Matt Baum
@mattbaum777 sitting in his beautiful secluded getaway from the world.
-Theatre-
“We look like we are on the most wholesome date. Don’t tell our spouses,” I said as I walked beside him down a tree-lined path in my best sundress on one of the first gloriously warm days of Atlanta’s false spring.
“I won’t,” he said as he carried an actual checkered blanket for us to sit on in the grass.
We had walked maybe 10 minutes to a preserve on Emory’s campus that is a favorite retreat spot for him and his wife. I could tell he was nervous so I was going to try and make this as painless as possible.
Matt is a relatively private person, and throughout our chat I had that opinion solidified. But his eagerness to connect and to learn about someone else would make him a way better interviewer than I have ever been.
But I will cherish our date Matt. I hope we can do it again with others sooner than you think.
Interviewed 2.25.21
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Casey: First and foremost, how are you?
Matt: I'm doing pretty well. Today and the past couple of days the weather's been terrific. I'm a little nervous and excited about this interview setup. I feel like Covid sort of comes in waves, at least for me, and there are three different kinds of Matt. Sometimes, he's just fine and it's as if Covid weren't happening, you just carry on and do whatever — well, obviously adjusted. And then there are others where you're a little funky and you're like, "Why?" And then there's the debilitating days.
Casey: But today feels like a good day.
Matt: Yeah. Feels like a good day.
Casey: Over the last year, because we're coming up on a year of this nonsense, what has been the overpowering feeling? Debilitating, normal, or somewhere in the middle?
Matt: I'd say like normal to somewhere in the middle, but I'm not the greatest at record-keeping. I tend to look back and remember things differently than the actual facts. My wife, Lucy, any time I'm like, "Oh, well, remember this?" She's like, "Well, yeah, that's not how it happened and this is how it happened." I guess she writes our story with facts. And I have these little nuggets of impressions like, "Oh, well, this seems interesting."
Casey: So your impression of the last year has been more normal getting on with your lives. But Lucy might have a different —
Matt: For me, yeah. Normal to a little funky. But there's definitely been difficult patches.
Casey: What have some of those been?
Matt: I guess I go around living, not really knowing how much the pandemic affects us, and then it builds up over time. Then you're on the couch and you're like, "Why? Why does everything feel so awful?" But I guess that's how I like to live. I don't want to walk around being hyper-aware of, "Oh, this is so challenging." Things are what they are and there's still great things to witness and do and be a part of now. It's still life, even though it's unusual.
Casey: That's fair.
Matt: Over time, it just kind of collects and then I go, "Oh. This is...ugh." Then, however long, two or three days, and you're like, "Wow. I'm all right. Let's breathe and cry and eat pizza." And then you can carry on again. That's the cycle. That's the only way I kind of know how to do it.
Casey: That's good that you're able to at least know what can pull you out and get you back on track. What have you been filling your days with during Covid?
Matt: Maybe I have an unusual perspective in that I had no idea how long it was going to be. So I didn't really have an, "It's going to be a couple of weeks." Or even, "Oh, it's going to be over when 2021 hits." It was kind of like, "Who knows? So this is how it is for — we'll see." I had a very "we'll see" kind of attitude.
What did I do? Working out, pilates, dancing, walking, walk and talk. The walk and talk without fail. Lucy and I come out here a couple of times a week. We say we never feel worse after a walk and talk. Sometimes it'll just be around the neighborhood. We might not make the trek out here. But even if it's just a little around the corner, five minutes, but oftentimes it's 45 minutes. And that helps us process things, little by little.
Casey: You've done a show during Covid. How was that experience?
Matt: It was very full-on, right? A show is already a pretty intense thing. I feel fortunate and lucky to have done it, especially as the show was “Frog and Toad,” which is very near and dear to my heart, and with most of the returning cast of the 2018 show and the same production team. Because if there were too many moving parts, you're like, "Well, there's already plenty of upheaval." So it was nice to go, "Oh yeah, there's a lot of steadiness here and things we know going in and we feel good, comfortable approaching this work."
Casey: Something that's not entirely new is a little better reintroduction into something that will be scary.
Matt: Exactly. It's nice that we had learned the songs before and the dances and things. Of course, there are tweaks. But it was fun to push the material, hopefully refine it even more to make it as good as it can be.
We had to get tested (for Covid) weekly, which wasn't a problem, but with Covid there's just more hoops to do anything. I'm sure you know, with interviewing folks. So everything takes a little longer because you're using up that energy there to adhere to the Covid protocols — hand sanitizing in between, when rehearsal breaks.
But it was also really great to be able to play with people on stage and to dig into material that is about friendship and living in the seasons and adventuring. Have you seen those McSweeney's, “Frog and Toad are Self-Quarantines Friends,” but Frog and Toad are sick of each other? I admire Frog and Toad quite a lot in any context, but I think they can speak to how things are in quarantine because, in some ways, their world is pretty small. It's just like your significant other. And some days here, your S.O. just wants to stay in and sleep in like toad. Some days they want to they want to go out and explore and adventure.
Casey: What do you miss about before?
Matt: Certainly seeing people. I think I also miss seeing the lower half of people's faces because you can read more with the whole face. I guess I kind of miss those moments of very everyday-ness. I had one a couple of weeks ago, where I was in the store getting some food and it happened to be sort of crowded. This was at Your Dekalb Farmers Market. People are getting their stuff and you just feel like you're doing a thing together. We're waiting to get some sausages, and they said, "Oh, didn't we pick a great day to come?" And you kind of have that understanding of, "Oh, yeah. We're in this together." And there's a little back and forth with this guy. But for a lot of people, myself included, there is a feeling of togetherness, that we're all weathering this thing as a society, as a species.
Casey: It does feel like there's more consideration for other people in a weird way.
Matt: Yeah. In a way of, "We've got some difficulties. I'm sure you do too. Let's do our level best." I think that's really admirable.
Casey: I wonder if you're creating in any other ways? And what has the motivation been to do or to not do anything creative?
Matt: I am creating in other ways. I'm a clown with Humorology Atlanta. We have been doing virtual visits, pretty much since lockdowns started. It's fun to partner with another clown and to serve whoever shows up on any given day and tailor to them. That's really rewarding and you get the kind of feedback of — you're having an impact. Also, making clown videos for Humorology has been really fun.
Casey: It must be hard to be a clown right now. Do you find it any harder or any easier than it was before?
Matt: I don't know. I think I'm more aware that people could use a clown right now or that they want to laugh and have a good time now too. …
But in terms of other creating and motivation, I heard something pretty early on in the pandemic. I think was from Esther Perel, this therapist who does podcasts and has done stuff on "This American Life." She was saying there are two main approaches that people typically have in this scenario. When stuff hits the fan, one is going to really tighten up and be like, "Well, because we're in extraordinary circumstances, we need to be more focused and more vigilant, more scheduled." And another person will say, "Well, these are extenuating circumstances, so we need more leeway, more freedom, and more relaxing." And I think, for me, it's been more that second one. I'm like, "Oh, well, let's soften. Let's soften till the cows come home. Take it easy on yourself. Take it easy on other people."
That's not to say I don't have drive to do things. I do. But it is kind of remembering, "Oh yeah. This is unusual, and when things take longer than you want them to, that's OK. That's OK." And just kept coming back to that as much as you can. "I'm really frustrated with this. Why isn't this all happening more seamlessly and quicker? Oh yeah. This is why. OK, it can take a few more days." And so I think I’m a little looser in that, or at least I try to be. I try to remember a little more space for myself and everyone.
Casey: How do you put that peace and grace into a span of time that does actually have a deadline? Because now we don't have deadlines.
Matt: Right.
Casey: That's the part I worry about.
Matt: I see. Hopefully you get...
Casey: You get better deadlines.
Matt: You get better deadlines or you get better at the process now so that hopefully it's easy to meet the deadlines later.
Casey: Sure. That would be a dream.
Matt: I think people are getting better at asking for what they need. Maybe they can have a more honest conversation upfront and say, "I know you'd love it by here, but it would really be a whole lot easier for me if you could do it here," and be willing to have that kind of negotiation. But you're right, sometimes there will be deadlines that make things challenging.
Casey: There will be a time when Covid is little less prevalent, I hope, than it is now, and we will go back to a life that more closely resembles what we had before. What do you take out of this time when you weren't able to be an artist the way you want to be or weren't able to go and see the people you wanted to see? Is there anything you would adjust?
Matt: Yeah, hopefully, just that sense of togetherness that we were talking about.
Casey: Being together in itself will help that.
Matt: Right. Giving people that grace of "I'm sure you've got issues, too,” and just (being) a little more spacious, a little gentler, a little kinder. It's a shared experience. And not walking around like, "Oh, what I'm doing is so different than what other people are doing." It's very similar. I think that goes a long way.
Casey: Finally, we're coming up on the year mark. What do you find yourself thinking about?
Matt: Well, I don't know about any big idea, but I still haven't had a quarantine birthday. My birthday is on March 2nd, so I'm kind of like, "Oh, well, what is it going to be like?" Most of other people have had that and somehow I squeaked by.
Casey: Even just emotions? Is there anything in particular that a year is going to change for you?
Matt: I'm not sure. I think the emotion is, "Huh? Still this is it?" And it's not this unchanging monolith. It's had all these phases and peaks and valleys. But I think it is kind of like "Huh. OK, this is still how it is."
So how do we continue to adapt and grow and connect?
Casey: Even as a person who at the beginning was like "I don't even know how long it's going to be," is a year longer than you thought it would be?
Matt: If I had to put a number to it early on, I was like “18 months.”
Casey: Wow.
Matt: But, you know, it's all speculation, right? I didn't want to get too, "Oh, who cares if I'm right? Or we just wanted to really end." So I think a year is, "Huh. Yeah, still this."
Casey: Wow.
Matt: I guess I'm still asking that question of "How do you just do the simple things each day?" What gets people out of bed in the morning?
Casey: And that self-care is really important.
Matt: Yeah, how do you breathe and hopefully help some people today? And some days, maybe many days, how do you just make sure you're all right? Drink from the well yourself so that you can pour later.
