target in a big way and that we were gonna go into Sprouts and expand with Whole Foods. And then George Floyd got murdered and there was this newfound desire from businesses and investors and influencers to amplify black-owned businesses that gave our business a lift like I could have never imagined. And so we right now in March of 2021, we're in about 6,000 stores. Our team is seven people. We're doubling that over the next couple of months. And so we're in major growth mode. And so I think it was the growth that we had over the past year that really got investors interested. And I didn't plan to raise a series A until maybe this summer, this fall, but there was a lot of inbound interest. And so I figured we should take advantage of the momentum while we have it so that we can go ahead and go into the new year ready to execute against our lofty goals. And thankfully, because we have that momentum, I got to be very selective about the partners that we work with. And so over 50% of our cap table is black and brown investors, which was very intentional. I think all of our investors are very mission aligned with our business, understand the importance of causes like increasing diversity in the natural foods industry, working to eradicate childhood food insecurity and are very supportive in my mission to drive those things as we grow our business. That's amazing. Kudos to you. Congratulations. Thank you. That's exciting. We do real estate development here and my goal for every project, so if I enter a Latino neighborhood, let's say, then I try to get to investors that are Latino because it means a little bit more to them. And to me, it's like, that's what I'm looking for. I'm looking for, it's a deeper connection. If you're just money, yeah, it's okay. But we're looking for more of like social capital. Like I like knowing maybe you went to high school here, maybe you know the fire chief or whatever it might be, but that personal connection to sort of your heritage, I think is important when you're investing or at least in what we do, which is investing in a lot of these communities to build something and create some jobs that help at the end of the day and impact several thousands of people. That's awesome. I agree, I think anything that you can do to create generational wealth in your community is like it's some more of that undue pressure and the responsibility and something I welcome but that I think a lot about. Yeah, that's amazing. Well, congratulations, that's pretty incredible. And then COVID hits, which we've had a lot of different companies on. I would say eight out of the 10 companies we've interviewed have leaned into the only thing that was working, right? And so all of a sudden all these options are gone. This is the only path and because of that they've been able to do quite well or in some cases their supply chain got broken up and so they've just leaned so heavily on education where now social media that was secondary to them became their primary message, their primary energy source for, this is how we're gonna tell the world what mission we're on. You know, they've seen some, a lot of positivity come from that. What happened to you and your business during COVID? How have you been affected? Thankfully, our manufacturing team and employees have all been able to stay healthy and safe, which has been paramount. We really had to pivot though our strategy because it hadn't changed that much from the earliest days in New York where we did lots of demos and local events and that wasn't happening anymore. And so we really moved to digital and really focusing on social media and email and texts and communicating with our customers virtually. But then as I'd mentioned, after George Floyd was murdered, there was just so much inbound coming our way that it really helped solve that problem. And so the problem that it created for us was I started to wrestle with a lot of guilt because our business was actually in a really good place.  And so we really turned that on its head and channeled that into like, how can we do more good with the good that's coming our way? And so it was the impetus or one of the factors in us launching a fellowship program that partnered with five historically black colleges and universities to help students with curriculum to help them get entry-level jobs and internships in the natural foods industry. And so it really was for us, how do we use all of this good that's come our way during a global pandemic to put more good into the world? That's amazing. I wanna ask you what that was like when this George Floyd event occurred. What were people writing to you about? Obviously that sounds like they're interested in helping, but to what extent? Like what were they doing? What were they saying? And cause I can imagine this being like good and bad or good and like icky. Like I just think about these messages of like the world, like for example, where I am in LA, the riots were right here. I mean it was like literally right here and the day starts with you see hundreds of, thousands of people walking down the street and it's like brings you to tears because it's like people care, this is great. And then eight p.m. hits and it's dark and now everyone's breaking into these businesses. And next thing you know, it feels like you're in a different country because all these businesses are boarded up and it's in quarantine. And so it's sad, right? And it's like, so we already have all these emotions happening and then you throw in, then people are messaging you to try to figure this out or help, what was that like? It was lots of influencers and press and celebrities saying let's shop Black-owned businesses. And the thing that was frustrating was there's not that many nationally scaled Black-owned food businesses. And so we were on every list, which I was proud of but just really brought to light again how few people are in this position and that's not a good thing. And so that's what we saw. We also saw retailers make commitments and investors make commitments about adding diversity to their shelves or to their portfolio. I appreciated when people were more public and also more quantitative in what they were gonna do because we can ask for the receipts a year from now and see if people really held true to that. And so it was just a level of press unlike anything we had seen before which really supported our econ business, helped move our product off the shelf. Thankfully, June was one of our best e-commerce months at the time was our best by far month in our e-commerce history. And we had partnered with a group called the Food Equality Initiative that was started by a Black woman in Kansas City whose family was experiencing food insecurity and her kids have food allergies. And so they bring allergy friendly foods to food insecure families. And we were able to with a portion of the proceeds from our online sales in June, thanks to all of that inbound, feed thousands of families, 4,000 families across the country. And so I hope that there were some good things that we were able to do because of what happened. That's amazing, yeah, that's great. I think people forget about this notion that like I know here in LA, there's a lot of minority communities that their only source of internet was actually at the school. And now we're in quarantine, no internet, no laptop. And so now they're basically without education. And this is where the gap widens and no one talks about this, right? And so it's just nice to hear your story where you still looked out to help those people that obviously still represent the community and make up a large part of it. And we're all suffering with either food or just basic things that a lot of people, like that's not in the news, right? And I think that's just unfortunate, but that's just the reality we live in. And so it's nice to hear that you've done something to help. So post COVID, let's say we're getting out of this now, you're in 6,000 stars. Yeah, it feels like it. The vaccines on the rise, Johnson and Johnson has arrived and it's directionally correct. What's in store for more of growth? Is it all business to business or are you trying to also do some business to consumer where you're selling directly to people like me? So our D2C makes up about 10% of our business and we have some pretty lofty goals against that. We really use that as an innovation channel as well. So we just launched a five in one baking mix, a brownie mix. We have a couple of new products coming in the baking mix line and they're only available as D2C offerings. And so our plan is to hopefully continue to grow retail distribution, launch new products. Like our goal is at some point to be across every aisle of the grocery store but we want to grow in a sustainable way and make sure that we're building a team that can support that and infrastructure that can support that. So we're just in a hyper growth mode which is really exciting. I feel like there's a good saying around it but it's a whole like flying the plane as you land it or whatever it may be that's what we're doing right now. Yes, that. And so that's what's happening around here. One of the things that really came to my attention was I would almost never and I'm sure there's maybe some people like me but I'll just use my anecdotal information around myself. If you came to my house there's really nothing in the freezer other than like ice and COVID hits and now all of a sudden people are looking to store, right? And so I mentioned the almond milk. So we were just buying heaps of almond milk that came frozen and we had water on our own. And I was thinking about this like from a CPG perspective it almost seems like people are spending more time looking at freezers or shopping in the freezer section to the point where extra freezer sales are up, right? So now people are buying a separate, a second or third freezer so they can store things in their home. You mentioned the brownie mix and other stuff like that. To me, it seems like this is like a ripe opportunity for let's call it even the younger crowd like teenagers that never thought of or like the college dorm room people who never considered freezing anything. I think COVID has taught us something about that world. Have you seen similar data or anything to that effect around how the freezer section might be coming like the new emerging trend in Grocer? I haven't seen a ton around freezer recently other than like frozen is the new fresh. And I do agree with that cause I think you can get really high quality items that are frozen. I think just generally with COVID like I think there's the pantry loading and the freezer loading.  It came out of a personal need again. One of the few safe pancake mixes that my daughter could eat got discontinued during COVID and I was like, what am I going to do? And so we created another one and we were like, this is so yummy. We need to share it with people. And so that is how the baking mix line came to be cause we were at home having more indulgent breakfast than we normally would when we're like, you know family on the go and just like throw on having a bar or something really quick. We were making like pancakes and waffles during the week and we didn't have options that fit our dietary restrictions. So that's how it came to be. Do you think your daughter will also be an entrepreneur?  How, what is that then like? Cause I always think about this like me and my wife one day we'll have kids and I'm like, you know, I hope they will and sometimes I hope they won't because it's not always that pleasant to this journey. You know, what is that like for you as a parent having a child? It's definitely not a glamorous journey. My dad was an entrepreneur and he advised me against being an entrepreneur but now that I am one is like my biggest cheerleader. I've seen my daughter, she's only six but probably from the time she was like three she's been going to trade shows with us and doing demos and like that's just the way of life that she knows. And it also I think has created a very like solutions driven child. So like if she sees a problem she literally will say, well, we should start a company that makes this so that we can help these people. And so I could see her being an entrepreneur but she's also seen the very unglamorous side of things and the sacrifice that you have to make. So she might pass. So whatever makes her happy. Are they back in school in New Jersey yet or no? Thankfully, so she's been knock on wood in school safely in person on the whole school year. So I think they just they're at 104 days now which has been a game changer for us. I don't know how parents are doing it or kids who are all at home together trying to work and do school and manage everything. Yeah, not well is how they're doing it. It's not, it hasn't been positive. At least all the feedback I've gotten is just and the kids are kind of like depressed. You know, they're tough, they can't socialize. It's been not so ideal. Yeah, that's tough. What have you done? Have you done anything specifically for your employees during this time? Like I know some companies are doing like remote wellness or they're starting to think a little bit more around just meditation or taking time away from Zoom and the computer. Has it changed the way you guys do business in a meaningful way? Well, we are just like I haven't met a lot of our team in person because we were just one person at the start of 2020. And so we're like trying to grow the organization in this virtual environment in a very rapid growth period. And so I think nurturing our culture and getting to know each other is so important. And so we have a weekly water cooler where you're not allowed to talk about work at all. And we're just like spending time on Zoom getting to know each other. We have a bi-weekly like team building. We're doing a cooking class next month. We did like this personality assessment last month. And then another bi-weekly like team meeting because I think even in a small organization like ours, when you're working virtual, it's very easy to like be in silos and just focus on what you're doing and not have any clue what the rest of the team is doing and feel really isolated. And so I can't wait for the day that we can be in person together. But in the meantime, we're definitely trying to keep things fun and keep everyone engaged. Do you have a dream investor, like someone who's on your list that you'd love to have on in your next round? I think we have them. We literally like John Foraker who started, who scaled Annie's and ran General Mills National and Organic Business, Jay-Z through Marcy Venture Partners, Rihanna. Like I couldn't ask for a more dreamless group of investors, you know, from a high profile perspective, but more from a like mission alignment perspective and belief in our business. Did that surprise you? So we've talked to some people that have had like the Kobe, liked of Kobe Bryant who passed, but on and the question I always have is like, does it surprise you that, cause everyone knows them in a certain way, right? Everyone knows the celebrity in a certain light. And not everyone knows like that person only invest in vegan based startups. And I think it's hard people to connect the dots. And so as you were meeting some of them and taking these investor meetings, were you surprised by just their level of knowledge in spaces that maybe at the beginning you wouldn't have thought they'd know much about? I think I was just most pleasantly surprised by how mission aligned everyone was, how they cared a lot about the HBC fellowship program, the work we do around childhood food and security, how dedicated we are to making a safe and high quality product. And not necessarily like the fancy fluffy metrics, they actually cared about like building a sustainable business that was gonna hopefully try to make a positive impact in the world. I think that's it, yeah, that's awesome. I think like we invest in some companies and everyone asked me like, oh, what's the thing you look for? And I'm like, honestly, their dedication to the problem they're solving. Like I don't care, you know, if they're making money or they're not there yet, it's really just based on where is this person going? What really wakes them up in the morning and do I think that they're the best in the game? Because at some point, if there's two equal people and one person is solving a problem that's personal to them, they're gonna win eventually over time. Even if they have no business acumen or even never went to college, like they're gonna win because they're gonna figure it out because they have the like energy creates discipline and they have the internal energy to want that. And so they will at the end of the day, succeed. And it sounds so fruitful. Like people are like, that's it. There's no like Excel sheet. There's no like MRR or like the run rate or like the recurring revenue. I'm like, no, it's none of that. Is this problem really personal to the individual? And are they building things around them that are in line with their mission? And if not, it's pretty obvious actually when it's not, you know, that's my take on it. And so it sounds like you're in the same boat. Definitely so. And you could feel it in the conversations because I feel like the investors that we clicked most with, we're trying to understand what drove me and like who I was as a person and what my values were and what type of company, like what type of leader I would be. And then there were these very like transactional investors who were kind of like, well, tell me why your margin went up one point this month and then down the next point, it's just like you were not aligned and like, don't get me wrong, I know the margin and it's important. But like finding somebody that your mission aligned with and really believes in you and what you're doing, I think is the most important thing. Yeah, it's like, do you think you can find a cheaper sugar alternative? Right, exactly. To drop, to increase margin by a penny. What would that do? And you're like, okay, wrong guy, sorry, gotta go. So what's your next big thing? What's the next thing that you're trying to work on for Partake Foods? What markets are you in currently? All markets, where are you seeing the most success? So something I always think about is like, where is the product doing the best? Because that says something about that market. And so your product in my head maybe LA, seems to make sense, I don't know. But what has been surprising that you've learned on your journey as to how people have been receptive to the product? I've been really positively surprised by how well we do in conventional retailers like Target and Kroger versus natural granola co-ops. Because I think it speaks to the mass appeal that the brand could have, which I get really excited about. And what's next? I think we have so much on our plate right now. We just launched all banners of Kroger two weeks ago, Trader Joe's a few weeks before that. We're launching the new lines of products, building out the team. And so really, I think like taking a second to breathe and celebrate what we accomplished and make sure all of this feels like a strong foundation before we kind of move to the next step of adding on stores and additional products. And just so we're clear, I want you to tell everyone where they can actually find you in the grocery store. Cause sometimes this is like a mystery, but where are you at Trader Joe's or in the targets? So you can find us in the cookie aisle at Target, most whole foods, sprouts, the fresh market, wagmons, and you can find us across Trader Joe's and you can find us at partakefoods.com. Awesome. Well, Denise, thanks so much for coming on the podcast. It's great talking to you about all things life and also a startup. Congratulations Kudos to you. I love what you're working on and I'm rooting for you. Thank you. I appreciate it. I appreciate the conversation.


My vision may be made worse. You see these eyeballs? I'm gonna get some lasers shot into them today.  I am gonna finally get LASIK. And this is something that I've been putting off for probably 15 years. It was always one of those things where I was like, oh, it'd be so cool to get LASIK someday, but I get scared about the potential consequences and it's pretty expensive. It's like $3,500. But this year I turned 40 and I was like, you know what? I'm gonna do it. I'm finally gonna do it. I'm gonna make it so I have perfect vision. And my eyes aren't that bad to start out with. I don't exactly know my prescription, but I actually don't wear glasses and I don't wear contacts. I definitely should. But it's one of those kind of things where I can't see stuff that's way off in the distance. If I'm in a sports bar, I can't see scores. And sometimes when I borrow my friend's glasses and I put them on, I'm like, oh, damn, look at all the leaves on the tree. Look at all the stars in the sky.  This is the informed consent for laser and essentially after the initial here and here and here and here and here, about all the potential consequences. But this page right here is the one that gets me. You have to repeat after them essentially. You have to write in here that you understand what's going on. I may not achieve the results I hope for. And this one right here, my vision may be made worse. There are risks and no guarantees. And this is the stuff that freaks me out. But I'm gonna do it. I've been thinking about it for a long time and I'm gonna save up my pennies and I'm gonna do it. And I'll tell you right now, I'm extremely nervous because I have very sensitive eyes. I can't even put in eye drops without freaking out. So just the act of a Lasik scares me. I know it happens really quickly. My doctor is one of the best. I did a little Facebook post asking who I should go to in Boulder and everybody's like, go to this guy, Dr. Byer. He's the man. I went to his website and he has a photo of Kevin Costner on there. So I figure if Kevin Costner went to this guy, he should be pretty good, right? Please sit down. Sit down. The Lasik office is really close to my house but they say I can't ride my bike unfortunately but I'm gonna get on the bike anyway just to loosen me up. My bike is my happy place, right? Seriously, biking just kind of calms me down and I definitely need to be calmed down right now. I didn't sleep very well last night. Maybe I'm making more of a deal out of this than I should be but it's just kind of scary. Later. Oh boy. Here we are. So what is this volume for? Anti-anxiety so that you'll just be nice and relaxed for the surgery. Bye-bye everybody. Ha ha ha ha. Phew. 12 seconds later. This is pretty cool. He has the wall of all the famous people he's worked on. There's Lindsey Vaughn, Grammy Award winner and lead vocalist of Cool and the Gang. That's the one that really sold me. Bye. If I look okay, here's okay. I just got out of a pee. So this is Dr. Byer finally get to meet him in real life. He's gonna tell me about the difference between PRK and Lasik. Yeah, okay. So the difference between PRK and Lasik, I always give this analogy. Lasik is more like planning sod. We make a flap, lift it up, laser underneath the flap, put the flap back down and then all the grass is still intact on the surface. So that's why the recovery is a little faster. PRK is like planting grass seed. You take the grass off, laser on the surface, but then the grass grows back very quickly. So the recovery again is different. But the risk, everything, they're different between the two procedures. And it just depends on the patient. Younger patients with lower prescriptions, I tend to push them more toward PRK because PRK is more stable. There's less risk of like long-term complication known as corneal lactasia or Lasik induced lactasia. That virtually does not happen with PRK. So you think I should do PRK? I do based on your prescription. And what's the recovery difference you talked about? So with Lasik, your vision immediately after surgery is pretty cloudy because the flap swells. So right when you sit up, people really don't notice a huge difference. They're like, it's really cloudy. But then the next day, it's about 95% improved. And that continues to improve over a week. And then even more of a work. So by the end of the week, it's like 98% by the end of the month it's going to be where it's going to be.  And it stays that way the next day, but the third and the fourth days are the worst because the surface heals from the periphery toward the center. And it's irregular in the center for the third and the fourth days. It's kind of like a little stab or something right in the center. It's not really a stab, but it's just heaped up epithelial cells in the center. So those days are the worst, but then it gets better. So typically by the end of the week, it's going to be 85, 90% better. By the end of the month, it's going to be where it is. You know, I trust you of course. So let's do the PRK one. Okay, sounds good. Really very low surgical risk. I mean, there's really, there's no cutting or anything like that. So intraoperatively there's really no surgical risk. The main risk of PRK is the risk of infection because that surface has to heal over a week. So if you get tap water, sweat, face cream, eye makeup or anything like that, that could cause an infection. Our current rate of infection is about one in 20,000 for patients that have had PRK. How do I get X-ray vision? X-ray, but you need a brain transplant for that. I feel pretty good. I think the volume really is kicking in. It's amazing. Yeah, it's amazing. Can I get some more of that? It's good. Blue eyeballs, but I stay the same color, right? You're okay, good. Well, I feel very at home knowing there's a Simpson with me. Marge in the room. All right, bye. I'm going in, deep breath. See you in a few minutes. A few moments later. Ah, that was so great. It was so fast. It was so easy. I can see. Thank you, this was great. Walking out with my cool new sunglasses. Woo, that one moment like held my hand because I was getting a little squirmy and you just stare into the laser. Seriously, it's like when the Millennium Falcon goes into hyperspace. All right, now it's time to go home and close my eyes for six hours. One eternity later. I'm going to call the doctor's office and I can barely even see the phone number. Hi there, I had PRK surgery on Monday. And yeah, and I know the doctor said that my eye sight would fluctuate on day three and four, but I'm having a hard time seeing anything. Just want to make sure that's normal. Arming and I'm gone. Yeah. But that is completely normal. Okay, good. Okay. But it should be getting better. Is going outside okay? Is that gonna make things worse? Should I just stay in a dark area? I'd just make sure you have your shades on if it's a windy and really bright or bold. Okay.  Day five after PRK, going on a little jog in my backyard here, my eyes finally feel better. Last night I went to bed, I could barely see my phone. I haven't been able to edit video or even read emails for the past two days, but I woke up today and I can see. And I'm starting to see better. Like today I'm walking around with my friend. I'm like, wow, the world is so beautiful today. And it is a beautiful day, but I think my eyes are, they're getting better. Like they're not a hundred percent, but I'm starting to see much better. This is exciting. I am just walking out of my one week appointment here at the Lasik Center. They took off the little protective contact lens on my eye. It's really bright, so I'm gonna put these on, but yeah, I can definitely see better. And they say it's gonna continue improving for the next month, which is exciting. It's gonna get better and better, yes. All right, so it has been five weeks since my PRK surgery. And look, they're still blue. And my eyesight is definitely way better. I can see things I never saw before. Everything is crystal clear. As I ride my bike around town, I'm noticing things that I never noticed before. I can see like the silhouettes of trees on mountain ridges far away and stars. Stars are the coolest. I camped out in Moab recently and it was amazing. It was like sitting in a planetarium. And that is exactly what I wanted. I wanted my eyesight for distance to get better. But I certainly compromised my distance for close-up stuff like reading, looking at my phone. And they told me that I would lose a little bit of my vision here. And that is definitely true. It's not horrible, but I definitely need to hold my arm back when I'm reading a book or stuff like this now. And it's kind of like, oh, this is what my mom has to do. But I don't really mind that I've lost some near vision because now I get to wear cool reading glasses like these. Let's go back a little bit. I realized that I didn't really explain what happened when I was sitting in the chair and the lasers were going into my eyeballs. It was literally a matter of seconds. And I was freaked out going in there. The idea of having my eyes pried open really wasn't that comfortable. But in reality, it was fine. I was in and out. I think the volume definitely helped. But it was like painless. Nothing, I couldn't feel anything. And it felt almost like somebody was blowing on my eyeball. I realize that's a weird analogy. I don't think anybody's ever blown on my eyeball, but you get the idea, something very delicate touching your eye. The recovery process has been interesting. It was definitely the worst on days three and four. It felt like I had sand in my eyeballs even when they were opened or closed. Sleeping was uncomfortable, but then it got better. And then it got really bad about two and a half weeks after my eye surgery because I went to Canada and bought some moisturizing eye drops, but I didn't pay enough attention to the bottle because they had some preservatives in them. And for some reason my eyes really didn't like that. So I started using these new eye drops and it just made my eyes get very angry. And my eyes were so sensitive to light. Like I was one of those guys wearing sunglasses indoors at all times. I called the doctor, he said, hey, come on in. And he pinpointed the problem pretty quickly, gave me some eye drops that have no preservatives. And ever since that moment, I have been A-OK. So the big question is, was it worth it? Well, I'm still in the process of healing, but yeah, it's really cool. I can see a lot better. When I look out the window, I'm like, damn, I can see all the way across the Colorado Plains. Not exactly, but I can see things that I never saw before and it makes me very happy. I definitely lost some eyesight here, but that's okay. I traveled the world. I wanted to see all the beautiful sights around the world in perfect HD 4K awesome vision. So yes, it was worth it. It was a lot of money. I probably could have bought a rad bike for that $4,000, but you know what? It was a good investment. I'm excited about it. And yeah, that's my story about getting PRK surgery. I hope you enjoyed this video. I know it was very different than most of my videos. It wasn't really an adventure. Well, it was kind of an eyeball adventure, but stay tuned for more adventure videos. Like and subscribe and we will see you down the road.


See what's new on the Burlington waterfront. Everybody, my name is Melinda Moulton and I'm your host today for On the Waterfront with Melinda. And my guest today is Joy Cohen. Hi Joy, how are you? I'm doing really great. Thank you Melinda. How are you? I'm fine. I want to thank you so much for spending a half an hour with me and my viewers to talk about you and to talk about your new novel. So let me tell my viewers a little bit about you. So Joy Cohen is an award-winning writer, educator, yoga instructor, playwright, and you grow and prepare plant-based foods. And these are just a few of your many, many accomplishments. So I want to talk all about you Joy and share with my viewers all about you and your new book. So let's start in Brooklyn. Talk about where you were born. You were born in Brooklyn and tell us a little bit about your childhood growing up. Oh well I was born in Brooklyn but by that time my parents who had grown up in Brooklyn had already moved to the promised land of the Long Long Island. So I actually grew up on the island, the first town outside of city limits. So I had kind of the benefit of the, you know, ultra-new suburban experience with a 20-minute train ride into the city. And I loved it. I also really longed for quiet and nature. So as soon as I graduated high school, it's funny, there's a passage we're going to read today is actually about these vacant lots I used to go to because I would, I even in the midst of development I really longed for nature and so as soon as I was able I came up to New England, I went did undergraduate work at University of New Hampshire and then University of Vermont. I've been in Vermont since 78. But my childhood was a fairly typical suburban Long Island Jewish upbringing. I actually still am very close with the people I went to kindergarten with. We just zoomed last night. We've been doing monthly zooms all through COVID. People I went to elementary school, high school with some college and it was a close knit community. It seemed it was very kind of in my memory sort of idyllic. But as you get older and you reflect upon things, you realize the dysfunction of so many aspects, whether it's in your personal life or systemically what was happening. So that was kind of the basics of my childhood. So a typical upbringing. Well listen would you I'm sure that you could share with us the person in your life who most inspired you to become the woman that you are today. Who would you give credit to that? Oh my goodness. That's such a difficult question. I think there were many. Well I had very strong women in my life, my mother and my grandmother. I had other grandparents but I was mostly close with Grandma Eva who was from Poland and she clearly had suffered a lot of difficult times. Left Poland when she was 17, never saw her family again. You know had to leave the pogroms and we never really knew what she had gone through exactly and we had ideas. So I think her resilience and strength in the face of the challenges coming to a new country, not speaking the language, being extreme poverty, losing her husband early. My grandpa Joe who was her husband died while my mother was pregnant with me. So I named after him. My my Hebrew name is Josepha and I never knew him but he was young. He was 63 when he died and then she lived till I think in her 90s. So just kind of all of the things that particularly strong women go through and just cope with and thrive really. I'd also I do want to give a shout out to two other things. One would be my teachers. I I think my teachers were so instrumental in providing me with an idea of what was possible in the world. I'm the first of my family actually I'm the only one of my family to actually have graduated, gone to college and graduated college. You know my mom was second generation American and they didn't know. They didn't know about academia and I'm kind of I call myself a recovering academic overachiever. So I I do think my teachers all the way from elementary school. I have incredible respect for what they did, the librarian in my elementary school and some really amazing teachers through high school and then the last part is the community of friends that I was very fortunate to both fall into and nurture from a very young age all the way till today and I I don't know where I would be without my friends and my sisters. My sisters are part of that group and again a lot of women. Well it's so interesting because you became an educator and the teachers in your life are really instrumental in that.  I actually I'm also I was certified K to 12 science and K to 12 art. I spent the last 14 years teaching art at Hunts Middle School in Burlington. I never intended to be a teacher ever it was not even part of the things I fantasize I always all I really ever wanted to be from a young child as an actress and I started college as a theater major but had a change of heart and that kind of fell into teaching. I actually was just finishing up my first master's degree in natural resources and I realized I didn't really want to do the computer simulations that were at the time what was being funded and a high school biology position came up at Middlebury Union High School. I didn't I wasn't certified had never taken an education course but I went I got an interview and I I guess I interview and they hired me and back then you could get certified by evaluation so after I had all the science credits but I didn't have any education any studies and educations but I was kind of a natural teacher so after the year of teaching there I became I got certified and I also had a bunch of I had many many art credits because I've always been an artist and that's how I got certified to teach art. That's so interesting so talk to us a little bit about some of the work that you've done as a playwright and some of your past works and some of the awards and the recognition that you've received because you've done several plays a few of them you've done at the Black Box Theater. So talk about a couple of your plays that you've done. It's very interesting Melinda I have to say that as I just said I started off life wanting to be an actress which would be someone that's on center stage and then I became a teacher so I also was always very much comfortable kind of here I am but over the last decade I really transitioned I'm a writer I spend most of my time alone and creating so this talking about myself and kind of you know it's it's it's funny I mean I'm fine with it but it's not I'm not used to it anymore used to be something I craved and I really no longer crave that. You have to do that but you have to do that in promoting right because you're a natural I mean I'm I think I think there's a little bit of you and me and me and you because I get it and yet I'm and yet I'm an introvert people say you're not and I'm like yeah but I am right but I see a little bit of us in each other and so I get I get what you say but in promoting the work that you do you need to be out there. So I would like you just talk a couple of a couple of seconds about the plays that you've written because this is your first novel this is your breakthrough novel. My debut novel.  Well it started off actually you know Stu McGowan he was my business partner I was developing a program for the National Science Foundation called the Grow Lab program it's teaching hands-on science and science through hands-on gardening and I very randomly met this very dynamic man and we were looking for a video producer to do our educational video so I hired Stu and then we worked together on those videos and decided to start our own video production company. So we I left teaching we had our video production company which was all educational videos around the country for places like the Department of Education US Department of Education and the National Science Foundation and our our tagline was videos made for, by and with children or kids and which was very unusual back then because this is when you had big video cameras so we trained kids how to use the video cameras you know it was way before cell phones. So I started to write the scripts for those so that's really that was my entree into kind of this idea of writing for a camera and I really had a screenplay in mind so I wrote the screenplay and it's you know it's kind of a I like to dabble so there were screenplays there were teleplays there were theatrical plays the two that I was very fortunate to have produced at the Blackpox Theater which I love that theater thank you for all you've done in Main Street Landing it's just such an amazing resource to have. The first one was called Anna's Journal and that was actually I adapted it from a screenplay I wrote and it's the one screenplay that I am still trying I want to get it produced as a film I would love to direct it myself if possible it's a story that you know but all of my pieces pretty much everything I write go back and forth between two time periods and I do that on purpose both because I'm fascinated with different time periods and also I just love to show the parallels between different time periods it's kind of like not to get into politics but when everyone was so up in arm about our last administration yes horrific things happened but I as you live through Nixon Agnew you know when they were very similar you know Kent State all of that kind of stuff so there's just there's been a divisiveness and I think it's important to understand historically that this has been the way the world has run and we do then survive and move through it. So Anna's Journal takes place in the weeks following 9-11 and it's a story about a young Jewish girl in Vermont rural Vermont who has a very intimate connection with a young black Muslim teenager and what their individual story does parallel to the what's happening in the world with Islamophobia and you know everything that happened right after 9-11. In addition the young man has a website which was also pretty new back then and he is trying to develop a website about tolerance and human social injustice and he starts to find out a little bit about Anna's grandmother and through a lot of research and a lot of evidence he uncovers what he believes is the truth that the grandmother is actually Anne Frank who never died and there really is it was all based on real evidence because they never found her body. So there's that's underlying this fantastical component of the story so it goes back and forth and I actually thrilled I had to send the screenplay to the Anne Frank Foundation and they gave me permission to use Anne Frank's dialogue at it. So we have scenes of Anne Frank speaking with her I know I'm getting goosebumps just by looking at you with her diary with Anna today with her journal and kind of the parallels of that. Fascinating for my viewers out there I'm talking to Joy Cohen who is an award-winning writer educator yoga instructor playwright and we're going to talk about we're going to move now into your new novel your breakthrough novel entitled 37 here it is and I want you to briefly tell our viewers about this book that you've just released on October 1 and it's getting rave reviews and is highly acclaimed and I want you to just share quickly with our viewers about your new book 37. Thanks so much Melida and if I could just I just really want to quickly also just mention that I was commissioned to write a play about Burlington's lost shool mural that if people don't know about it I not just about my play but about the mural it's an incredible piece of history international history that is right in Burlington and I was incredibly fortunate to be commissioned to write a play and that was the other play that was at the Black Box Theater so we can talk about that. Well and I think that they've removed it and restored it and Madeline was involved she called me about it and so yes I just wanted to make sure people knew thank you for that.  Well I'll tell you what we can basically the novel is about a woman who is at a crossroads in her life her her mother has she's in her 50s her mother had just died the year before she had a kind of cold and relationship with her mother her father shortly thereafter came down with Alzheimer's so he's really not someone she can communicate with right after the funeral her brother who was her closest confidant kind of cut her off she doesn't know why her only daughter is living abroad in Spain and her she is divorced so she's and and her job as a local reporter is feeling unfulfilling to her so she sets out on a journey to both try to find out what was going on in her family what was happening with her mother why her foot brother has cut her off and just to try to find herself and for some reason she keeps running into characters events stories that happened in the year 1937 and she decides the first one she decides to write a short story about this particular story and the characters and so embedded in the novel and it is fairly a unique structure I my publicist is calling this inventive fiction literary fiction yeah sure inventive literary fiction combined with contemporary and historical fiction so let's move include this in your discussion okay my next question and and and they call it cloud atlas meets eat pray love so the the thread of the novel is a contemporary like a woman self-discovery like eat pray love but the short stories are all literary fiction so there are nine short stories embedded in the novel that take place in different locations around the world Palestine because this was 1937 Tibet Chicago the Lower East Side of Manhattan and Vermont and others and through the the stories that this woman writes about all of the the people and their own struggles and their resilience and the oppression that had happened back then and today she finds her own truth and that's kind of the basics of what the novel is about thank you can I ask you is this somewhat autobiographical it's a great question um it's not but it's going to be well I was I was wondering wondering how how much of you is inside of Polly um you know there are there are little snippets of course as a as a writer as an artist I'm also a visual artist but as just a creative person I find that the more I stay present the more I observe I've taken so many aspects of the world that are taken in through my senses so I'm always aware of the light and how it's hitting something I'm aware of a snippet of conversation I hear and I have a pretty good memory for that stuff and I also keep gobs of notebooks so the things that come out in the story are certainly pieces of either things that I experienced myself or that I observed the character herself is not very much like me although close friends who have read it said oh my god I was cracking up at that part I could just hear you saying that joy and I don't think of that but of course you know I write again so it must be someone me so would you like to read from your book a snippet we found on page 101 it would be an honor read from your book for my thank you thank you and this is part of the thread of the novel not the literary fiction in the short stories I made my first pinhole camera when I was about eight the cardboard insert from dad's dry clean shirts were just the right size we lived in a new suburban development and I'd go into the nearby vacant lots the ones that hadn't yet been covered with Ray's ranch style number three rick siding instead of wood and a lawn thick enough to erase the owner's memories of the gray urban past they thought they'd escaped I take my notepad invisible ink pen and dad's like a flex he had bought me a brownie fiesta but I quickly outgrew it along with my pinhole I took artsy shots of weeds growing out of the asphalt or action shots of our pet tabby stalking the crickets I used to pretend my neighbor Mr. Goldblatt was a tribal chief I wanted to enter the life photography contest with the shot I got of Mr. Goldblatt kissing Mrs. Goldblatt in her floral moo moo a real Aboriginal moment mom wouldn't let me one evening I hid behind the fence and took pictures of chief Goldblatt grilling lamb chops in his low-slung cabana shorts he caught me snapping the camera and chased after me yelling Aniston get the hell out of here I tripped and broke my front tooth on the concrete curb and went home limping proud to show off my hardcore field correspondent wounds mark was ready to go kick some butt and I was ready to follow him but dad held him back I couldn't tell if dad was angry with Mr. Goldblatt or me marked it a clumsy juvenile war dance and the harder mom tried not to laugh the louder her snorts became she looked at him with complete adoration and as usual he didn't seem to notice mom was oblivious I was hurt but it didn't bother me blood was still dripping from my chin when I told them I'm glad it happened and I was that was when mom started calling me Polly short for Polly Anna Anna being my real name it wasn't until years later that I realized she was using the name of that sweet optimistic little girl in a pejorative sense dad gave me a copy of the classic for my 11th birthday the year I was the same age as the fictional Polly Anna that night I braided my hair and put mom's eyeliner on my face as freckles mom dad and mark were sitting at the table when I theatrically marched into the kitchen misquoting Porter when you look for that in mankind expecting to find it you surely will right on cue mom replied when you look for the good in mankind expecting to find it you surely won't oh lanie that's not nice dad said it's true though mom mark admonished she'd listen to him in true Polly Anna fashion I ran over and hugged mom it's okay I know you don't mean it she didn't hug me back thank you thank you for that so share with our viewers how long it took you to make 37 and what was your inspiration to do so was it because because of the four years that we endured with our politics that had you go back to this time in history what was your inspiration and how long did it take you to write it joy well what happened was I was going to the Dominican Republic on vacation with my then husband and we went and we loved it and we thought about buying a place there so there's actually a whole story one of the stories Shabola in the book which I was going to we were going down there and I started to wonder if there would be other Jews in the Dominican Republic which was kind of odd I mean I've been living in rural Vermont it's not a very big you know not like I grew up in a close knit Jewish community but I just started to wonder about it so kind of what I usually do I just do some research and I found this just fascinating story about a community of Jews that had left Eastern Europe when they were being oppressed in before the World War II broke out and at that time Trujillo who is one of the world's worst dictators accepted Jewish he was the only world leader Rose even Roosevelt wouldn't accept Jewish people in but he accepted Jewish men and it's a whole longer backstory of and if you read the book you know it was basically to breed with the people so that exactly make them why do you want it he wanted to lighten but I mean it's the end of the people it was just so twist right yeah right exactly twisted the right word so I went down I did interview in the book his name is different but it was Lewis Hess is his real name and a fascinating beautiful man and been hours with him and I was just so blown away by his story that I wrote a short story about it but as I sat with that short story of course I did more research into the time period because as a writer you want to fill in backstory and details and you know again those sensory details and the more I found out more I was just fascinated by this time period so that's kind of how it all evolved that's how it all came to be yours that's so interesting your style of writing is entertaining instructive and illuminating so do you believe that your training in years as an educator helped you to define your writing style oh that's an interesting question um as I said I'm kind of self-taught education I went back to school after after I did my first masters I went back for masters in curriculum and instruction so I did take some incredible education courses you know Melinda it's life you know in life we meet so many people we we I learn from everybody I mean some of the most probably informative conversations I've had have been sitting on a park bench and talking to a man in his 80s next to me or on a train the train from New York to you know Rouse's point sitting there or to s-exjunction a nine and a half hour train ride so I it's not I never really had formal training in it I think it is just a broad spectrum of being open of my own travels of being someone who tries to always think about what if you know what did this landscape look like 200 years ago what did that build it what happened and you probably see a lot of things in architecture in my book you know like I'm always wondering when you're walking up the stairs who walked up those stairs and and so it's just a lot of I'm I'm fairly curious person and I think the other thing I used to say that I'm never bored but I realize that I'm pretty much often bored so in order to counteract the boredom my mind is always imagining things and I'm always I need to create you know I paint or I'm fiddling with something so I think all of those informant um so Polly is seeking to find her own truth throughout this novel did you find your own truth while writing it I'm still on that journey I'm still on that journey yeah I mean I you know there have been a lot of transitions for me personally over the last decade you know life is a bunch of transitions I know that's kind of just the way it goes but a lot of loss a lot of change I've been living alone for the first time in my life and so it's an incredible gift to to finally get to know myself because you know you go you grow up and you have relationships and you have friendships and then you have children and you have full-time jobs and you don't most people don't have chance or don't take the opportunity to pause and really know themselves I found um right after my recent divorce I was having a very hard time making decisions and I'm usually a very decisive person and I had a wonderful conversation with someone and through that conversation I realized that I've always it's been so easy for me to make major decisions about my for what was best for my family what was best for my spouse what was best for that but never just what was best for me so this has been an interesting thing so I am really trying to find my own truth I'm not quite there yet but I'll let you know exciting I can't wait to see what you do next I mean quite frankly so I I feel like you are truly a Renaissance woman you have so many talents and passions and you possess an intellectual brilliancy you are gifted in so many areas and so if I were to ask you to describe yourself in a few words for our viewers could you do that because you are are uniquely uh remarkable um in all of your gifts um could you do that for us you're making me get all choked up or as you might know the word all for clumped so thank you thank you Melinda it's really means a tremendous deal coming from you I would say I use the word curious and I think that's probably something I'm I'm someone that's very curious about life I'm passionate very passionate I like to be engaged in whether it's in my own mind and but anything creative and and that's whether it's experiencing it by doing it hands on or appreciating others creativity and I'm of all about connection I think that's probably the main thing I like to connect ideas I like to connect people and I'm probably missing some things but that's you know it's just about about a mutual support I love a mutual supportive community my my community of my sisters and by sisters it's wider you're now included in one of those people um I I think I think just being reflective but also being able to connect those truths with others we have a very short time on this planet I'm realizing it the older I get and I don't want to waste time with not that I of course I feel deeply sadness and loss and all of those things but that's part of the human experience and I will get back to it I think that's one of the things I was trying to do in this was just show that the human condition no matter who we are no matter what time period we lived in no matter where what culture we're from we share this human condition of of just trying to be the best person we can be and create a life that's now we lead with love that's it to me that's it's the simple lead with love lead with kindness and just do the best we can given the knowledge we have in any moment well what a way to end our interview so to my viewers joy thank you so much um stay on after I after we stop recording because I want to chat with you for a few more minutes but for my viewers who have been listening to joy co and talk about her new her life for extraordinary life and her new novel 37 you can get her book at all independent bookstores everywhere and if you're into shopping local I suggest you give a call to phoenix books they can send you her book or you can stop in at the store on the several locations here in vermont at phoenix books um so joy thank you so much for your time and for this book and I just can't wait to see what you do next it's been an honor melinda and I do want to say if anyone has a book club that they this is a really great book for book clubs and I have book club questions I would be happy to either if you're local I'd be happy to come to a book club meeting or come in via zoom so whatever you'd like so that's another what a great option for people and let me share your your website it's joy lisa cohen cohen.com and so go to joy cohen's website and you can also at jernica additions.com which is the publisher of your book g-u-e-r-n-i-c-a additions e-d-i-t-i-o-n-s.com um visit those two websites um to learn more about joy and her work and about her new novel 37 so joy i'm going to go back to our view where we thank you together so that I can see you um and and thank you for your time it I just I just have loved everything about our time together and I wish you all the best I cannot wait to see what you do next and to my viewers thank you for tuning in and I'll see you soon take care thank you so much been an honor thank you


Third game of this green turtle class that goes to our IT 1110 with creating coach Steve Colford You guys are gonna leave here oh and two When you look back at these two games You're gonna see so much that your team did well here Yeah, how do you convince them that this oh and two result kind of flukish and and continue on to make sure that this Weekend doesn't beat you going forward again. Yeah, well, you know, I think we come here for all those reasons You know, I mean because the competition is so tough The mental and physical challenge of playing and within less than 24 hours against ranked teams You have to make Adjustments on the fly you have to make personnel changes on the fly I mean we were literally did a walk-through in the conference room at the Mount Washington in this morning and put two new offensive plays in We moved tables and chairs. We used you know, I mean that that's what you do And you know so our effort both nights. I thought was great last night We just didn't get enough shots and Stevenson's defense played really well over the second third and fourth quarter and tonight We didn't finish the game, you know, and they had an experienced Lethal group when given the ball and we knew that and we had to play a different style against them We had to really limit our transition and really hold on to the ball if they have it They're really good at scoring and we saw that I mean, I've never seen them They I think they outshot us 18 to 3 in the fourth quarter, right and that's that's crazy We just couldn't get that ground ball. I had to use a time out on D We were just gassed, you know, and so you you know you keep trying to just pull levers and see until you pull the right one and tonight, unfortunately We didn't and credit goes to our IT and their staff they they they won a game talk about Tyler for a minute I mean he did everything he possibly could 16 saves In this game and as you mentioned when you're playing an offensive team like that We're all six guys on the field at any time from anywhere are so good just talk about his effort and what he gave you Yeah, I mean they're they put a lot of pressure on you. I mean they stress you because they're great in the two-man game You know that they have that Canadian influence. They have great sticks, you know And so you need to go who's gonna make saves and then they 10 man ride you So you're not out until you can't relax when he makes a save. We got it clear I told our deal all night. You can't relax until the ball is in our offensive box You know and and that's the stress that they put on you, but that's what good teams do That's what championship level teams do like RIT We have to learn from that and we have to get to that level you have to play these guys You got to compete against these guys and that ultimately will be the thing that we believe the recipe to get us to that level and sustain it You guys have done a lot of good things so far on this year And as you sit here at five and two just thoughts on where you all are right now Sitting at five and two and obviously losses here the last two games to really good clubs But where are you right? I think we're okay just because you know you look at it for you know 41 freshmen 55 freshmen 33 freshmen 17 freshmen Tyler Morel sophomore, you know I mean we could go down the list of freshmen sophomores who made contributions in our seven games If not starters coming off the bench, so we knew we were gonna be a little bit younger We're a little bit more veteran on the back line of our defense Which is obviously good, but we're young and these kids are gonna learn from that if we're playing good lacrosse in April May then we look back on this weekend and say it was well worth it I said to our guys Thursday and Friday listen, you know Whatever happens this weekend. We're gonna be a better team and a better program come Sunday regardless now What I'd like to be to know sure one-on-one I could sleep with oh and to you know I got a lot of work to do and we got some work to do but we understand that this is a marathon It's not a sprint and you know, I still think we're in good shape You know, we got to go home have a good week of practice get on the bus and go and play courtland state And you know, that's a good squad and coach bella will have them ready and but that's the grind You know and that's what our guys are gonna have to be prepared to face if they want to get to that next level I appreciate the time best luck the rest of the year appreciate it Steve Cole for joining us here is Cabrini Falls heartbreaking fashion 1110 it over time to RIT at the green turtle classic