Rachel Schwartzmann: Welcome to Slow Stories. I’m Rachel Schwartzmann. I'm a writer, consultant, and the creator and host of this podcast. For those of you just tuning in, I interview artists, entrepreneurs, and innovators who share slow stories—and big ideas—about living, working, and creating in our digital age.

This episode begins with a story from Jenna Matecki, who shares a song that reminds her to slow down and celebrate all of life's moments. Here's more from Jenna.

Jenna Matecki: My name is Jenna Matecki. I'm a writer and the author of The Hours Before Dusk and Postcards from Jenna—and I would love to share with you my favorite song. The song is called "Funeral Singers." I actually love this song so much that I love it in its original form and also its cover. The cover is what I fell in love with first, and that's by this ethereal electronic music duo named Sylvan Esso. And the original song is from this very like grungy nineties experimental rock band named Califone. 

It has this driving rhythm to it that's just absolutely hypnotizing. And then, on top of it, there are these lyrics that are seemingly nonsensical, but there's actually a lot of meaning that you can attribute to them. For instance, some of the lyrics go something like:

All my friends are half-gone birds

Are magnets, all my friends are words

All my friends are funeral singers

Funeral singers, funeral singers wailing

And then another part of the song goes something like:

A spark is aching for the light

Return return return tonight

And so there's this kind of overall theme of going back to the source and going back to the heart of things and this repetition of this imagery of friends and people that love you kind of being at your funeral. And that sounds really intense, but I actually look at it as incredibly hopeful—like, hey, things always change, we know that, and things don't last. Everything's ephemeral. And you might as well embrace that and look at that as something hopeful to give you that freedom to make a moment what you want it to be.

Rachel Schwartzmann: Thank you so much again to Jenna for sharing. Again, the song she mentioned is "Funeral Singers" by Califone, and you can order Jenna's book, The Hours Before Dusk, at Parea Books. Now here's my conversation with Tarajia Morrell.


Rachel Schwartzmann: Honor it all, the good, bad, and everything in between. And if you need a little inspiration, just look at the extraordinary life of the late chef Fatima Ali. From Chopped to Top Chef to restaurant dreams, Fatima's star was on the rise. But after a devastating cancer diagnosis upended her plans, Fatima vowed to travel and experience all that she could. Yet as her illness suddenly worsened, Fatima pivoted once again, this time turning to the page as a place to reflect on and relish in her identity, food, family, and life. The result is Savor, a collection of intimate vignettes from Fatima and her mother, Farezeh, guided by collaborator Tarajia Morrell, whose editorial prowess and shared values helped bring Fatima's story to book form.

Like Fatima, Tarajia's appreciation for gathering around a table has informed how she moves through the world. And her own story—one of creativity, resilience, and love—reminds us of a universal truth: there's so much to savor when we pay attention to everything that connects us. And in this interview, Tarajia shared more about her collaboration with Fatima, how she thinks about telling stories in the digital age, and what she's learned about motherhood, love, and loss.

Tarajia's contribution to Savor is both quiet and compelling, and I felt the same thoughtfulness and energy linger long after our conversation ended. In other words, there's so much to savor in this episode, but I don't want to give too much more away. So with that said, here's more from Tarajia Morrell, co-author of Savor.
Tarajia Morrell: My name is Tarajia, and I am a native New Yorker. And I also very much love the country more and more these days. I value, above all else, love in all of its forms, whether that's my love for my young daughter, my love for my family, deep love for my friends, who really are my family. As an only child, my friends are an extension of my family. And so I think that that extends to togetherness, and as you would expect, since I am a food writer, gathering at the table, drinking wine, laughing, telling stories, and that's it in a nutshell. And a lot of travel whenever I can. It's different now with a little baby.

Rachel Schwartzmann: But probably a nice exercise in wonder again.

Tarajia Morrell: Oh yes. And I feel such wonder watching her change daily and add new sounds and words and ways of expressing herself. Her existence is an exercise in wonder for me.

Rachel Schwartzmann: Yeah. I don't have children, but I have a lot of friends who are starting to have kids, and it's so interesting to watch them grow up. It goes so quickly.

Tarajia Morrell: Everyone says that, and then it happens to you. And I don't know how this baby is 15 months old. I cannot comprehend the mathematics of it.

I was reading the other day about discoveries of black holes and what's really going on in the time-space continuum. And I feel that time has just folded over onto itself in the last year, and change—two years even—has flown in a way that I could never have fathomed.

Rachel Schwartzmann: Wait, that's so interesting. What were you reading, if you don't mind me asking?

Tarajia Morrell: Let's see if I can do it justice since this is certainly not my metier. I was reading a New York Times article about discoveries in outer space and things that occur in black holes that completely refute hypotheses that have been acknowledged and accepted for many, many years—since Einstein's hypotheses, I think. And it was a really good thing to read when I was trying to fall back asleep at night because I didn't understand all of it. [Laughs] But I found it really addressing and hearing about time playing tricks on you, and the illusion of time and feeling like a spec in it all certainly rings true.

I was also recently reading an extremely disturbing short story by Joyce Carol Oats called Zombie. And in the way that life sometimes seems to have themes that recur, this also talks about cosmic enormity, and I don't know if it's phrased exactly as the space-time continuum, but the enormity of the cosmos and our tininess becomes a sort of excuse for the protagonist to do very evil things.

Rachel Schwartzmann: Wow. It's so humbling to read things that kind of go beyond our comprehension and ability to see that we just don't have control over any of it.

Tarajia Morrell: Yep. It can be heartening, and it can be terrifying and exasperating, but I am really enjoying kind of returning to reading now after, you know, not reading much in the first year of the little one's life.

Rachel Schwartzmann: Oh yeah. Do you read to her? Has she expressed any sort of interest in books?

Tarajia Morrell: Oh yes, I read to her. Yeah, no, she adores books. She adores them.

Rachel Schwartzmann: Well, there's so much great children's literature, so again, that's not something I'm able to directly participate in at the moment, but I appreciate it.

Tarajia Morrell: Yes, me too. Very much.

Rachel Schwartzmann: It's funny to talk about fear and time at this point in the year. We're currently having this conversation in mid-October. The leaves are finally changing, and it's starting to feel like that liminal space between a beginning and an end. And I'd love to kind of talk about hunger and yearning and how it changes for you towards the end of the year.

Tarajia Morrell: Well, I guess I would have to respond by saying that I'm not really someone who tends to check out for a few days here or there and go on short little vacations or getaways. I tend to wait and power through and stay in the rhythm and then try to really check out for a chunk of time. I'm not very good at taking my foot off the gas pedal or slowing down, so I don't even feel like it's an option for me, to be perfectly honest, as a single mom to a little one. It's just go, go, go.

But I think that perhaps twice a year, I do allow myself to slow down, and that's usually in August and in December. And somehow October—you know, the changing of the seasons, the changing of the light, and the changing of the clothes—they all feel like the beginning of that sprint. I mean, these months go so quickly, I find. So do the summer months. ... I'd say January and February tend not to go so quickly. But yeah, I feel like I'm in the sprint for the season, and then I won't really slow down until Christmas.

Rachel Schwartzmann: It's always interesting to reflect on pace during this time of year. My birthday is in November, and I'm actually turning 30 this year, and I got engaged, and so—

Tarajia Morrell: Congratulations!

Rachel Schwartzmann: Thanks! Super excited. Long time coming. We've been together for eight years.

Tarajia Morrell: Oh my goodness!

Rachel Schwartzmann: Yeah. [Laughs] He's a good guy. And yeah, you know, I think just sort of thinking about yearning and my relationship to it has changed so much. And I'm also thinking a lot about family. So as you talk about your daughter, that keeps coming up for me as well. I feel like it's actually a nice setup for the things we'll be talking about in this conversation. And before we dive into Savor—the book—I want to talk a little bit about your creative family. I know you mentioned you're an only child, as am I. I'm always curious, you know, aside from blood relations, how have you learned to build a creative family who supports you and your dreams?

Tarajia Morrell: Gosh, that's such an interesting question because it's not something that I necessarily have thought about in such a specific way. You know, I've changed career paths a few times, if you could even call it a career, but changed direction in life. And in this, what I still feel is this current iteration which I associate with food—I've been on this path, I'd say, since 2011—I feel like my support system is often in my food community. I have made some extraordinary friends in this community who are my friends for life, I believe. They are sounding boards, and they prop me up and they encourage me when I feel down.

As you can imagine, as I'm sure other writers have told you, writing a book, a long format piece, can be a lonely process—especially during Covid, I'm sure. And having them as touchstones whom I could visit or talk to or eat with, you know, just make merry with made all the difference.

And then, in terms of past the food community, I'm just so lucky to have a couple of women, but a couple of men as well, who are my beacons of kindness, and support, and love, and my family, and my baby's family.

Rachel Schwartzmann: It's like an ongoing practice to nurture those relationships, and it's hard to find those people.

Tarajia Morrell: It is ... one [friend] in particular is someone I met relatively recently, I think about eight years ago, maybe less. It was like a lightning bolt, like a falling in friendship love. And there's just no going back. And it's such a gift when that happens. We must hold on tight. Hold on dearly.

Rachel Schwartzmann: Was it at a moment that you needed it? I feel like the timing of those kinds of relationships [appear] always right when they need to be [there].

Tarajia Morrell: I suppose. I mean, when do we not need a rock? [Laughs]

Rachel Schwartzmann: Yeah. [Laughs]

Tarajia Morrell: [Laughs] When would we not need a beacon of light and joy and understanding? But yes, I think, just like with romantic love, you find there's a space for it when you find the right person. And it might not seem like there's space for it until you do. I think that's also true of friendship.

Rachel Schwartzmann: Yeah, it's really interesting to think about friendship and gathering in a time where isolation has been so normal and where technology has also been such a necessary vehicle for that connection to happen or to be maintained.

Something I've asked a lot on this podcast is how the digital age sort of impacts our ability to live and work and create in these conditions. I know you mentioned that you'd pivoted directions a couple of different times. You were an actor, I believe you did PR for a little bit, and obviously, now you're a writer. And so, I'm curious to hear if the digital age influenced your ability to pivot and grow and also what it inspired you to let go of as you moved into this space.

Tarajia Morrell: Well, I have to start by saying that I was on holiday this August with a dear friend and his sister, who is an actress, and while we were on holiday, she got several auditions from her agent or manager, and she could just put herself on tape right there, right where we were, you know, with an iPhone. That just did not exist when I was an actor. You waited around and waited around, and the second you decided, "okay, I'm gonna do something for myself and my mental health and take a few days away," that was when you got the audition you'd been waiting for a year. I mean, I have zero regrets about that not being my life, and I'm so glad that my life took me in a different direction eventually. But yes, that part of the digital age, I think, is amazing that people can be present for opportunity while being remote.

In terms of my career, it's so hard to say. When I was writing more often for magazines—which I haven't done much since Covid—I tried to only write in print, write for print. There are exceptions, to be sure, but that was important to me. I don't know. And then, of course, we have social media and the power and nuisance of it, and I think that is inextricable from one's career at this point, at least. I feel like maintaining some degree of social media is important, but I also find it to be such a nuisance. Yeah, I don't know if that answers your question.

Rachel Schwartzmann: Totally. Can we go back to the print for a second? Was that sort of in retaliation to how fast things move for web publications, or what's the rationale behind that?

Tarajia Morrell: You know, I became a writer late in the game; at least, I always felt I was late—I was in my mid-thirties—and I felt I had so much catching up to do. It's such a wonderfully kind of clogged atmosphere in New York with so many talented writers here. And so I realized early on that if I wanted to tell the stories that I found meaningful, it wasn't going to be about New York chefs or restaurants, it was going to be further afield, and I would need to travel for those stories. And whether I was traveling on my own dime and looking for stories or traveling as a result of being sent somewhere by a PR firm representing a region or a hospitality endeavor, I felt an immense sense of responsibility to create something that felt heftier than a lot of online pieces feel.

Whether it's correct or not, I still feel like there is a weight to print journalism. It's a gratification thing for both the writer and the subject matter; I think that's what it comes down to. It's not that the writing is better—I think it feels satisfying to hold something in one's hands, to look at one's story or restaurant or farm on the pages and say, "God, all my hard work—well, at least I can hold this thing in my hands, and someone has seen it and maybe a few people as a result of this." So I think it's a combination of having been on both sides of it. I also worked in restaurants for so long, so I'm deeply loyal to the work that goes into them, and I want to honor that as a writer when I can. It comes from all sides.

Rachel Schwartzmann: And it was probably the perfect runway for you to be able to work on a project like Savor and really understand the gravity of what that meant to put yourself in the center of everything to tell that story.

Tarajia Morrell: Yeah, I have worked on other books before. I've written book proposals for books that have sold—for various reasons, I haven't wound up writing the whole books, but I was looking for something to be a first book that I could really sink my teeth into. This opportunity came to me, and I jumped at it and asked to be considered. It was a very different proposal that was brought to me than what you've read and the final project. I think that's probably often true; these projects, whether it's a brick-and-mortar restaurant or a book, often have their own lives that are not what we think they're going to be. Certainly, that's a metaphor for life itself, which is unfortunately so unpredictable, sometimes in very difficult ways, in the case of Fatima and what she had to go through. The book is a reflection of her having to change her goals so much at the end and wanting to live her last year to the fullest and travel and experience and drink in life, and then having to once again recalibrate and change that.

Rachel Schwartzmann: It was just striking that throughout her entire life, so much of what she yearned to do was to share—and that's true even with you. I mean, this is her story, but there's a little bit of you in there as well. And I think before we really get into talking about the book, maybe we can have you read a passage.

Tarajia Morrell: So this [excerpt] is from my introduction.

PASSAGE READ BY TARAJIA MORRELL ︎ PURCHASE SAVOR ︎︎︎

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Rachel Schwartzmann: I want to talk about the tension of how much time you got with Fatima versus bringing a book like this into the world. It was probably really interesting and difficult to navigate. How did your time working on Savor and speaking with Fatima and her family change your perspective on what it means to tell a slow story?

Tarajia Morrell: Well, I think it might bear noting that after our very brief time together, which was one week, I rushed to write the book proposal because I wanted Fatima to be able to sign off on it. So I went from this extremely intense—but also quite slow—week together in that Fatima was already extremely unwell, and her speaking itself was very slow. And as she spoke, there were the constant sounds of the hospital, the worrying, and the beeping. They were almost like a metronome. They kept time for us in a very slow rhythm. And we all slowed down. I mean, everyone who loved her had slowed down in a way to be there for her. And I took that rhythm as well. Of course, trying to pack into that one week as much information as I possibly could.

The original idea for the book had been a fast book, a book that would take a year. What actually happened was it was a much slower week together, a shorter amount of time that worked in a much slower way; although there was a looming end date that we couldn't exactly pinpoint, but we sensed it was extremely close.

There was a slowness to that time, and almost, not almost... There was an expansiveness to it, both in terms of it seeming like it could go on. We found this incredible rhythm, this sort of slow, conversational, truth-telling space. And it felt like it could go on, and it felt like somehow she would go on until this was complete. But that was, of course, an illusion.

Rachel Schwartzmann: Writing is such a solitary act in a lot of ways. And you know, I'm not sure if you had ever considered co-authoring any sort of book before, but what was it like to both invite one another into this space, if that makes sense? Because there's give and take there.

Tarajia Morrell: Yeah. I lost a friend of my best friend when I was Fatima's age when she died. And I think [that] in innumerable ways prepared me, if not propelled me, to pursue this project. I know that sharing even extremely vaguely what had happened to me—that I had experienced that loss—probably contributed to me getting this job [and] to her choosing me. It certainly contributed to my navigating the experience of being in the hospital with her and her mom and brother and their friends. Then going on with the project, I did share myself when Fatima asked me about myself, and there was a time when that part of our conversations was much more present in the book, but it's only ever so light [my presence in the book at this point]. And I think that's probably how it was meant to be.

Rachel Schwartzmann: I mean, there's such an elegant balance between your voice and her story—but I wonder what was happening between the pages, so to speak. So thank you for sharing that. I'm sorry for your loss.

Tarajia Morrell: Oh, thank you. Um, it's a strange one because I'm not a ghostwriter. If I was a ghostwriter, I wouldn't be credited, obviously. I was never supposed to be a ghostwriter. But I do sometimes feel a bit like a phantom in this project. Not a bad phantom. But you know, there was this feeling of being able to sort of observe things from perspectives that would normally be off limits to someone who was not a part of this incredibly sacred inner circle of loved ones. That is a phantom-like presence, in a way. I think that's partially what compelled me to do the project, is that the love that was visible from Fatima's inner circle was visible, it was tangible, it was truly extraordinary.

Rachel Schwartzmann: Were you afraid?

Tarajia Morrell: Very much so. Yeah. Yeah. I called my agent and said: "What am I doing here? This is insanity. I don't know how to carry this." And my agent gave me good advice, which was: "Get through the week and don't worry about what comes after." And when I placed that call to her, I hadn't yet kind of gotten deep enough with Fatima to understand what she was willing to share for the book and what she wanted this book to be.

Rachel Schwartzmann: I can't imagine where to begin in that situation, what questions to ask. Even when something like this ends, you know, like how do you know when a project like this is done? Does it feel complete?

Tarajia Morrell: Yeah, I think it feels very complete. I mean, I think the choices were how much of herself she was going to reveal to me and then how much of that would be in the book. And unfortunately, it does feel complete because I believe that every bit of what she wanted to share and did share, I think we like sucked to the marrow and sort of distilled it for the book. So I don't feel like there's so much more to say that we didn't say.

Rachel Schwartzmann: Well, it's evident that Fatima was an extraordinary person and had an extraordinary story. And the reason for that was the community that she built for herself, too. I want to talk about her mother, and before we do, there is a chapter that I think captures that relationship between them really well, which is "Hunger at the Market," and I was wondering if you would like to read from that?

Tarajia Morrell: So, for anyone listening who hasn't read Savor, the book is in voices—Fatima's voice and her mother's voice. This chapter is in Fatima's voice.

PASSAGE READ BY TARAJIA MORRELL ︎ PURCHASE SAVOR ︎︎︎

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Rachel Schwartzmann: When you were speaking with Fatima's mother, the grief was probably palpable, but she too was somebody who's so formidable and resilient, and I loved that a throughline throughout her relationship with Fatima was her constant encouragement, to be honest, and always do your best. So I'm curious, what did speaking with her teach you about honesty as a mother and as a daughter?

Tarajia Morrell: Well, Farezeh's grief is going to be her burden now forever. And I think she is such a strong woman. She is so formidable and so brave. And I think both from her and from Fatima, just the overall reality of this experience and story, the lesson I learned over and over again was to just lead with love and not allow for anything else to come into play.

Rachel Schwartzmann: Were you talking to your own mother or mother figures during this time when you were writing?

Tarajia Morrell: Absolutely. I was talking to my mother. My mother is my best friend. We are extremely close. My mother is an enormous support to me and always has been. And yes, I was speaking to her while I was in Los Angeles with Fatima. I spoke to her while I was working on the book thereafter. And then I was actually living with my parents during Covid. I was forced out of my home in New York City, and I had to stay with them for quite some time. And I was working on the book during that time. So yes, I was absolutely leaning on my mom and talking to her, and I suppose deepening our relationship—but it's hard for me to even think about how it could be any deeper because we're so close. [Laughs]

Rachel Schwartzmann: That's such a gift.

Tarajia Morrell: It is.

Rachel Schwartzmann: In an essay for DORÉ, you wrote about single parenting your daughter, and I was really taken with the piece. But there was a line at the end where you wrote: "But I'll keep feeding them if they keep caring for me, caring for my daughter, being there for both of us, no matter what. It's how I was taught to say, I love you, so I suppose it's what I am modeling for her. But now it's not I, it's We… We love you. We need you." And so I guess this kind of goes back to the community and the chosen family we were talking about earlier but was there anything unexpected that working on this book changed for you in terms of communal mothering, if that's a thing or if that makes sense?

Tarajia Morrell: Well, I mean, while I was working on this book, I became a mother, which I never imagined was in the cards. And becoming a mother only makes more intense my compassion for the mothers that have lost their children because it is the unthinkable thing. It's the thing that we, as moms, tell ourselves is never gonna happen. And we are afraid to tempt the fate by even thinking it. And yet it happens. And I think it's one thing to put oneself in a position of imagining what that's like. And it's another thing to actually have the precious child that you would do anything for and gladly give your own life for. And to consider the loss of that.

Rachel Schwartzmann: It's a grief I can't even imagine. Do you think there is growth afterward?

Tarajia Morrell: You know, I know that the people I love who have experienced extreme loss have found ways to go on. I don't know if you call that growth, or you call that coping, or you call that simply the march of life—I'm not sure what you call that. I do think growth comes into it. But grief in its most intense form is not something that ever totally goes away. You might change where you carry it, I think.

Rachel Schwartzmann: Did you feel a sense of grief when you were able to kind of step away from the page and understand what you had just done with and for somebody—for Fatima?

Tarajia Morrell: Oh yeah, absolutely. Very much. It was confusing ... I felt so close to her after our time together, though it was brief, and I felt very confused by not being present at her services, which were in Pakistan. I felt a loss, absolutely. So I can't even begin to fathom what those who knew her for a lifetime were experiencing. I mean, I can [understand] a little bit because I also lost my best friend, but it's always different. I just wished she was here, you know, to help me, to guide me to say, "no, not like this, like that." Or, you know, "I would make a joke now." You know, like that kind of thing. I just wanted her guidance, and I got some of it through her mom and her brother.

Rachel Schwartzmann: Yeah, it's an incredible amount of trust.

Tarajia Morrell: Yeah.

Rachel Schwartzmann: So you mentioned that you haven't really been writing for magazines. But just kind of thinking about the future: Do you think the way you're going to approach storytelling is forever changed because of this project? How can writing bring you closer to the people that you love?

Tarajia Morrell: I don't think it's forever changed. I think the themes of this book, though they are Fatima's entirely, are also things that I'm very aligned with. It's not an accident that I wind up working on this project, and there's a kinship to, I think, what she and I feel is important. And I know already that those are themes I explore in my own work. And if you even have read something like DORÉ, you probably see the similarities to begin with. Those are an extension of themes that have run through my life based on the way I was raised—very much at the table. Food and wine and gathering were central to my entire upbringing. And so I know that they'll inevitably continue to be explored in my work.

Rachel Schwartzmann: Absolutely. Are there any questions that are particularly interesting to you at the moment that seems to not want to go away?

Tarajia Morrell: I think different ways of exploring the space between expectation and reality remain with me very much. And the way that we think things will look a certain way. We imagine our future, we imagine our family, we imagine ourselves. And how much of that is fulfilled versus creating a new paradigm that we could never have imagined. And you know, I never could have predicted, even relatively recently, that my life would look the way it does right now—that I would live in the home that I was born and raised in with my daughter as a single mom. None of it in my wildest dreams did I think it was coming my way. Yet this is my reality.

I think that happens to be a very happy example of unpredictability. But as I said earlier, if we make space for things to be chaotic and unpredictable in a positive way, then we also have to know that life is going to throw things at us that are going to be extremely challenging that we can't predict. It's a vacillation between those two realities.

I think this is something I really took away from my time with Fatima—feeling that extreme love for her, that frankly, sacred and holy presence of love was so breathtaking. But it came in tandem with the extreme pain and suffering of this young woman and the people who loved her most. And the realization that it's all so interwoven. You cannot have one without the other. You can't have the love of a child without the terror of losing it. You can't have the good without the dark side, and that is life. And somehow, being brave enough to have both and be open to both is, I think, what I took from my time with her.

Rachel Schwartzmann: It's a lesson we have to keep learning again and again as things in our lives change as we change. But I think accepting that is just bringing us one step closer to really being able to see things as they are and hopefully embrace them, too.

Tarajia Morrell: Exactly. I think that there are parts of myself that I've really kind of sheltered as a result of my own experiences and wanting to protect myself. And I think that Fatima's message—of living, of experiencing, of just wanting more—resonated so much with me that it opened me up again to the fact that take it all in: the good, the bad. Take it all. You don't have to absorb the negativity. The hard things are just as much a part of life as the joyful things.

Rachel Schwartzmann: So interesting. This has been coming up in so many conversations I've had recently. I just spoke with Ross Gay. Are you familiar with his work?

Tarajia Morrell: Yes, I am.

Rachel Schwartzmann: Yeah. He has a new book out called Inciting Joy, and its very thesis is that joy and sorrow coexist, and I don't know why it's something that wasn't as apparent, not just to me, but to the conversation. I don't know if you would agree with this, but maybe in the last couple of years, it just seems like, yeah, this is our new rallying cry that one can exist without the other, and that's okay. And maybe it's just us getting a little bit more honest. It's refreshing to talk about.

Tarajia Morrell: It is refreshing to talk about. I think we're fed this notion that if you follow the rules, you will find yourself, you know, the recipient of the good and the rewards, and I don't know. I don't know if that's totally true, and it invites so many other questions about morality and how we affect our futures—because there's no reason that bad things happen to good people. Why, in God's name, did this young woman have to suffer? And yet she did. And the chaos of it all is so monumental, but there's nothing we can do. But accept that we can't control everything. As you said, it's all out of our control.

Rachel Schwartzmann: And Fatima handled it based on what I've read with such grace. Although I'm sure in her private moments, there was a lot of reckoning.

Tarajia Morrell: Very graceful in what I observed as well, in all she expressed.

Rachel Schwartzmann: I don't know if this is too much for you, but if there was a question that you were able to ask her now, what would it be?

Tarajia Morrell: Oh gosh. I mean, of course, I want her to be happy with the book. I do believe she would be, and I always strove for this to be something that I believe she would be happy with, and I do believe she would be. As a writer, of course, it would be nice to hear that. But I don't know. I'm not sure how to answer that. I mean, apart from what's it like where you are now? [Laughs]

Rachel Schwartzmann: I feel like she would give you a really good story.

Tarajia Morrell: I know she would. She had such a vision in terms of explaining her circumstances. The last day with her was really extraordinary—kind of getting to see things through her eyes a little bit as she explained what she was feeling and seeing.

Rachel Schwartzmann: I mean, there's so much more that we could speak about in terms of this book, grief, and love. But I think on the subject of seeing things through Fatima's eyes, I would love to close things out by having you read one more chapter from Savor, which is the last chapter, “My Dream, Abbreviated."

Tarajia Morrell: "My Dream, Abbreviated."


Rachel Schwartzmann: That was my conversation with Tarajia Morrell, co-author of Savor. You can purchase Savor anywhere books are sold—though we recommend supporting local and independent bookstores if you can. You can also follow Tarajia on social @tarajiamorrell. Stay tuned, as we'll be sharing highlights from this episode on our own channels @slowstoriesofficial on Instagram, along with my own personal Instagram @rachelschwartzmann, and more. I'm Rachel Schwartzmann, and you've been listening to Slow Stories. Thank you so much for tuning in.