Episode Title: Wonder and a Will to Live — Merrill Garbus on Whiteness, Grief, and Practice

Opening & Introduction

Shamm Petros (00:04)
Welcome to Stories That Stay: How Stories of Identity Shape Us. This is a podcast where healing happens at the intersection of art, science, and storytelling. I’m Shamm Petros—a therapist, learning strategist, refugee, and reluctant creator.

Dwight Dunston (00:20)
And I’m Dwight Dunston—a facilitator, educator, artist, and proud uncle. Stories That Stay is a project of Lion’s Story. Whether you’re an educator, organizer, artist, or someone simply trying to make sense of what you’ve been feeling in the world around you, you’re in the right place.

Our guest today is Merrill Garbus. You may know Merrill as the creative force behind the music project Tune-Yards.

Shamm Petros (00:48)
As we arrive with today’s guest and their story, let’s prepare ourselves for the feelings, emotions, and truths that will emerge. We invite you to take a few moments just for you—to intentionally inhale and exhale. We’re going to provide a forty-five-second breathing moment with an audio reprieve.

Dwight Dunston (01:44)
Our guest today is Merrill Garbus, the creative force behind the music project Tune-Yards. She formed the group before she even realized she was a producer. Since then, she’s gone on to write and produce music for herself and others, including legends like Mavis Staples. She’s also collaborated with artists like Yoko Ono and Laurie Anderson, and composed for film and television—often teaming up with director Boots Riley.

Merrill records much of her work with her partner Nate Brenner. She lives in Oakland, California, where she shares life with her toddler and a very important dog. And I just have to shout out—Merrill is also a friend of one of the hosts, myself. Merrill, it’s so poppin’ to see you.

Merrill Garbus (02:46)
So good! And, you know, I should have put in that bio: “And such artists as the band called Which Includes a Person Called Dwight Dunston.”

Dwight Dunston (02:56)
Ah, man! It’s such an honor, and we’re just so grateful—especially here in our first season—to have you with us, bringing your stories, insights, and experiences. We have a way that we like to roll out the opportunity for you to share and reflect on some early memories and messages. We’re going to take our time, and I’m going to pass it over to Shamm to continue grounding as we arrive in this space together.

Shamm Petros (03:35)
I’d love to inquire—before we even start to inquire about that narrative, that experience, that memory—how are you arriving today?And did you have any feelings in particular around sharing your story today?

Merrill Garbus (03:47)
Why, yes. Before we started recording, I shared that I was feeling some fear—and maybe even avoidance. I knew I was going to be in a podcast room with two people that I really respect and love, really, and also people who are deep.

We recently released a record, and I do a lot of interviews like this, and I was like, but this one…It’s not going to be about shallow facts—like where we recorded things. Many can get deeper, but not with this kind of framing and invitation.

So I was coming with some—You know, I’m a white person here, and we’re talking about difference. It’s very important in this moment for white people to be talking about their experiences of difference and of race. I feel that in my body.

I do feel stressed when I think about—“Here, go speak about being white.” Great. That’s not first on my list, right? And I can feel it in my lower belly—a little bit of a gentle tightening.

On my way walking—after dropping my kid at preschool—I checked Instagram, and there was horror on my phone. So I felt like I really needed to bring that in here today. I’m so grateful that you’re starting with building blocks—like, “Let’s talk about the basic building blocks of how we don’t hate each other and kill each other.”

And I would be lying if I didn’t say I feel overwhelmed. It’s kind of like the opposite of the butterfly effect—or the evil butterfly effect. Little discomforts with difference, and the inability to tolerate difference, zoomed out and maximized into horrifying multiple genocides happening in the world.

So I feel like I needed to bring that in for myself—it intensifies even more the value of this work, and also maybe the fear around this work for myself as a white person. That sense that now I’m like, we have not done this work enough.

That’s a lot of what I’m coming with today. And also just the gratitude to you—that as soon as you started talking about what this podcast is, I was like, okay, this is good. Let’s do it.

Exploring Fear, Gratitude, and Avoidance

Shamm Petros (06:26)
I’m smiling—and not because the things you’re saying are delightful, right? You so gracefully named your emotions, where they live in your body, the messaging you’re hearing from external actors, and the context of the time.

The feelings—whatever they are—what I always appreciate is our ability to be specific and detailed. You named fear and avoidance, which I’m sure many people can relate to in this time. But then, in some way, you’re able to gauge and say, okay, this is not insurmountable fear, right?

It also sits alongside gratitude and knowing I can bring these things here. That’s a lot of the work—being able to name it and say, this is actually how I’m being impacted. Then we can talk about calibration and regulation—all the nuances that are needed.

Merrill Garbus (07:19)
Yeah.

Shamm Petros (07:22)
I want to push you a little further—just a bit. Is that okay? Just with this prompt, to make sure we get some exercise in before we ask you to reflect.

Avoidance—I also heard gratitude. If there’s another prominent emotion I didn’t catch, let’s include that. So those three—whichever ones are most present for you—can you scale them on a scale from one to ten? One being almost non-present; ten being fully present.

Merrill Garbus (07:25)
Of course. Gratitude—ten. For real, for real. Gratitude: ten. Fear right now—2.8. What was the third one I named? Avoidance. Okay, right. Avoidance. I just want to unpack that a little more.

Shamm Petros (08:24)
For our listeners, all of us are holding our hearts—or have held our hearts, or had our hands on our chests—in the last few moments.

Dwight Dunston (08:32)
The prompt I want to offer is one that we sent over, and wherever it takes you is just right. Merrill, what are some of the earliest memories of difference that you recall from your life?

Early Memories of Difference

Merrill Garbus (08:49)
The first thing that popped up when I heard that question—when I read that question—was from when I was probably two or three.
And when I was two or three, it was about body size.

There was a neighbor kid—I don’t remember their name—who was very thin as a toddler. And I was not. I just remember looking at my leg and looking at their leg, and equating that with some kind of value system: I was bad; they were good.

I don’t know where I got that. That, to me, is the mystery—because it’s noticing a difference. But then I do remember thinking, I don’t want my leg to be like this. This is not right. And so that—that was kind of mind-blowing to realize: somewhere in there, I got this messaging.

I feel like that early body-size awareness planted something. That was very, very young—two or three.

You know, I have a three-year-old, and people keep saying, “Don’t worry, he won’t remember this. That was hard, but he won’t remember.” And I’m like, I don’t think that’s true. Or at least, it’s not definitely true.

There’s so much we absorb that’s just in the air we breathe.

So, that’s my first memory of difference.

But I want to say—immediately I went to the next one. When I really understood difference in race and class—it was later, but in a similar scenario.

As a kid growing up in the suburbs of New York—I mostly grew up in Connecticut. My dad grew up in the Bronx, and my grandparents—his parents—were in the Bronx. So we’d do the back-and-forth trips a lot.

That was my first real contrast. Up here in Connecticut—it’s green and white. The leaves are green, the people are white. For most of my early life, there were only white kids in my classes.

When we visited my grandparents, the people of color I saw were, frankly, on the street—in the 1980s, in the Bronx. We’d drive in, park the car, and I’d look out the window thinking, Whoa. This is really different from where I’m coming from.

So again—this sense of difference. And I appreciate that it was early—that what I was seeing, I was already making judgments about. I remember the earliest memory being someone peeing outside on the sidewalk—something that never happened where I lived.

There was a sense of danger—going into the big city and seeing things that didn’t exist in our small town. Growing up, the city was described as the “nitty-gritty place” my dad had escaped from. It was a place we’d left behind.

That was a lot. So I’ll leave it there.

Dwight Dunston (12:42)
We’re curious—how’s your breathing right now, after sharing that?

Merrill Garbus (12:48)
It’s a little shallower. A little shallower, and in my chest.

Dwight Dunston (12:50)
Good noticing. I want to invite you—and our listeners—to take a breath in and down. Just continue to be mindful of breath.

These follow-up questions—what you’ve given us, Merrill—in our line of work, we’re not here to ascribe value to it. This is literally what you remember.

The question is worded that way to open you to whatever emerges. Dr. Stevenson, and the work at Lion’s Story, teach these skills—and I’ll move you through a few questions to continue being with your story.

At any point, you can add more if something else comes to you. You might find yourself saying, Wow, I can’t believe I remember that. All of that is welcome here.

On a scale from one to ten—First, name any feelings that come up as you recall and retell these earliest memories of difference. Then rate their intensity.

Shame, Curiosity, and Generational Echoes

Merrill Garbus (14:43)
Shame is definitely in there. It’s different— I know I named two different stories, but the naming of difference—“I’m different, and different in a bad way”—that feels like it’s still there, even from early, early childhood. That’s still like a level-four shame from when I was two or three years old.

And I’d say, retelling the story about suburban Merrill—almost a tourist into an urban environment—I have shame about that too. That feels like more recent shame, an adult understanding of shame. That’s like a six or seven—it’s really there.

I’m trying to access different emotions—sadness, maybe a six. Then curiosity, too, because more is coming to me.

Ready? We’re in our 4Runner—our Toyota 4Runner. Loud. I’m in the back with those ‘80s headphones that were just tiny circles of foam. How did we even hear anything through those?

Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation is playing. That’s what’s coming to me. So, what year was that—’87, ’88, ’89? Somewhere in there. So I’m eight to ten years old.

Again, what’s manufactured? I don’t know. But I know that happened. I remember listening to Rhythm Nation on the way to the Bronx.

And I’m getting a lot of stories that I don’t see as separate—there’s curiosity and unfamiliarity. Because on that record, they go through the radio. They’re scanning FM stations and hearing new stories of horror.

So this suburban eight-to-ten-year-old is taking that in—listening to these sounds of struggle and injustice—And then here we are, in this environment, seeing impoverished and unhoused people on the street as we park near my grandparents’.

So curiosity—it’s still up there. A seven or eight. I don’t know if that’s an emotion, but it’s what feels present.

And furthermore, my grandparents were Jewish—people who had been in the Amalgamated co-op apartments in the Bronx for decades. In the 1980s, that was really changing. What was once probably a 100% Jewish building was shifting, and there were more Black families moving in.

My curiosity—as I’ve learned more about my family—is about that fear. My grandparents’ fear. And really my great-grandparents’ fear of what their context was.

They emigrated from Eastern Europe and came with expectations for their lives in the U.S.—and the way those lives ended, often still in poverty and confusion, with fear from what I understand of their stories.

So a lot of that for me brings up tingles—This feeling of... there’s a word for it, maybe? When you feel generations entering the room and you’re like, Wow. I’m cycling through my family’s story right now. I really feel them here.

Shamm Petros (18:59)
There probably is a word for it—but it’s not in English.

Merrill Garbus (19:04)
I agree. Not in English.

Shamm Petros (19:06)
Not in English.

Dwight Dunston (19:08)
Right. We’ve been trying to run away from ancestors and history for so long, we probably don’t want to make up a word.

Merrill Garbus (19:19)
Probably no colonial language contains it.

Shamm Petros (19:22)
No. No.

Dwight Dunston (19:25)
Like, what was here before?

Shamm Petros (19:28)
Yeah, I think I’m both before and after at once.

Dwight Dunston (19:30)
Yeah. Merrill, I just want to reflect back—We heard two different timestamps of shame:the younger one, a four, and the adult one, a six or seven.

Then sadness, at a six, and curiosity, at a seven or eight.

You’ve begun to do this, but the next question is about locating where these feelings live somatically. As you notice and breathe into them—where are they showing up for you physically? Are there places of tension, release, or tingling? Just notice what parts of your body are speaking.

Embodied Feelings and Practice

Merrill Garbus (20:32)
Yeah—would you believe it? My ass. I’ve never felt that before—tingling in my butt.

Dwight Dunston (20:39)
Okay.

Merrill Garbus (20:41)
There you go! But maybe that’s ancestral. There were definitely some good butts in my DNA.

Also, maybe it’s groundedness. And I do want to thank you all—and everyone who practices this work.

This is different in some ways, but not my first go-around doing this kind of reflection. And I just want to shout out practice.

You know, these feelings used to be nines and tens—Shame at nine, fear at ten.

So for all of you out there who might be at those levels of stress, I just want to say: Thank God for practice. Thank God for coming back, again and again.

Shamm Petros (21:40)
That’s on brand—with the practice. The practice is key. It’s everything.

Merrill Garbus (21:45)
Yeah, right! That’s something I forget when I get overwhelmed—hat I have to come back to this, every day of my life.

I still feel a little hesitancy in my throat—like a frog in my throat—and a little tension in my sternum. Those are still there.

The Journey, Whiteness, and Forgiving the Process

Dwight Dunston (22:16)
Last question I want to ask before inviting Shamm to offer more reflections: Merrill, you’ve so beautifully named your feelings and located them in the body. You’ve brought awareness and courage to those sensations.

Now I want to invite in the self-talk—The things you were saying to yourself as you told the story, and the images that come up as you sit with it.

You mentioned the 4Runner, Janet Jackson, Rhythm Nation. As you stay with those memories, are there other images or thoughts that surface?

Merrill Garbus (23:23)
Maybe the word journey.

That this understanding and unpacking of these images and stories—it’s a journey. My forty-six-year-old self is saying that now.

I’ve gotten trapped before in the cycle of wanting the correct answer: “How do I show up correctly? How do I say the right thing? How do I even revise the story—how do I rewrite a childhood story?”

That’s ridiculous, but it’s also a reflex.

And what I’m finding I need to do, to keep the story as it is—without editing out the parts that make me uncomfortable—is to situate myself in a journey.

Even my lineage feels like a journey.

My dad grew up in the Bronx and really wanted out. And I’ve been very interested in my choice to go into cities— to choose urban life intentionally.

When I began my awareness of whiteness, it was probably then—That early awareness of myself being different.

Most of that early difference, though, was about other people. Because I grew up in a very white town.

So it was like: “These people in the Bronx are different.”

Instead of asking, “Wait, who am I in this story?”

That questioning—“Why are there only white people here?”—didn’t come until later.

To forgive myself for that journey feels essential.
To understand that this is my life, and it’s not about “getting it right” like a switch.

It’s about true unlearning—redefining. Redefining even basic family stories. Like the one I was told: “Why do we live in this town?”

We were Jewish in that town. That was also a difference. Maybe two or three Jewish families total.

And my parents were musicians—that wasn’t considered normal. Our family gatherings were loud; there was yelling.

That wasn’t normal in this buttoned-up, almost aristocratic Connecticut town.

So I realize—I was on my own journey around difference all along.

Processing the Process

Shamm Petros (26:55)
I feel like I’m in process. I know we’re processing you, but I’m also processing with you.

Merrill Garbus (27:02)
Give it to me—give it to me.

Shamm Petros (27:04)
You’re doing it majestically.

When we ask about self-talk and images, there’s a way our body naturally responds to stress— We start taking care of ourselves if we have the tools to regulate and recalibrate.

Your messaging feels grounding. I feel it in my core—it’s a process, it’s a journey.

And you’ve developed this corrective self-talk that’s actually affirming: “How do I show up correctly? How do I say the right thing?” Even the admission—“I want to revise the story, but no, I want the data.” You’ve built that skill over time. It didn’t come easily.

Merrill Garbus (28:07)
Yeah, we’re all working hard. That much I know.

Shamm Petros (28:14)
Yeah—and we all need grace. All of us.

Merrill Garbus (28:21)
Thank you. Okay, yes—I’ll claim I’ve done some hard work. And life, if I may say… I don’t mean to interrupt, but—

Shamm Petros (28:25)
You’ve done some hard work.

Merrill Garbus (28:34)
These questions brought me to a place of not wanting to be alive on this planet. So I have to do the work.

Shamm Petros (28:47)
Absolutely. And it seems sometimes so small, but the most beautiful thing you’re doing is noticing.

A lot of us dissociate, avoid, freeze—whatever form it takes. But the ability to notice and bear witness— That’s a strong, valiant fight.

Because these stories won’t be forgotten.

Maybe it’s just sitting and feeling our bums and our guts—But for people who don’t, the consequences ripple outward.

Merrill Garbus (29:27)
Amazing. Amazing. Yeah.

Hashtags, Hope, and Wonder

Dwight Dunston (29:32)
If you had to speak into the portal—whether as a prayer, an offering, or words of wisdom—what would you say?

We also like to ask guests: If you had to put your story in a hashtag or a headline, what would it be?

What feels like a good way to close the portal?

Merrill Garbus (30:08)
Wow. I don’t know—that might open more portals!

Let’s see…Hashtag: It’s a process. It’s a journey.

Dwight Dunston (30:21)
That’s real—it’s a journey, it’s a process.

Merrill Garbus (30:24)
It’s a journey, it’s a process.

Something that’s interesting about talking to “future Merrill”: Shamm, you mentioned the work being valiant.

I want to put that in her ear.

People talk a lot about hope these days—or hopelessness. Usually, I feel like hope is… useless.

Sometimes, I even think hope is a white construction. I’m working on that theory—I’ll back it up someday.

But what I’ve chosen to value instead this year are two things: Wonder, and a will to live.

If I don’t need hope, what do I need? I need wonder, and I need a will to live.

That’s what I’ve clarified for myself.

What I feel hopelessness around are the entrapments of whiteness— The systems so ingrained that I forget the diligent, valiant work is worth it.

It’s not about what I’ll see in my lifetime.

As one of our songs says: “Not in my lifetime, I know, I know, not in my lifetime.”

It’s not about seeing it; it’s about doing it. That’s what I want to tell future Merrill: Keep working. Avoid the traps of perfectionism and “getting it right.”

This work is brave and courageous—it’s worth it in itself.

You will see things you never thought possible. This conversation, for example—twenty years ago, it wouldn’t have been possible.

So what’s twenty years from now?

That’s the wonder. And it doesn’t mean I stop—ever.

That’s my message. You hear me, future?

Dwight Dunston (32:59)
We hear you.

Shamm Petros (33:04)
We keep record.

Merrill Garbus (33:05)
Yeah.

Closing Reflections and Breath

Dwight Dunston (33:08)
Wow. Thank you so much, Merrill, for this beautiful, grounded, and tender conversation and exploration.

We’re near the end of our time. We started by asking how you were feeling coming in—just telling some stories. How are you feeling here at the end? Any emotions alive for you?

Merrill Garbus (33:29)
I have this tingle—like I can’t stop smiling, kind of a glow. I feel tingles around my face.

I’m just… yeah. I’m so grateful. I know the word grateful gets used a lot, but— Whoa. You all—for doing this work, for being in your places of understanding, and knowing the value of these building blocks, and putting this out for people.

Wow. I applaud. Like you said, Shamm—I applaud you so avidly. Thank you. Thank you.

Shamm Petros (34:14)
Thank you again, Merrill, for your courageous storytelling—infectious, even.

And for you and our listeners, we want to close with one more breath together. If you can see us, you’ll notice we’ve been taking many.

Wherever you are, we invite you to inhale…and exhale… inhale…

Thank you so much for tuning in to Stories That Stay: How Stories of Identity Shape Us. This podcast is a project of Lion’s Story. To learn more about Lion’s Story and our work, visit lionsstory.org.

This episode was produced and edited by Peterson Toscano.
Music during our mindful moment comes from Dwight Dunston.
Additional music is licensed through EpidemicSound.com.

For our listeners: Know that we are here to help you build the real courage, practical language, and skills to navigate discomfort with clarity and compassion—starting with yourself.

If you found value in today’s episode, please consider leaving a review, subscribing, or sharing this with someone who needs it.

Dwight Dunston (35:28)
Until next time, keep listening, keep learning, and keep telling your story.
And remember—you are your most important listener. Thanks, everybody.

Shamm Petros (35:38)
Thank you.

✅ End of Transcript
Title: Wonder and a Will to Live — Merrill Garbus on Whiteness, Grief, and Practice
Podcast: Stories That Stay (A project of Lion’s Story)
Guest: Merrill Garbus

 Hosts: Shamm Petros and Dwight Dunston
Produced and Edited by Peterson Toscano