Never The Empty Nest

When life and death are in the balance, we don’t talk about it. Meaning women, we keep a lid on it, to survive. In trying to make sure everything goes alright, we forget to keep the blueprints of the emergency, however. Once urgency passes, we forget the details: birth, divorce, menopause, rearing adolescents, etc etc etc. So how do we make sure our daughters know the way, once we’ve blazed through the trail at least once, how do we make sure to light the path well? Journal, women, journal. Maybe that’s the answer. Write. It. Down. While. It’s. Happening.

The nest jokes that Jackie is their “Yoda Mom,” because she kind of knows it all, oh wise sage. We all have one of these in our nests— here’s to them, all of them, the wise we learn from. 

Woah, dating is hard right now, bruh. Where are the eligible bachelors? This is what the nest discovered when it set itself upon a hunt, to find Victoria Collado (see Season 5, Ep 7) a date. Come on the adventure with us. 

Writer, director, and storyteller, Andi Teran talks to the nest about her life as a writer and life’s latest series of plot twists, the ups and downs on her journey toward recovery from a breast cancer diagnosis. Teran is the author of the wonderful coming of age novel, Ana of California, a Latinx version of Anne of Green Gables. On this episode, she talks to us about being born in El Paso, being a Mexi-Texican Yorker en Cali, her early days in NYC, where inspiration was everywhere, and about what it means to choose “visibility over vanity,” and “voice over silence.” 

Clinical social worker, psychoanalyst and parent guidance expert, Erica Komisar, joins the nest to talk about those two paramount moments of child rearing — those first three years, and that second chance (cue horror yelp): adolescence! It’s all about Being There, which is the title of one of her books on the subject. 

Jennifer Lucio Vargas, founder of 305 Communications and Events, a Global live and virtual events company, talks to the nest about working for U.S. presidents, and what it was like to start her company. She talks to Vanessa and Nicole about moving back home and taking care of her parents, about the storm that came with losing them and the strength they left in her that will never leave – their mark. If this episode were an emoji it would be an arm flex right next to a giant heart. 

Without the Jewish Deli, we’d be a nation without Pastrami on Rye and Matzo Ball Soup. But, it’s so much more than that. It’s the stories carried across generations and exile, which the Deli slices, pickles, and serves, that are so important. So what happens when the Deli, as an institution, starts to die? Author David Sax tells us what’s at stake in a book he wrote around 15 years ago, but which the nest is revisiting because of a project Vanessa has embarked on with her company, Abre Camino Collective.

Our nests are not just our immediate family, they are also our extended families. Our doctors, our friends, our priests and spiritual guides, our counselors, our aunts and uncles, our honorary aunts and uncles, our teachers, our mentors. On this episode of nest, we cast the nest’s net to faith and the community it catches, as a result. 

Emiliana was a high-powered, fast-paced woman on the rise in journalism. She’d reached one of the pinnacles of media coverage: she was covering the White House. When something shook her nest from the very roots, Emiliana had a kind of awakening. Today, she seeks truth, joy, and is trying to bring her awakening to the nest of journalism itself.

The nest welcomes one of country music’s rising stars, Orlando Mendez. Also known as The Cuban Cowboy, Orlando hails from Miami and talks to us about migrating his nest to Nashville, missing family, and staying true to his roots as he routes his way across America, guitar in hand, guajiro soul in tow!