Best Carrie Classon Podcasts (2025)

1
When Animals Talk 5:27

Play Pause

3d ago5:27

5:27

That night of the winter solstice, when the sun set so early and the dark lasted so long would be a good time to remember the animals who had no way of knowing when the sun would be closer or when the days would be warmer or when the darkness would not last so long.By Carrie Classon

1
The Right Way To Do Christmas 5:09

10d ago5:09

5:09

When I think of presents, I don’t think of stress. I have given my young nephew inappropriately dangerous gifts (what young man does not need a pickaxe?) And I’ve given joke presents (my friend, Andrew, at one time had an impressive collection of shower caps). I love giving presents to pets. I love hearing my mother exclaim, “What on earth…?” as sh…

1
Gecko Time 4:55

17d ago4:55

4:55

Usually within hours, my glands will swell, and I’ll have trouble swallowing. By the next day, I have to breathe through my mouth, and I’m going through boxes of tissues. You know the drill. There is nothing unique or interesting about my transformation into a gecko.By Carrie Classon

1
Gratitude Time 5:15

25d ago5:15

5:15

I made a total of one quilt, and it took me nine years. I was not, I’m happy to tell you, working on it for nine years. I bought the fabric, cut out the pieces and assembled some of them. Then I stuck them in a box and then let guilt work on me for eight and three-quarter years.By Carrie Classon

1
Warm Spots 5:12

1M ago5:12

5:12

Mama also does other things, things that Felix really does not like. Mama yells when Felix is on the table (Mouse pretends he does not see him). And—worst of all—Mama gets out the nail clippers and cuts Felix’s beautiful curving claws.By Carrie Classon

1
Wearing Capris 4:36

1M ago4:36

4:36

I am now in San Miguel de Allende. No one comes to SMA, as folks call it, for spring break. It takes too long to get to, and it is too far from an ocean. This means that the people who are here have plenty of time to come and go and are not particularly interested in beaches. In other words, they are old.…

1
More Badges 5:19

2M ago5:19

5:19

Not all goals are quite this satisfying. Most goals involve a little dithering. The plan has to be altered. There is a step backward after two steps forward. There are obvious failures when, as optimistic as I try to be, I know I have hit a setback.By Carrie Classon

1
Getting Better 5:18

2M ago5:18

5:18

Peter sits about ten feet away (which is almost as far as a person can be from another person in this apartment). I have learned to write while he works on projects. (He is replacing the tips of his hiking poles right now. “Bang! Bang! Bang!”) He has grown accustomed to me sometimes talking to myself and sometimes talking to him and not being sure …

1
Memorable Gift 4:55

2M ago4:55

4:55

My parents have known Andrew since before he had a driver’s license. But even knowing someone for almost 50 years does not prepare you for getting pilfered Door Dash on your 90th birthday.By Carrie Classon

1
Living With Felix 5:09

2M ago5:09

5:09

My husband, Peter, is convinced our cat Felix was much younger because he was so small when we adopted him. And it’s true, he became much bigger and more muscular once he started getting regular nutrition. But Felix knew nothing about living in houses or living with people and, to be honest, we knew nothing about living with Felix.…

1
Strange Dreams 4:42

2M ago4:42

4:42

I am sure that if a person wanted to, they could have a great time figuring out what ails my sister and me, but I don’t put too much stock in dreams, other than to note the emotions that come along with them. I have woken in terror over something that seems—upon waking—completely harmless. And then I have a dream where I am cheerfully disposing of …

1
Loving Strangers 5:21

3M ago5:21

5:21

Once I get to the airport, there are more annoyances. People walk slowly, three abreast, oblivious to the fact that they are not moving at the prevailing speed. Everyone takes too much carry-on luggage. People talk too loudly on their cell phones. Younger people sit on the floor and spread all their possessions around them, as if they plan to take …

1
Getting It Right 4:41

3M ago4:41

4:41

I dig through my closet. I dig through my drawers. I try things on. I discard things. I start to feel emotional, wondering if I am a person who belongs in New York at all—a person who is incapable of dressing herself. 7PXYhszVrJ2IJn8ALTn1By Carrie Classon

1
Vegetable Gluttony 4:33

3M ago4:33

4:33

I know that eating too much sweet corn will make me feel bloated and too much squash will make me positively sick. But how does one resist at this time of year? And so, I don’t. I eat way too many vegetables, and then I go back the next week and get more.By Carrie Classon

1
Saggy Belly 5:22

3M ago5:22

5:22

Now my sister was laughing. My father looked skeptical, as he did with a lot of new information discovered on the internet and not otherwise verified. My mother just looked very surprised. I thought it was hilarious. But we were all looking at Katy in a new way.By Carrie Classon

1
Writing About Writing 5:16

4M ago5:16

5:16

I spend almost every day alone, sitting at my little maple desk. But lately, I have had more fun than usual because I am working on a new book and I am writing about a lot of things I know nothing about.By Carrie Classon

1
Whatever the Next Day Will Bring 4:57

4M ago4:57

4:57

Isabelle was only three at the time; her brother, Beau, was not even born. She was patiently explaining to her baby doll in the next room, “You are not a bad baby. You just make bad choices.” Isabelle rarely makes bad choices. I have made more than my share.By Carrie Classon

1
Memories of Horseradish 4:58

4M ago4:58

4:58

Most of my cousins were older than me. They were cool and listened to rock music behind closed bedroom doors and brought boyfriends to the farm and paid no attention to me whatsoever. The cousins younger than me were small and annoying and not able to keep up. You can afford to be selective when you have so many cousins to choose from.…

1
Just a Little Anxious 5:01

4M ago5:01

5:01

I honestly cannot think of anything less relaxing than walking much, much too slowly in a circle with other people who are also walking much too slowly, trying not to step on the heels of the person in front of me. It’s kind of tortuous.By Carrie Classon

1
Almost There 4:48

5M ago4:48

4:48

Emily Anderson is a wonderful artist who paints scenes from nature in Minnesota. Unlike many northern landscape artists, her work is never dreary. Her scenes of the natural world just exude joy and a sense of discovery and—it might sound odd, but it’s true—humor. Her work makes me smile. I want to be in whatever place she has painted.…

1
Second Opinion 5:19

5M ago5:19

5:19

This was not an undercooked broccoli crunch. This was not wild rice. This was the crunch you might experience while eating a sandwich on a beach when the wind was blowing. I looked at my delicious meal. I took another bite. “Crunch.”By Carrie Classon

1
A Chance of Rain 4:58

5M ago4:58

4:58

The hour passed. I opened my eyes. Even though the chapel is lit only by candles and the windows are stained glass, it still seemed darker than it should be. Then I heard a crash of thunder. I looked at my watch. 7:00 exactly.By Carrie Classon

1
A New Route 5:00

5M ago5:00

5:00

I know a lot of folks my own age who think they have everything figured out. They tell me how it’s all downhill from here—whether they are talking about the country or their health or literature or the quality of baked goods. Everything was better in the past, and now we’re all addicted to social media and reliant on the internet and nothing good w…

1
Pictures of Flowers 5:22

5M ago5:22

5:22

Other than my photos of flowers, I don’t do much on Facebook, but I am a member of a few groups and most of them have to do with writing. As of this week, I think that might change.By Carrie Classon

1
Unworn Dresses 5:40

6M ago5:40

5:40

Now that I am finally able to move all my clothing back to its rightful spot, I am faced with the unavoidable question: Do I really need all these clothes?By Carrie Classon

1
Another Time 4:58

6M ago4:58

4:58

We didn’t take a pontoon ride. My mother was feeling a bit under the weather. We were planning to go to a restaurant that we feared might fill up if we got there too late. Rod nodded, but I could tell he thought we ought to get on that pontoon boat anyway.By Carrie Classon

1
Planned Forgetfulness 5:12

6M ago5:12

5:12

I do a funny thing in the middle of June. I try to celebrate the summer solstice. I don’t do anything particularly romantic. If you have visions of me leaping over bonfire flames or dancing around a maypole wearing a flower crown or attempting to contact my inner goddess, you would be disappointed.By Carrie Classon

1
An Intrusion 4:40

6M ago4:40

4:40

I remembered my mother’s Swedish relatives who came to visit in the 80s. They did not think wall-to-wall carpeting was normal. They were concerned it would not be clean. They thought area rugs were the way to go. I reminded my 100% Swedish mother of this, in an attempt to make this whole tiling of the bedroom thing look like a return to my roots.…

1
A Smaller Life 4:43

7M ago4:43

4:43

It all reminds me of other rooms and smaller places I have lived in the past. It reminds me of being in my childhood bedroom, where I also had a desk and a bed in close proximity. It reminds me of when, at 50, I packed everything into the back of a pickup truck and went to grad school. I lived in a converted garage with hardwood floors and had a ve…

1
Dressing Up 5:06

7M ago5:06

5:06

Now that I’m older, I am having a lot more fun getting dressed up than I ever did when I was young. I think the expectations are different. When I was younger, I had this wrongheaded idea that there was a right way to dress up. I thought I would either hit the mark or miss. Now that I’m older, I realize there is no one keeping score, there are no p…

1
Someone Else's Garden 5:08

7M ago5:08

5:08

Gardening was supposed to be enjoyable and the fact that it always seemed like work to me made me feel guilty. My mother and sister are wonderful gardeners, and I have no reason to believe they are fibbing when they say they enjoy getting their hands in the dirt, tending their flowers and watching things grow. I do enjoy watching things grow—this i…

1
Small Momments 5:20

7M ago5:20

5:20

Her notes appear in little bubbles at the side of the text. “This is reading like a sermon,” a note said. This was a puzzling observation because the passage she was referring to was, in fact, a sermon. But I gathered from the note that sounding like a sermon (even if it was a sermon) was not a good thing.…

1
What I'm Waiting For 5:09

8M ago5:09

5:09

A big storm would have been nice, but it’s really the lack of color that is getting me down. March is nothing but mud and surprise snowstorms and then more mud. April is nothing but cold wind and gray skies. So I expect big things from May. And, this year, May is dragging its heels. Whatever it is I’m waiting for, it doesn’t seem to be showing up.…

1
The Second Marshmallow 5:06

8M ago5:06

5:06

I’ve been thinking about the marshmallow test off and on for years, ever since I heard about it. I am positive I would have waited for the second marshmallow. In fact, I think there’s a good chance, when the second one arrived, I would have let that one sit as well, thinking I could be the first four-year-old in history to be awarded three marshmal…

1
An Empty Space 5:24

8M ago5:24

5:24

I would see the face of the dance teacher light up as they assumed I was a dancer, and I would dread what was coming. I would stand up and start to move and the teacher would immediately realize they had made a mistake—I was absolutely not a dancer. In fact, I had enormous difficulty following the simplest instructions. The notion of “body memory” …

1
A Day Like Yesterday 4:58

8M ago4:58

4:58

Felix is our cat. He had made a small noise a few minutes before landing, but I had thought nothing of it. Now it smelled as if something was badly amiss. I know you might be having your breakfast as you listen to this, so suffice to say, of the three types of potential messes an animal could make in a small container, this was the worst of the opt…

1
A Very Good Dog 5:00

9M ago5:00

5:00

Honestly, I was not hopeful. There are a lot of stray dogs in Mexico, and Muneca was no longer a puppy. We later learned that her owner was not an older person, as we assumed, but a young woman who died unexpectedly. The whole thing seemed terribly tragic.By Carrie Classon

1
Nervous as a Cat 5:21

9M ago5:21

5:21

I googled the expression “nervous as a cat” and it comes from the idea that a cat moves very quickly and suddenly. It is used when a person is uneasy or overly alert. I don’t think Felix is uneasy in the least. But he is very alert. He can spring into action from complete stillness, zoom down the hall, bounce off the wall at the far end, return to …

1
Stealth Comedy 5:33

9M ago5:33

5:33

Jade is one of the new people I have met while spending time in Mexico. Jade used to be an eye doctor. But after retiring from medicine in her 60s, she decided to do something a little different. I’m pretty sure—no matter how much time I gave you—you would never guess how Jade now spends her time.By Carrie Classon

1
Bougainvillea Poetry 5:48

9M ago5:48

5:48

If having more refined tastes means I stop noticing bougainvillea, I’d be happy with the tastes I have, even if I never understood much poetry. Because it seems to me the ability to notice the beautiful in the ordinary is more important than recognizing the unusual.By Carrie Classon

1
The Tornado 5:53

9M ago5:53

5:53

Optimism can be clumsy. It can be ham-fisted. Disappointment and grief and setbacks and bad news and failures are all very real things, and the optimist’s impulse is to sweep them under the rug in record time.By Carrie Classon

1
Perfect for the Day 5:28

10M ago5:28

5:28

A couple of weeks before our 10th anniversary, I suggested to Peter that maybe we should have a party. It was at night, so Peter was mostly asleep. I have found this is a good time to spring new ideas on Peter.By Carrie Classon

1
What Peter Does 5:12

10M ago5:12

5:12

Peter and I will celebrate our 10th anniversary this week, which doesn’t seem possible for two reasons. First, because it cannot be possible that ten years have passed since we got married, and second, because it cannot be possible there was ever a time I was not married to Peter.By Carrie Classon

1
Practical Joke 5:15

10M ago5:15

5:15

At this point, my cat, Felix, was alerted to the fact that something out of the ordinary was occurring and joined me in the bathroom. He surveyed my posture on the floor somewhat disapprovingly. “Mama, this lying on the floor is not a good look,” he informed me as he sniffed my eyes and mouth. I agreed.…

1
Thinking About My Hair 4:49

10M ago4:49

4:49

I used to feel the need to apologize to my hair stylists, “I’m good at doing some things,” I would insist. “Growing hair just isn’t one of them!” The hair stylist would work away for long minutes, and at the end, I would get up from the chair and there was no hair to see on the floor. It was as if the entire thing had been a pantomime involving sci…

1
Traveling With Felix 4:45

11M ago4:45

4:45

Felix learned that if he got up enough traction in the carpeted bedroom, he could skid down the polished wooden floors in the hall, zoom across the living room, ricochet off the wall, and land on the couch, all in a matter of seconds. Our entire condo became a giant cat racecourse.By Carrie Classon

1
Not My Cake 5:14

11M ago5:14

5:14

I thought as long as the bakery was writing “HAPPY BIRTHDAY” on the cake, they could just as easily write “HAPPY BIRTHDAYS!” followed by “22 & 91.” Then I could put a single candle by each age and simplify the whole complicated (but mandatory) candle-blowing-out procedure.By Carrie Classon

1
Talking to a Friend 4:54

11M ago4:54

4:54

My grandmother lived to be 100 and outlived all her old friends. So she made new old friends. By the time she passed, many of her friends were closer in age to her children than to her, but she always seemed to have someone to talk to. And that is what matters.By Carrie Classon

1
Clean Ankles 4:37

11M ago4:37

4:37

Anyone who has tried to properly scrub their ankles while standing in a shower should save their skills and become a yoga instructor. Or a stork. It is not physically possible. There are creative ways to get one’s feet clean, but the ankles suffer in a shower. And before anyone tells me it doesn’t matter because ankles are covered by socks, I’d lik…

1
At Home With Felix 5:23

12M ago5:23

5:23

Instead of sharing a house with several cats and a rotating cast of dogs and birds, Felix is the only nonhuman in our house. He plays games with Peter and gets snacks several times a day. He talks a lot and has two people who listen to whatever he has to say, even if it is just his regular announcement of when he is going to have a bowel movement—w…