Beauty and mortality – a conversation with makeup artist Kate Lee

Ford Blitzer: We're gonna talk about getting older in the beauty industry, which is something we've both been doing in the last 10 years since we first met. When we met I was at the very beginning of my career in the beauty industry, soaking it all in – like 22. And you were introduced to me as one of the top makeup artists in the world – you still are. But a lot has happened in the last 10 years, the one massive thing being social media really took hold. We've both been doing different things in the industry and I think I'd like to start by asking you how it's been going – what perspective has aging brought you in these last 10 years?

Kate Lee: I mean, first of all, I think the most fundamental thing that's changed is that we now have an online presence, which when I began my career, wasn't a part of what we did. I've been on Instagram for 11 years now and I was kind of pushed kicking and screaming into it. Having an online presence was a massive gear shift for me and one that I still struggle with. Also, women moving into their fifth and sixth decades are kind of like unicorns on the internet – you have to look for them. They're not just going to be in your feed or presented to you. I always kind of joke that makeup artists over 50 are like supermodels – there are five of them that we're allowed to see. And only if they still look really good. 

So I would say that that's the main thing that has changed but there is a strong difference between being 40 and being 50, in the way that people address you. And I find it kind of fits into two categories. It's either that you're an authority, and that you're to be respected. And if someone knows a little bit about your career, then that level of respect is a little bit higher. And if it's someone who doesn't know that you've been in the industry for 30 years, sometimes it can be the opposite of that, it can be that they would just kind of disregard what you have to bring to the table in terms of experience. They would age you out before they would be open to listen to what you have to contribute. I think that's kind of a shame. But again, that's not always the case but it does fall into those two camps, in my experience.

Ford: For me, the difference between being 22 in the beauty industry and 32 feels massive so I wondered if that jump from 40 to 50 also felt so different. Do you feel a similar shift has happened in your personal?

Kate: I think particularly as a woman in the beauty industry, your clients expect you to be knowledgeable about treatments that are available, and ways to embrace aging, but also ways to kind of fight back the hands of time. So when you show up and you appear your age, maybe in a very nice way, but you appear to be a certain age, a lot of assumptions are made based upon how you appear. I think that these days, people are very switched on to looking younger, probably more than ever before. Because the techniques and treatments that are available are now so sublime, that someone could go for a neck lift, and you could see them three days after and not know that it really happened. 

Ford: To go back a second, do you feel like as the person showing up in the room making that person beautiful, you to some degree need to show up yourself at a certain level of beauty or polished?

Kate: Absolutely, yeah. Because it's the same way you wouldn't want a doctor to have dirty fingernails. You look at that person, whether they're in the same decade as you or not, you're looking to them to make you look and feel your best and so you are kind of critiquing that person a little bit. You're in very close proximity and we don't get into that space with another human unless we're either going to kiss them or we're in an altercation. So it's just this force field…

Ford: I never thought about that. It's so intimate.

Kate: It’s so intimate. It's immediately disarming. And so I think the first thing we do is visually take someone in and then also energetically, and it isn't an energy exchange for sure.

Ford: Going back to what you said about people being more focused on turning back the hands of time. Aside from the procedures being so seamless these days, how much of it is that or is it 50% that and 50% beauty standards have risen, social media filters… like those kinds of things? What's the balance in your eyes?

Kate: I think that most images we see at this point in the media have been modified in some capacity, albeit minimal, even if it's just raising the light on a photograph – everyone looks better with more light. There are countless people changing their appearance and putting that persona out in the world – it's almost like an avatar. Beauty standards are raising and I think at the moment in the mainstream media, at least, it's a very high maintenance version of beauty that we're seeing…

Ford: What do you mean by that?

Kate: Everyone's always speaking about the latest kind of facial. For one moment, it was the “Vampire Facial” and you would have your blood drawn and put into centrifuge. Everyone's always keen to see what's coming next so beauty innovation is also on hyperdrive because everyone's looking for the next greater and better thing and it's usually focused on aging in some capacity. It's not a laser to improve the texture of your skin, it's a laser to fight fine lines and wrinkles, pigmentation to add volume to the skin, they're all of these things so that even if they say it's not an anti-aging treatment, the chances are it's all based around helping someone to look younger, which is not a bad thing. It's just that that's where it comes from.

Ford: Yeah, it's really interesting because no one wants to say the words anti-aging anymore.

Kate: It's very negative.

Ford: For good reason, I get it. But everyone is just finding other words for it and still having the same conversation undercover. I guess I just wonder if there's some in the middle place to have that conversation – where you're being direct about it but it's not so negative, like these two extremes that people tend to fall on where it's either anti all these procedures, beauty standards are killing us and it's dire or it's like, you're going full blown and you want to know all the latest things and you can't look at yourself in the mirror if you don't have makeup on. It just feels like we're swinging so hard on that pendulum. How do you think we start a more balanced conversation?

Kate: I don't know if it's possible because we're not allowed to see the middle ground. The very visual element of beauty is superficial. It's unfortunately not about having a healthy body, your skin's function. It's your largest organ, it does show your health. And I don't judge anyone for wanting to look younger or seeking the best version of themselves if that involves surgery or something. I don't judge that at all. But I think that the messaging, especially in advertising, it's quite misleading and it's very ageist. I read a piece in Business of Fashion a few months ago saying that women of my generation between 50 and 60, are pretty much the richest we've ever been. And we’re the ones that are driving most of the beauty brands, even though you wouldn't know it was aimed at us if you look at the advertising. So I think the best way probably to start a conversation for the mid-ground would be if the mainstream would approach a more realistic approach to aging and I just can't see how that's going to happen. We have body positivity and more inclusivity now and I hope that the ageism that we're experiencing will kind of fall in line with that and people will start to be a little bit more forgiving about the fact that we are all getting older. It's just that the visual aspect of that shows up between your fourth and fifth decade. And that's when it becomes very visible. And that's when you as a woman feel the difference when you walk into a room based upon entirely how old you look.

Ford: When I think back to young me, what bums me out the most is that I would have never thought that this conversation about aging had anything to do with me because I feel like at that age, you think you're going to be that age forever. You think you're invincible, and it's sort of fun to be in that stage of life but it doesn't set you up for a very healthy relationship with aging, which is something that I learned. I feel like it sort of descended upon me one afternoon – I was like, wait a second. I don't have a great relationship with this. I started to look around and think, Oh God, I didn't prepare. And so I wonder if you think that sort of “fuck you” youthful mentality is natural and it is what it is or do you think that we can start to give young people more excitement about something to look forward to about getting older?

Kate: The resilience of youth is an amazing thing and it helps to get us through all kinds of trials and tribulations, when we're at that point, maybe not having a solid place to live, and maybe being hundreds of miles away from our parents. You're asserting yourself in so many ways in your early 20s – the last thing you need to be worrying about is the fact that the hands of time are turning. That being said, I don't think anyone needs to feel bad about the fact that it only caught up with us in our 30s because we're not taught this in school. The only thing we can do is just have honest conversations with people younger and older than ourselves. People maybe wouldn't think to have a conversation about aging with someone older because they think it would upset them or insult them. And we're losing that intergenerational conversation that to most cultures is just not even a thought process.

Ford: Yeah. And it just seems so integral to everything happening in the beauty space to have those intergenerational conversations, opportunities for those conversations. This brings me to the question of: Have you ever felt like you were aging out of the beauty industry? Because I think about all the time how much we need all the different age groups in those rooms on those sets and what that diversity brings and offers everyone. I hope your answer is no, but…

Kate: There are definitely days I'm on set and I'm the oldest person there, for sure. But when I was younger and I was 19 in fashion school, if I found my way onto a set, and there were older people there, I felt honored, because I knew I was going to learn something. And I think in some circumstances, we're losing that respect for an elder point of view and what that person can bring to a shoot situation. Whereas if you were in an office, and you were learning to be a lawyer, you wouldn't even have that conversation, you'd be looking at the older people and learning from them and just knowing that they had way more experience than you. But for some reason in fashion and beauty, which both industries where people can just invent themselves on occasion, I definitely can feel like that and things can happen. But ultimately, I don't feel that I'm aged out at this point but I do see it on the horizon to a certain extent, just because, people, younger people maybe want younger makeup artists and that's their prerogative and that's absolutely fine. But there are horses for courses. I mean, the Academy Awards this year were full of women in their 50s and 60s being celebrated for their skills and their talents. And that, to me, is very encouraging. I think that that can only be a positive thing. There was a period of time where actors didn't work between, you know, 35 and 60. It was like if you weren't the young, gorgeous person, you were the grandmother, and there really wasn't a place for you in between that. I think we're passing that now. I hope so.

Ford: What has changed about your job since you first started?

Kate: I count myself as very fortunate in the sense that I knew exactly what I wanted to do, even though I didn't know what was involved or where I would end up. 

Ford: Since you were a kid?

Kate: 11.

Ford: Wow. What was your first job in the industry?

Kate: Well, there was a hell of a lot of stuff that came first before that first job.

Ford: Makeup school?

Kate: Years of education. I trained to be an esthetician and a hairdresser for three years, which was massage therapy, electrolysis… all of these things that you need to know about in order to touch another person's body. And then there was only really one course that I could take to become a “qualified” makeup artist, and that was the London College of Fashion, which is part of St. Martin's in the London Institute and it really was a fashion journalism course, but it had a makeup interpretation. I'm really like one of the most qualified people that's out there, I think, because there's not so much focus on having an education to be a makeup artist. Nobody wants to see your license, for example.

Ford: It's funny because… I mean, there are a lot of great artists out there with all different kinds of methods, and I've somehow managed to be in the beauty industry and still know nothing about makeup – but I remember being on set and seeing the work of an artist who was younger and got their start on Instagram. And then the next week I was on set with someone who was more from your era of coming up and the level of detail when you see it in person, you're just like, oh, that's a fucking masterpiece. This looks good on camera, but this is like, wow.

Kate: And there's magic in both. And you know, I didn't learn my skill set on YouTube, I learned it in person and through years of geeking out on products and thinking about ways to use them and the differences in technique that I learned from greater artists than myself. And I think every artist is self-taught because you learn the rules and then you break them. So we're all self taught to a certain extent. So if you did learn to do makeup on YouTube, there's no shame in that either. It's just a different way of working. And the truth of the matter is, not many people actually understand what we do – that level of dexterity that you have, when you've learned from people who are better than you, for longer than you. And I think we sort of lose out on that a little bit now. But that's not to be said that people are not born with mad skills – like incredible skills – that are completely self-taught and very instinctual and that also is a part of being an artist – you have to lean into it and be instinctual. And I think those people made the best artists really.

Ford: Yeah and everyone's just at a different point in their journey. I mean, what's the biggest difference you feel since those first years, those first few jobs? Do you look back at your work and think, Oh, God or does it still feel like you?

Kate: It still feels like me because trends come and go and in the career of 30 years, you see them all. We're heading back into carved cheekbones and the grunge era but I feel like I can be bold enough to say that disco’s coming next, because we go through this kind of 30 year cycle where we see everything repeat itself. But what is interesting is sometimes now I'll show up on set, and they'll have a picture that I did in the 90s. And they'll be like, this is the reference for today.

Ford: And they don't know it's you?

Kate: Yeah, they're like, well, she kind of has like, you know, a tan on her skin. And I was like, No, she didn't actually have anything on her skin.

Ford: Wow, that is actually very cool.

Kate: Yeah, I used to work with Corinne Day back in the 90s and she's obviously an iconic photographer and did some incredible prolific beauty for Vogue with Kate Moss back in the day and Rosemary Ferguson and there wasn't a great deal of makeup involved in that – it was about her relationship with the model and whatever was going on at that moment in time. And whilst it can be an inspiration, it will never be the same again.

Ford: Speaking of the relationship with the model, how much is people part of your interest in this?

Kate: So much. I think I probably started my career looking at people as a canvas and the relationship between a makeup artist and a model kind of is that because the model doesn't get involved in what you're going to do makeup-wise – it's laid out by a fashion person or the photographer, and you all decide what that is and generally speaking, the model doesn't have any input in that situation. Whereas working with actresses and celebrities is a very personal relationship. I just naturally gravitated towards that because I thought I was going to be in the fashion industry – that was where I was headed. And then I slowly started to work with a few actors at the beginning of my career – Rachel Weisz, Kate Winslet – and I slowly kind of headed in the opposite direction and it wasn't my plan. But I think it was around that time that the boundaries between models selling magazines and celebrities selling magazines started to happen. If you think about how it used to be, the models were the ones selling the clothes, selling the perfume, selling the magazines. And that's completely not the case now. And if you are a model, you're also a celebrity. So the barriers between all of these job descriptions have now blurred together and you're expected to be everything – as we are as makeup artists as well, in fact.

Ford: What did you get from working with some of those first celebrities that you didn't get from the fashion stuff?

Kate: Nurturing. I learned so much, especially when I first left college, I went and worked on a movie with Kate Winslet and no one knew her then – she was brand new. And I did a cover shoot with her and we were just very fast friends, like immediately. We got on like a house on fire. And she had been making movies for years. And so she had a whole skill set that she was so happy to share with me. She could be a makeup artist. She's incredible.

Ford: So those personal relationships were the thing that pulled you in.

Kate: Yeah, I think something in my background training to be an esthetician first. The ethics that go along with that really weren't wasted on me. Training to be an esthetician, you kind of have similar ethics to being a doctor in the sense that the information that is exchanged is private and part of being a professional in that industry is being discreet. And quite often when you're in a situation with an actor, maybe you're going to promote something that hasn't come out yet, or something that's happening in their personal life that nobody knows anything about and I cherish being trusted. I think that's super important. When I see indiscretion in that area, it really jars me, because that's kind of the fundamentals of where I begin with anything.

Ford: Touch on that shift a bit, because across the industry, a huge part of being a makeup artist was that discretion and now obviously, that's changed quite a bit. Can you talk about that?

Kate: I don't know exactly when the gear shift happened but it's still not entirely comfortable for me. I think I spent a lot of my career thinking about privacy and thinking about discretion and so to suddenly switch gears, and for everyone to be sharing every single detail of what we do, it's still quite jarring for me.

Ford: And when you say every detail, you mean like, these are all the makeup products I use on this client and here's 10 photos of them and here's backstage and here's red carpet…

Kate: There was a little element of mystery there before and I guess I kind of like that, I don't want to tell everybody everything. And I feel like maybe the person themselves doesn't want that either.

Ford: I feel a bit curmudgeonly about this aspect of the industry where you go to a shoot and there's like 10 shoots happening at once. And it used to be where everyone was just focused on getting that one great image and now it's like an assembly line, like, Okay, now you got to get with the social photographer, and with this, and then the reels video… and I've even done those shoots where you get ready with a celebrity before their red carpet event and that's a photo shoot. And I always felt kind of bad. I'd go in and I'd be like, this must kind of suck for you because before you were just hanging out talking to your friends, makeup artist, hair, having a good time. And now you have an extra eye on you or a few extra eyes on you and you got to look perfect now, ahead of the event.

Kate: Well, it just means that the event starts two hours before you even arrive. And a lot of people also enjoy that process. There are certain things we do to make sure that they're comfortable before we start shooting any BTS. It bears mentioning that we’re usually the people taking the BTS shots – it's usually our photographs that are going viral. And once that goes out into the world, there's precious little that can be done about it. That's where it becomes jarring to me – to ask someone if it's okay to post a specific picture, it feels so cheeky to me… it feels like shamelessly self-promoting and I can't for some reason break from it because people don't really feel that way anymore. They see it as a part of the experience of getting ready for a red carpet. Most people have lent into that new way of doing things so it's just my awkwardness and not theirs.

Ford: So you feel like between artists, hairstylists and talent, for the most part, everyone's sort of on board with this new way?

Kate: At least in my corner of the industry. Yes, because any promotion is good promotion. What we're doing now by creating this content is adding into the promotion of whatever it is that they are working on at that moment. I feel sorry, in some circumstances, when I know that person is not comfortable with the process, but they know it has to happen, because it's a part of that particular day and what they're doing and they understand how important it is. But it doesn't make it any easier for me to ask.

Ford: There's a lot of conversation right now also about all of these new beauty brands popping up – celebrities, influencers, artists. I think for some of these people, it seems like an authentic progression and others, it feels a little fishy. I think social media has allowed people to be entrepreneurial in this way that's so great, but also compels people to take that step because it feels like…

Kate: They should? Take advantage of it?

Ford: Yeah. So I'm curious to know your thoughts on this conversation because you're more than qualified to start your own brand. You haven't. So how do you approach this with yourself? I'm sure it's come up.

Kate: You'd be amazed at how much it comes up. Everybody assumes that someone like me would want to have my name on a product. And I think I ascertained a long time ago that that's not what I want but I get these incredulous responses when I say, oh, no, that's not really what I want to do. And that really is just because I have some pretty high standards when it comes to product and I've worked with one of the most amazing brands in the world for 17 years and once you work with that quality of product, the thought of just creating any old little pot of colored cream with my name on it is very lackluster. It doesn't appeal to me. I've also through the years seen many people create their own brands, and then sell the right to their own name, and be horrified at what happens to it afterwards. So my dream position really would be to help someone create a brand and to be a part of the formulation of that. I would rather create in the background. The hamster wheel of self-promotion does not appeal to me. I'm only just learning to be okay with it now, but that is a real pressure within my industry.

Ford: Especially if you're earlier on in your career and maybe you don't have as much confidence or know yourself as well to be constantly getting that feedback of like, oh, you should do this. Oh, you have a name and people like you? You have this many followers – do it. I can imagine it would be difficult not to fall into that but it's definitely something we need more people really asking themselves. Does it feel to you that beauty trends are moving so quickly lately? 

Kate: Oh, god, yeah.

Ford: It feels like they're so fast, especially now taking it into the procedural trends… I feel like I'm behind the loop on all this stuff but I was just reading this article about how everything was fillers and now it's that… What do you call it? Buccal fat?

Kate: Buccal fat removal. I think it's just a younger demographic for work now. Usually people my age would be the ones getting the work and now it's people in their early 20s doing things. I worry for the future of young people removing this essential fat from their cheeks, what the knock on effect of that will be when they get older and the scruples of the people doing that particular procedure remains to be seen because it's such a new thing and, like you say, they're coming thick and fast.

Ford: I really want to talk to you about this death doula thing. Have you gone into it at all?

Kate: I think it's important to talk about where it came from, because otherwise it just seems incredibly macabre. But I went through a period of time where I lost three people in very quick succession – I lost my mom, I lost my stepdad and I lost my uncle. And just recently, I lost another friend of mine. I felt like I was in this perpetual process of grieving. Once I got past the pain of it… I wouldn't say past it, but once I kind of understood it better, it just made me realize how underprepared we are. Death has a 100% success rate – no one's getting out of here alive. I do think this also plays into the beauty industry, why we're not allowed to see people over 50 because everyone is mortally afraid of dying. And we all will.

Ford: It’s the same thing I started the conversation with – I was completely unprepared to see any sign of aging in myself. It's the same, it's the exact same.

Kate: Yea we have a trajectory and we're on it every single day, and we're lucky to be on it. The gratitude in aging is another thing. Some people don't make it this far, and because we can't think about it, and we can't talk about it, I realized that we don't have a narrative. We don't have these conversations until it's too late. We don't find ourselves in good company to discuss it even if we wanted to. Because everyone's so mortally afraid, or somehow think that by speaking about it, they're going to bring it upon themselves. It's like witchcraft or something. And so when a friend of ours became ill this last year – he was my husband's best friend – and my husband was very active in caring for him and was just devastated all the time because it was so graphic and brutal and awful. But when it came to the part where he passed, my husband was visiting his parents and I took over his role when he left and he literally died not even 24 hours after my husband had left, which we were not expecting and it was a big upset for my husband, but I went to be with his sister. I had said to her through experience, make friends with the hospice nurses because they know approximately the time when someone's going to pass, there are certain signs that happen and so ask them to call you if they think the time is getting closer. And the very next night, she called me and she said, the nurses called me. And so I jumped in my car and I raced and I was thinking, hold on there, Carl, because I wanted to be there and he passed 10 minutes or so before I got there. And then I sat with her and his close friends for a few hours with his body because we were waiting for someone to come and pick him up. And I felt this calmness come over me. And it was someone I loved – he was a good friend of mine and I'd known him for years, but I felt that I was able to really be present in that moment and calm. I'd sat with my mom after she passed for several hours and I think there's this disconnection between the physicality of someone being alive versus when their soul has left their body. It’s a person you've loved all your life, so you don't have to be afraid of them because their heart stopped beating. We just have such a problem with it as a society and death has been sanitized so much and upsold by the funeral industry. I became interested in the death positive movement at that point before I even knew it existed. Since then, I've done a lot of research and I'm considering moving into being a death doula at some point even if it's not something I do as a profession, I think that I can be the friend that knows about the stuff that you turn to in that moment, because I remember when my mum got her diagnosis, just completely feeling so isolated, and I was on the other side of the world and no one wanted to talk to me about the fact that my mom was dying, or what I should prepare for or how we could help in that moment. 

Ford: So is that the point in which the death doula comes in? It's not just to help the person who's dying, but the family as well?

Kate: So a death doula is a non-medical role. There are many arms to it – you can be the go-between the medical staff and a hospice and a family, you could work with someone who just had a terminal diagnosis and wants to get their affairs in order, you can be the person that brings up the conversations that nobody wants to have. So quite often, having an external person involved in those conversations makes it a little bit easier. There are just all kinds of things. It's very personal to each family as to what you would actually do but it's definitely a role that is emerging and I think it's very positive, and it's a gap in the healthcare system. And it is a sacred time when someone passes, it's as important as birth but people don't look at it that way.

Ford: What do you think we can learn about life from death? Like, if more people were involved in an experience like that, and were less afraid to approach it, what do you think we'd gain?

Kate: I think there's so much to gain. It's multifaceted, but definitely just the joy of being alive and being well, and being present in your body, cherishing the people that are older than you before they're gone and they take all their secrets with them. Spending time with elders is something you don't appreciate until you don't have them anymore. Our lives now – we move away from where we grew up and maybe we don't see our family as much and I think that's a great loss. My grandma passed when she was 72 and she was so much fun and she had lots of juicy gossip and all kinds of interesting things. She was a rebel, she was the best. And I just wish I'd asked her so many more questions but that partially is because you don't think anybody's ever going to die. And it's not presented to you when you're younger and obviously life can also change in an instant. I just think it's something not to be dwelled upon, but definitely, there's a little gap there. And I think it is one of the most meaningful things you can do for someone in their lifetime – to take care of them in death. To be able to be present, and help people make decisions and remain calm when the moments are ticking away is a superpower.

Ford: To tie it back, I'm curious to know how it might adjust your approach to beauty, aging, makeup, all of that stuff. For me, I think about this aspect of control and how death is this extreme loss of control and we're so used to trying to control everything. And I think when it comes to beauty, that can be just so freeing to stop trying to control your body so much. That's what came up for me when you were speaking about it.

Kate: The thing that popped into my head when you were saying that was also the way that when someone dies they're not allowed to look dead. Like, quick – we have to embalm them, and now let's put some makeup on them to make them look like they're alive. It's one of the most toxic, horrific things to embalm a body. Then also when someone is cremated, I mean talk about the environment… It’s just the most polluting, terrible way to get rid of a body, especially if that person has gone through years of chemo. We can now compost bodies – there are extraordinary ways to take care of the body organically. Again, not common knowledge, not part of the narrative. I do think that there is a break at a certain point in your life where not that you stop caring, but maybe you don't care so much about trends. And I think maybe that's where I'm at. I'm just focusing on being the best that I can be at this point. We can't control our lives, we can't control where we're going to end up ultimately, and sure, fight the hands of time if that's the way you're inclined but I think a good knowledge of the fact that life ends at a certain point is a good way to gauge where you're at in your life. Telling people that at age 50 that they're middle aged – well you're kind of middle aged at 36 to be honest, if we're gonna get right down to what  middle age is. Again, middle age – people take it as a negative thing but you're also lucky that you made it to middle age and different parts of your life, you're focusing on different things. The first 25 years, you're hopefully getting some education, maybe the next 25 years, you're thinking about having a family or settling down or forming a career… Things tend to go in 25 year segments. If you get 75 years, you're very lucky. If you get 100, you’re even more lucky! I heard someone saying the other day that to plan out your life, you should take a tape measure and cut it at the points where you want to change gear, or you want to start thinking about things a little differently, or where you perceive that you would. And beauty then becomes something completely different because it becomes about the joy in your life, the experiences that you've had. When you're at the end of your life, you won't care about whether your eyebrows were even or not, you won't care about whether you looked 50 when you were 45. You will care about who loves you, who you loved, what you're leaving behind. And I think that really, it's not the worst thing to think about that now, regardless of where you are. Because you'll be gone one day, and no one will care. What do you want to leave behind? What was that saying? People will forget what you said, but they'll never forget the way you made them feel. That's most important.

Ford: I really do feel like that idea of presence, and what do I value in my life… When I really consider those things, those are the things that help me feel good about myself. I'm like, Oh, well, these are some of my values, and I'm focusing on those things. So then, maybe some of this stuff – maybe I don't have the perfect hair or the perfect…

Kate: You do have the perfect hair.

Ford: *laughs* Lately I do have the perfect hair. No yeah, but these values – they're really grounding. 

Kate: We're losing sight. We're losing sight of the whole picture, because we're cutting out the last quarter or third. We're just refusing to look at it. Do you want to be a participant in how that part of your life goes or do you just want to be caught out and swept along? Because really, that's what it comes down to. 

Ford: And it’s like, that's just the part where you're caught – you're actually living in the delusion a little bit the whole time. That's just when it catches up. So I like that idea that you're just facing and accepting things as they are. I think it’s really healthy.

Kate: Other cultures are just so much better at it than we are and don't have this weird thing around dead bodies. There's one particular population I was reading about where every year they exhume the bodies of their loved people, and they clean them. And they have a day of celebration for them – they clean their teeth and they comb what's left with their hair, and they put on a party hat and they celebrate the person that they loved and then they put them back in their grave. And it's not weird at all, because everybody does it. The Day of the Dead – we think about all these cultures where it's a celebration of life, as opposed to this terror that people feel about not being alive anymore. We're part of such a big ball of energy and we're all in it. And just to have some perspective alone can't be a bad thing. 

Ford: Nope. Well, Thank you.

Kate: Thank you, that was a fun conversation.

Ford: That was so nice. Okay, I'm gonna stop recording.