Pod Insights The Moth The Moth Radio Hour: All In - Live from London About this episode This week, a special episode of The Moth, live from a Mainstage show in London. Stories of going "All In" — in a new town, in an icy lake, and on the paintball course. This live show is hosted by Tiff Stevenson with additional hosting by Moth Senior Director Meg Bowles. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by The Moth and Jay Allison of Atlantic Public Media.
Storytellers:
Kate Oliver remembers what it was like to be a "weird, androgynous, nerdy" teenager.
Navied Mahdavian and his wife try to build a community in a new town.
A difficult period leads Catherine Joy White back to a childhood passion.
Podcast # 911
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:14 Meg Bowles? This is The Moth Radio Hour. I'm Meg Bowles and today we're taking you to London for a live main stage show. Now imagine you're sitting in a darkened Gothic revival style church. The sun is setting through the stained glass windows. Candles illuminate the eaves. The wooden pews are packed and the energy is buzzing as our audience awaits an evening of stories on the theme of taking a leap and going all in. Live from the Union Chapel in London, here's your host for the evening, actor, comedian and writer, Tiff Stevenson.
0:48 Speaker 01 How beautiful. Welcome to The Moth. Hello, I'm your host, Tiff Stevenson. I'm local and cheap. Also, a sexually confident woman in my 40s. Yeah. The men are like frightening. People are frightened of sexually confident women in their 40s. It's what I went as for Halloween last year. People were like, hideous, kill it. Who's been to The Moth before? Let me hear you cheer. A few of you, about half, I would say. If you've never been to The Moth, let me tell you about The Moth. It's a nonprofit. Excellent. It's storytelling. It's first person storytelling.
1:31 Speaker 01 And we have storytellers coming up tonight telling true stories, personal stories from their lives because The Moth believes that building community and empathy through storytelling is more important than ever before. Yeah. I think that's a beautiful sentiment. The storytellers will use no notes, no cheat sheets. They do, we have three stories. This is how it's going to run. Tell you how the night's going to go. We have three stories and a break where you can go to the bar.
2:01 Speaker 01 Yeah, see, that's how you know you're in the UK and not America's. People will cheer going to the bar as a part of the evening.
2:09 Speaker 01 And tonight's theme for the show is "All In", that's the theme for tonight's show. Stories about going all in, like the time I went to Paris. I went all in on mezcal. I drank a lot of it. In fact, I was still throwing up on the way to the Eurostar the next day. I walked up to the desk, having done a little puke in a bin. I'm very classy, let's get that out of the way. And as I walked up to the desk, the man behind the checking counter said, "Is it contagious?"
2:37 Speaker 01 He said, "Sorry, what?" He said, "What is making you sick? Is it contagious?" And I had to say, "No, I did this to myself."
2:46 Speaker 01 It's beautiful, beautiful. So, as I introduce our storytellers tonight, I like to introduce them with a little bit of a question, to get you into the mood and the vibe of the evening. And because it's me, I've asked a question about fashion. I like to know when our storytellers have gone all in on fashion. You know, I've gone all in on fashion plenty of times. There was the time I bought fingerless gloves and thought they were a good idea. Yes, exactly. Fingerless gloves, not a good idea. Not combined with a shawl.
3:18 Speaker 01 In London, when it's foggy.
3:23 Speaker 01 As I said, I asked everyone a question before this, and our first storyteller said, when she went all in on fashion, she said, "I have to dress up for work. I work with families in museums. In the last few weeks, I've been a pirate, a spider, a very sweaty anteater, and a spunky squirrel."
3:48 Speaker 01 Okay, so strap yourselves in and get ready. And please, welcome to the stage, the Moth Stage, our very first storyteller, Kate Oliver.
4:09 Speaker 02 I was frozen with fear. I couldn't move a muscle. As he lifted the gun up to point at my face and he said, "Pow."
4:20 Speaker 02 Now, I'd never been paintballing before. I never wanted to go paintballing, I'd never expected to go paintballing. The only reason I was there was it was my friend's 30th birthday and he'd got the tickets as a present. And this in itself was surprising because neither he nor I nor the two people we'd gone with were the type. We are friends from being in the same gay show choir together. So, our only previous engagement in sport together was choreography to Tina Turner songs. And I feel it really summed up our expectations of the event that he ended the invitation with, "I hope they have pink paint."
5:02 Speaker 02 When we arrived, it was not as we'd expected. We got dressed up in these kind of camouflage onesies, like the big jumpsuits. And we walked down into this basement arena for round one. Now, round one is where you're just with your friends, so it's just the four of us. And you're kind of trying to work out how it all works and what to do. And we're in this huge arena, it's about the size of a football pitch, it's all underground, it's totally dark in there. There's these big black and neon shapes, these abstract shapes that you're meant to kind of dive behind to hide and shoot. And it's totally black and there's techno music playing, so it's silly, it's silly there.
5:40 Speaker 02 And we treat it like it's silly, we start shooting each other or trying to, we're rolling around on the floor, we're doing movie scenes with each other. And all this lasts right up until the point that one of us actually hits someone else. Because paintballs hurt. Paintballs bruise, paintballs can break the skin if you're getting too close. And this is when our silliness started to turn to fear. Because we knew that after this, we were going into round two. And in round two, you're not with your friends anymore, you're with groups of strangers. And as we walked up the stairs back to the waiting room, we saw all these groups of strangers, all taking it much more seriously than we were. Including this group of eight teenage boys.
6:26 Speaker 02 About 15 or 16 years old, one of whom raised his gun up to point at me.
6:33 Speaker 02 Now, if you haven't been to Paintball before, there are two groups of people there. One is this group of teenage boys. They go every weekend. The staff know their names. They've brought their own guns. You can bring your own guns to Paintball. And they are there to prey on the weak. And the second group of people, the weak, we are a bunch of gays who've just realised we're there for their target practice. But the reason I froze up so badly when this happened was not because I'm afraid of paint. This came from a far more primal place.
7:15 Speaker 02 I was flashing back to when I was this teenager's age, about 15 years old. And in school, the most terrifying thing in the world to me was teenage boys. I was the weird, androgynous nerdy kid in the class. You probably remember the weird, androgynous nerdy kid in your class. If you've wondered how they're doing, we're fine. I'm fine, thanks. I had this big frizzy hair swept straight back. I had these thick glasses on. And I would walk around the edge of the playground on my own, every break time, with my head down, carrying my briefcase.
7:58 Speaker 02 And kids would shout stuff at me, and they'd throw stuff at me. Once in class, they banged on the window and shouted stuff. A couple of kids came to my house one time. So it got pretty bad. And so my main memory of being 12 to 15 is just feeling so tense all the time and just feeling like a target and wanting to hide and just wanting to disappear. And so, in that waiting room, in that space, when this teenager raised that gun, I was the exact same person.
8:40 Speaker 02 I was terrified. I was so frozen. I was ashamed. I felt so embarrassed. I knew that in a minute, my friends would notice that I was afraid of this child, and they'd be ashamed of me too. But as I panicked, something shifted. He lowered the gun and he suddenly looked really confused. He suddenly looked very young. And he said to me, "Miss, did you bring a cockroach to my school?" And I did, I did. I did.
9:25 Speaker 02 I used to work in the London Zoo Schools Outreach Programme. And it was my job to go round schools and teach kids about endangered species and about habitats. And we would bring animals from the zoo with us, not the wild animals like the lions and tigers, but like snakes and lizards and ferrets and giant insects like these rainforest cockroaches. The cockroaches, by the way, are particularly cute animals. His name was Charlie, he was very sweet. And this job, this job was exactly as awesome as you are imagining right now. We would drive up to a primary school and the kids would see the van out the window
10:10 Speaker 02 and they'd all be going, "The zoo's here, the zoo's here." And then we'd walk into the classroom or the assembly and we'd be like, "Is everybody excited?" And they'd be like, "Yeah." It was like being a celebrity. And the first day, I went to a secondary school where the teenagers are, I was definitely nervous because teenagers, as you know, are not allowed to like things and are not allowed to show that they're enjoying something. So when we went in, there was stony silence. But then we got out the snake and one of the kids was really scared, but then she touched it and it wasn't slimy like she imagined. And then she asked a question and then they were all asking questions and they were laughing
10:55 Speaker 02 and having fun. I just got to be that cool, popular person that I didn't get to be in school.
11:05 Speaker 02 And though this job was so important to me, and these experiences were so big for me, I don't ever expect one of these kids to remember me after this day. Like, I'm always just gonna be this vague memory of like, "The day the zoo lady came to school", you know? Like, you probably remember when the animal person came to school, right? If you've wondered how they're doing, I'm fine. We're fine, thanks so much. But this time, this one time I got recognised outside of work, this would change everything. Because this teenager, he leaned over to his friends, and he told them who I was, and they all started going, "Oh my god, it's zoo lady! Zoo lady! Zoo lady's here! Zoo lady's here!"
11:50 Speaker 02 And they were talking about the ferret, and they thought it was gonna bite them, but then it didn't, and it was so soft, and they were so excited, and they had such a good day, and we were all suddenly laughing. And when we walked down into that arena for round two, it was like we had eight personal bodyguard snipers next to us.
12:16 Speaker 02 We walked into that arena, we were haphazardly diving behind the cardboard boxes. They took up strategic positions, and they were picking off people I couldn't even see at the other end of the room. Nobody got near us that day. We walked out of there completely paint-free, apart from the accidental shots we'd hit each other and ourselves.
12:42 Speaker 02 And it was amazing. It was amazing. It was so amazing to feel like I was that terrified kid inside. I was still there. But the people around me, they just saw me now, and they just accepted that.
13:00 Speaker 02 And now, today, I still work with young people. And I'd be lying if I said I didn't still sometimes get that jolt of terror when a young person says or does something that sparks a memory for me. But now, I know that I can breathe. And I can accept it, and I can move on. Because I know now, I am still that scared kid. I'm still that same person. But I'm not just that kid anymore. I'm Zoo Lady. Thank you.
13:44 Speaker 01 Yes.
13:47 Speaker 01 Ah, yes.
13:53 Speaker 01 What an opener. How fantastic. Give it up once more for Kay Oliver. Well done.
14:03 Meg Bowles? Kay Oliver has all the coolest jobs. She's an educator in environmental charities, museums, and zoos, and a psychotherapy student. She spends her free time running the Radical Rest Project, encouraging people to have more rest. And she says she absolutely sees the irony in this. She's only been paintballing one other time since her first adventure. And she said, once again, she encountered a gaggle of teenage boys. But this time, she and her friends got their butts kicked.
14:37 Meg Bowles? We'll bring you more of this special live hour from London when The Moth Radio Hour continues.
15:12 Speaker 03 The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.
15:19 Meg Bowles? This is The Moth Radio Hour. I'm Meg Bowles, and today we're bringing you a live show from the Union Chapel in London. The theme of the night was "All In," and your host is Tiff Stevenson.
15:32 Speaker 01 So, moving on to our next storyteller. When I asked him about the time he went all in on fashion, he said, "Two words: Jinko jeans." I said, "I didn't know what they were," and he said, "They were balloon jeans, the hugest overly-large jeans you could wear." I said, "Enough said. I get it. I get the visual." Please welcome to the Moth stage, Naveed Madhavian.
16:09 Speaker 04 My wife Emily and I, we were on our land for the first time, and we were trying to figure out where our tiny house would soon go, which was more difficult than we had anticipated because, looking around, there weren't any reference points. It's just land for miles, sagebrush and dust for as far as we could see. It was the first time I'd ever been able to say "my land," and I remember that day saying it over and over and over and over again. And as I'd say it, I focused on the way it sounded. I exaggerated the motion of my lips and my mouth. "My land." Emily said, "Stop doing that."
16:52 Speaker 04 It's 2016, and Trump has just been elected, and so I did what any reasonable Middle Eastern American could do at the time. I moved to the middle-of-nowhere America, and not just anywhere, cowboy country. We had visited the state of Idaho the summer before on a whim, and immediately we had fallen in love with its mountains, its landscape, its real estate prices. And so we bought six acres in one of its most remote areas, sight unseen, and we made the decision to move from San Francisco, epicenter of American liberalism, to Mackey, Idaho, population 500 cowboys.
17:39 Speaker 04 But we could own a tiny house, we could maybe start a family, and most importantly, we could both pursue our dreams of becoming artists. Before moving, I had been a 5th grade teacher, but what I really wanted to do was to be a New Yorker cartoonist. And I know what you're thinking, if you want to become a New Yorker cartoonist, move as far away from New York as possible, makes sense. But what I've learned about being a cartoonist is you have to see the world kind of askew. You have to in order to poke fun at things, to make connections other people can't see. And Mackey, Idaho was perfect for this because everything felt slightly askew, particularly for a city boy like me
18:22 Speaker 04 who knew nothing about farming or ranching. For example, it took me two years to realize that all chaps are in fact assless.
18:39 Speaker 04 So for the first year, we mostly kept to ourselves, which was easy to do because technically, we were like 20 minutes outside of town, past the farmers for Trump flags and the "Make America Great Again" welcome sign. And of course, there was the occasional stare that went on too long, which may or may not have been because of the complexion of my skin, and the occasional pointed question like, "You're not a Muslim, are you?" Which was definitely because of the complexion of my skin. But when we actually made it into town, people were usually really welcoming and they were kind, and we got some of that small-town charm that we had moved there for in the first place. On one of these trips into town, we were buying groceries, stocking up for a couple of weeks.
19:22 Speaker 04 Emily stopped outside of the movie theater in town and she lingered a little longer than usual. The theater had been closed on and off for like 10 years and it has this beautiful art deco marquee that's like a homing device, particularly for somebody like Emily who is a filmmaker. So on this particular day, she drops her groceries and she has her hands in her face, plastered against the glass, and I could almost hear the gears whirring. And as my arms are getting increasingly tired and I'm getting increasingly nervous, because if you could imagine a graph where the X-axis is the length of time that Emily spends quietly thinking, and the Y-axis is how much trouble we're gonna be in, this would have been off the charts.
20:04 Speaker 04 And so as soon as I saw her smile in the reflection, I knew that was that. We were going to reopen the movie theater. On the drive home, she explained that this is what we can do for the town. We don't know anything about farming or ranching, but what we do know is movies and art. And now I'm excited at the thought, because if this was going to be our home, we needed some way to give back to the community, you know, to become known entities, real members. Instead of being that terrorist, which is something somebody had called me, I could instead be that movie theater terrorist. And so we started up an arts council, which allowed us to rent the theater for cheap.
20:49 Speaker 04 We found and refurbished the original 1940's popcorn machine, and I rallied the community to help us clean up the movie theater. Our community, which is something I hadn't been able to say before. And I remember saying it over and over and over again, and as I'd say it, I'd focus on the way it sounds, "Our community." Emily said, "Stop doing that." And so we reopened the theater.
21:15 Speaker 04 The morning of opening night, I was sitting in, I was having a cup of coffee in the local coffee slash bait slash tackle slash beer shop. And as I'm sipping my coffee, I'm imagining the thunderous applause that we're obviously going to receive after the movie that night. You know, standing ovation, cowboy hats being thrown high into the air. When my neighbor at the counter, he asks me a question. He's an older cowboy, and his breath was hot with coffee and his handlebar mustache was glistening with sticky bun. And he leans in and he asks, "You're not trying to bring that Boise, Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, artsy-fartsy, social justice warrior crap here, are you?"
22:03 Speaker 04 And I'm actually ready for this question, because Emily and I, we know our audience. And I respond confidently, "No, we're actually showing an indie western." And he asks, "John Wayne?" And I said, "No, Robert Pattinson, the Twilight guy."
22:20 Speaker 04 And so, blank stare. He says, "You should show John Wayne."
22:26 Speaker 04 That night, it's opening night, I'm too nervous to sit in the theater with everyone, and so I stood outside of the auditorium. And the theater was packed that night. Some people came on dates, some people came alone, everybody had popcorn. And as I stood, I thought about how some people even took selfies of themselves with the tickets underneath the glow of the marquee, which was now on, illuminating Main Street. And so, the movie's starting, and I lean into the curtains, because even if I can't watch it, I at least want to listen to it and enjoy it. And I hear the words from the movie, "There's a gangbang social tonight." And so I'm grasping the curtains, and I should say at this point, it's an important part of the story, that I actually didn't have a chance to watch the movie before showing it.
23:11 Speaker 04 So by the time Robert Pattinson was masturbating a quarter of the way through the film, I was laying horizontally on the ground, the carpeting pressed against my cheek, and I could actually hear audible groans coming from the theater at this point. But that just may have been the sound of Robert Pattinson achieving completion.
23:35 Speaker 04 So after the movie, needless to say, I raced into the lobby and I tried as much as I could not to make eye contact with anyone as they shuffled out of the theater, their eyes wide, their cowboy hats pressed tightly against their chest. And I really believed if I just don't move, if I stand perfectly still, maybe nobody will be able to see me. Kind of like that scene with the T-Rex in Jurassic Park. Not a super auspicious start. A question we got a lot after that was, are you gonna show new movies? These were new movies, just indie movies that nobody had heard of. We couldn't show big budget films, but because we couldn't afford to, but that's not why
24:18 Speaker 04 we had opened the theater in the first place, that's not what we wanted to do. We really believed if we show good movies, we can earn the community's trust. Our community's trust. Even if we were showing subtitled documentaries about whale hunting in the Faroe Islands. "If you build it, they will come" became our mantra. But no one came. Night after night, I'd flip the switch on in the theater and it would reveal maybe one, maybe two people in the auditorium. And so, we relented. We showed John Wayne. And everybody came, they really loved John Wayne. And I remember getting swept up in the excitement and I decided that this time I'll sit in the theater with everyone.
25:01 Speaker 04 We showed the movie, The Quiet Man, which if you haven't seen, it's a classic story. Boy moves back to Ireland, boy meets girl, boy meets girl's brother, boy fights girl's brother, and in the end, everyone is happy and friends for life. It's a movie I've seen many times and I've enjoyed it every time I've seen it. But watching it that night, in that town, in that theater, the screen framed by the silhouettes of cowboy hats, watching John Wayne physically drag and shove Maureen O'Hara the five miles back from the train station, it felt different. And I'm a fan of John Ford and I actually love John Wayne, and it is just a movie.
25:44 Speaker 04 But it has this idealized past that masks misogyny, deeply conservative values, and it felt just like the town itself. And they came, and they laughed, and they saw themselves reflected back. But I didn't.
26:03 Speaker 04 Even after showing John Wayne in Star Wars and other fan favorites, things didn't really improve for the theater. And a lot of my conversations with Emily at the time turned to the question of, should we even be doing something that nobody wants? And it didn't help that the theater was impossible in the winter to keep warm. And I joked that we can maybe buy our one customer one big coat. And so most nights I spent by myself in the theater, drawing cartoons bundled up in my big coat, the sound from the movie playing to an empty auditorium. And on one of these lonely nights, this older cowboy walks in, someone we had affectionately nicknamed Racist Dave.
26:44 Speaker 04 Racist Dave walks in and he asks for his nightly popcorn. And as I'm buttering his popcorn, he sits down and he told me a little bit about the history of the place that I didn't know. For example, underneath the movie theater had once been a gambling hall. And across the street above the bar had been a brothel into like the 1960s. Again, cowboy country. And as I hand Racist Dave back his popcorn, he says almost to himself, "Lots of history in this place." And that word stayed with me, "history." It was easy to feel nostalgic in the theater, right? The Art Deco marquee outside, it evoked simpler times.
27:25 Speaker 04 And I wondered, maybe that's what brought Emily and me there in the first place? This sense of nostalgia, this desire for something simpler. And it also occurred to me that maybe Racist Dave and I had more in common than I had previously thought, apart from the casual racism. But I now know that nothing is ever that simple. In 2019, our daughter Ellico was born. And Emily and I made the tough decision to leave our small town and move back to the big city. As much as we had tried to become members of the community, sometimes something just isn't a fit, like a vegetarian joining a local hunting club, which I also have a funny story about.
28:11 Speaker 04 On our last trips into town, Emily continued to linger outside of the theatre. But the theatre felt different. It felt smaller now. And for a while, the community, actually, they kept the marquee on, but the smell of popcorn was gone. After we closed the theatre for good, we learned that back in the old days, when film was still shown on print, reels were smuggled in from this wealthy town over the mountain, and that allowed our town to watch movies without licensing them, so for free. In its entire history, the theatre had never been viable, which was fitting and also kind of romantic. And looking back, I think that maybe that's what it takes to be an artist, to be a dreamer and a risk taker and a little naive.
28:55 Speaker 04 But you have to try something to see if it works. And if it doesn't, well, you get out of Dodge and you try again. Thank you.
29:16 Speaker 01 Navid Madavian.
29:23 Speaker 01 Fantastic. If you don't know, The Moth is an independent arts organisation supported by members and generous donations. And if you want to find out more about workshops in schools, other events and workspaces, please visit themoth.org. Let's have one more round of applause for our storytellers.
29:45 Meg Bowles? Navid Madavian is a cartoonist and writer whose work has appeared in The New Yorker since 2018. He's the author and illustrator of the graphic memoir, This Country: Searching for Home in Very Rural America. Since leaving his tiny house in Idaho behind, Navid and his family have now settled outside of London, and he continues to poke fun at the things he sees slightly askew.
30:15 Meg Bowles? Coming up, more from our live main stage show at the Union Chapel in London when The Moth Radio Hour continues.
30:53 Speaker 03 The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.
31:00 Meg Bowles? This is The Moth Radio Hour. I'm Meg Bowles. You're listening to a main stage event we produced in London at the historic Union Chapel. And here's your host, Tiff Stevenson.
31:11 Speaker 01 I said I'm in my 40s. I'm a very sexy age now. I'm the kind of age where if I turn down an alcoholic drink at the bar, people are like, "Ooh, are you, is she on antibiotics?" Because they want to know. Sometimes I order a cranberry juice just for an air of sexual mystery. To keep it fresh and exciting. I'll tell you how you can tell that you're middle-aged, when you start buying your clothes in places that also sell food. Yeah. That would be my fashion all-in, you know. I like it, because if I can double down on a pair of shorts and some chicken wings, I'm barbecue-ready. That's
31:51 Speaker 01 me. I'm good to go. Just those little signs. So, I asked our final storyteller tonight the same question that I've asked all the others. Tell me about a time you went all-in for fashion. And she said, "When I was 21 years old, I went to Jamaica for the first time to discover my roots and heritage. We were going to a party on the beach, and I decided that my outfit should be maybe the shortest booty shorts with the word Jamaica emblazoned across them, and a top with Jamaica emblazoned across it, in case anyone had
32:30 Speaker 01 forgotten whereabouts in the world we were." I hopped into the taxi to head to the party, and when we got five minutes away, I made him turn back and take me home, because I lost all confidence in it. So, please, welcome our final storyteller for this evening to the Moth stage. Are you ready?
32:56 Speaker 01 Catherine, I've just realised that I've not written your surname, but I know what it is. It's Catherine Joy White.
33:06 Speaker 01 Please welcome her.
33:18 Speaker 05 So the first time I went swimming, I was five years old. I was bouncing in my car seat with this untamable excitement. And it felt like freedom. So we pulled up in the car park and I made my way to this leisure centre, taking in its bright lights and these loud voices and this sharp tang of chlorine. And it's a leisure centre, right, in rural East Midlands. But to me, it felt like Disneyland. And I kind of got in there and I got changed in the cubicle and I made my way to the edge of the pool, taking extra care to walk, not run, even though every single part of me, I didn't just want to run, I wanted to fly.
34:01 Speaker 05 And when I got in that water for the first time, that's exactly what it felt like. And I swam whenever and wherever I could. Lakes, the swimming lessons, I learnt to snorkel and then later to scuba dive, because that wasn't enough. I just loved it. But then, fast forward 10 years and that childhood jubilation has become locked in a prison of my teenage body. So puberty is happening and the thought of stripping down, much like the Jamaican booty shorts in a swimsuit every week, was a form of fresh hell. And it wasn't just these changes to my body, but I also relaxed my hair at that time to make it really straight, because that was the cool thing to do.
34:45 Speaker 05 And of course, relaxer is destroyed the moment water goes anywhere near it. But if I didn't relax my hair, then not only would I be ridiculed at school, but my swimming cap wouldn't fit over my Afro. So I was sort of in a lose-lose situation. And I became really disillusioned and miserable with it all. I looked around and I thought, there's no one here who looks like me. I don't fit here. So I stopped. Swimming's not for me. In January 2020, just as the earliest strains of coronavirus were being reported at the bottom of our weekly news cycle, I unexpectedly lost my uncle Dalvo.
35:26 Speaker 05 And it was so unexpected that when I got that news, all I could say was, "What?" Because we'd just been together at Christmas, which was 10 days earlier, and we'd had the annual Christmas quiz, and he'd been quiz master, and we'd had this big argument about Stormzy of all things. And he kind of helmed our family since we'd lost our grandfather, so it just made no sense to me that he was no longer there. And I fell apart, I think my family fell apart, and then weeks later, we're in a global pandemic, the world fell apart. And I developed this sort of, like, thing that was just pushing down on my chest.
36:09 Speaker 05 And at every moment, I felt like I was looking behind, looking over my shoulder, just waiting for this next bad thing to happen, because something bad was happening, I was sure of it. But then I would try and reassure myself, I'm a positive person, "No, no, no, you're fine, you're absolutely fine, because the worst possible thing has already happened." So, okay, deep breaths. And then in January 2021, one year later, I got a message in a group chat with my friends. And I still remember this really surreal detail of an apology for the way the message was being conveyed, not for the actual message itself.
36:51 Speaker 05 And the message said that my friend Simon had ended his life by suicide.
36:58 Speaker 05 And, well, I couldn't utter the word "what" this time, because it was beyond all comprehension. So...
37:09 Speaker 05 I just paused, I wanted to scream, but I couldn't because this thing was weighing deeper and deeper on my chest. And in lockdown, there was no other option available to me, so I walked. And I walked every day and I passed this lake. And it became quite intriguing to me. It was kind of vast and mysterious and imposing, and I went back to it again and again and again. And one day, I stopped at this lake, I looked at it, and I just thought, I've got to get in. And it was an icy English January, so there wasn't really anyone else around, but I still had my teenage fears in the back of my head, so I sort of glanced in the bushes, made
37:51 Speaker 05 sure there was no creepy stalker lurking, and stripped off my clothes, bra and pants, and I got in. Oh my god, it was freezing! Like a thousand needles stabbing every single inch of my body freezing. But as I sort of gasped for breath and tried to remember those motions I'd been taught all those years earlier, I felt something. So I went back the next morning, in proper swimsuit this time, and I felt it again. And I went back again the next day and the next, and days turned into weeks. And one day, I'm in this routine and I'm swimming, and something happens with that same thing, and it came up and up and up, and I just started to sob.
38:33 Speaker 05 And I don't know if anyone's actually experienced the feeling of crying in a body of water before, but it's actually quite hard to stay afloat. So I was sort of panicking and swam to the shore because I didn't want to drown. And I got to the shore, and I sat with my arms around my knees, and I cried like a baby. But I knew in that moment, I'd found something with this swimming. And I carried on and I carried on, and the weather was getting a bit warmer. And one day, I'm, there I am, headphones in, walking to the lake, and there's this woman in my spots.
39:11 Speaker 05 And I'm looking at her thinking, this is my place, this is my space. I spend my life making polite chit chat conversations with older people. I just wanna swim. So I got in the water and swam as quickly as possible and got out so I wouldn't have to speak to her whilst we got dressed. And she's there sort of smiling at me, all kind and nice. And I just thought, leave me alone. Came back the next morning, there she is again, smiling. And instead of kind of feeling this childhood jubilation of the five year old, I just felt like a five year old. This is my space, why are you invading it? And every morning that week, same time, same place, there she is.
39:55 Speaker 05 And I started to just feel trapped. Anyway, one morning, we swim, we're out, same time, getting dressed as usual. And she offers me a slice of lemon cake, homemade. So obviously, I thought to myself, I'm gonna have to eat this, aren't I? And I sort of gritted my teeth, preparing for this polite conversation about the weather or something that I really didn't wanna have. But weirdly, she didn't seem to want to talk to me. She didn't seem to want to disturb me. And we just sat and ate the cake in peace and went home. And I kind of began to grow quite accustomed to her presence.
40:37 Speaker 05 It felt really nice, we didn't bother each other, we were both just there, doing our thing separately, but together. And then, one morning, I came up to the lake and she wasn't there. And the next morning, she wasn't there again, and I looked for her. And I looked for her every morning that week, but she didn't come back. And I felt that thing in my chest again, coming up, as I wondered what was happening to her. I didn't even know her name. And she didn't come back, so I did the only thing I knew how to do, I kept swimming. One day, I walk up to the lake and she's back.
41:22 Speaker 05 So I'm smiling at her first visit. I'm probably like a weirdo because I was so happy to see her. And the next morning, probably like everyone here, I'd got into baking during lockdown and I brought her a slice of banana bread. And we shared that by the edge of the lake together. And she told me that she had buried her husband. And described the socially-distanced funeral broadcast over Zoom and the goodbye that she hadn't said. And it was the strangest feeling because I was listening to her.
41:57 Speaker 05 And she's forty years older than me and she's German and I've tried with all my might not to like her. But we so intrinsically understood each other. And I spoke to her about my uncle and about Simon and she didn't ask how he did it or was he depressed or any of those questions that I'd become really resistant to hearing. She just listened without need for any explanation.
42:22 Speaker 05 And I realised we've both come, filled with sadness, to this lake. And spring turns into summer and we keep swimming and now we're not just in the fair weather sort of territory. We've got other swimmers coming in. So we we welcome them into our weird gang of misfits. And we slowly all swim together. We have a WhatsApp group. And you message in it and see when you want to go for a swim and there's always someone to swim with. And I began to realise, actually, we're all in this sort of strange place of coming to the water because we're looking for some form of connection. Now, I left that house, which was in Oxford, and that lake. I moved to London last summer.
43:07 Speaker 05 And I don't swim every day anymore. I think I don't need it in that same visceral way. But every time I'm back in the water. I still feel that childhood excitement. And I feel that first icy dip. And I feel that sacred ritual of the time when I swam every morning because it kept me here. And I especially feel the healing that I found in the kindness of a stranger.
44:08 Speaker 01 Catherine Joy White, everyone.
44:15 Speaker 01 It's so funny, I met everyone yesterday for the first time and I think I didn't write Catherine's full name down on my card because I was like, oh, I just know her. So Catherine also has a film out based around this story and it's in festivals and it's storming and winning awards, so you should definitely check that out. Just smashing it.
44:40 Meg Bowles? Catherine Joy White is an award-winning actor, filmmaker, author, activist, gender equality expert, and CEO of Cusini Productions. She's the author of This Thread of Gold: Celebration of Black Womanhood and the book Rebel Takes: On the Future of Food. You can find out more about Catherine and her film that Tiff mentioned, as well as info about all the storytellers you've heard in this hour on our website, themoth.org.
45:07 Speaker 01 All that's left for me to say, really, now we've heard all our stories, is thank you to you, the audience, because the storytelling literally can't happen without an audience. So thank you to you guys, otherwise we're just one person in a room telling a sad, lonely tale to ourselves, so give yourselves a round of applause.
45:33 Speaker 01 Sharing stories has to involve an audience and I think it's how we connect, it's how we find our humanity, it's how we reach out to each other, find understanding, empathy, learn, get new ideas. And so, this is the first ever Moth I've hosted and I hope it's not the last, but I've absolutely loved this evening, so thank you. I've been Tiff Stevenson, I hope you've enjoyed me as well. And we're gonna give it up. I wanna give it up for storytelling in all its forms. It's fantastic.
46:10 Meg Bowles? As Tiff mentioned, this was her first time hosting The Moth, but what she didn't say is that she's an internationally acclaimed actor, comedian and writer. Her credits are far too many to mention, but you can find out more about her on Instagram at Tiff Stevenson Comic and on our website, themoth.org. And if you happen to have a story you're itching to tell, why not pitch us? On our website, look for "tell a story" and you'll find all the information you need to leave us a two-minute pitch.
46:39 Speaker 06 My name is Thomas Kramer. I wanna tell you all a story called "Celebrity for the Day." Back in April, my buddies and I conducted a real-telling social experiment. We convinced an entire mall that I was a famous celebrity. Not a celebrity impersonator, but that my real self, Thomas Elliot, which is my first and middle name, was there. I kinda surrounded myself with a real attention-drawing entourage, but kinda nonchalant and much like a real entourage would be. And then we had staged some ordinary mall-goers who had recognized me as fans throughout the mall. We picked kind of this focal meeting point, a busy, busy part of the mall, where everyone would kinda collapse on me to create a bit of a frenzy
47:24 Speaker 06 and a frenzy is what was created. That day, I literally signed hundreds of autographs, took almost as many pictures. Grown women were handing me their children, people were telling me that I was their favorite actor of all time. Well, security called on about 10 minutes later and we thought we were going to get kicked out of the mall when security and local police showed up. They said to us, "For your own protection, we need to provide you all with a private security escort." So we proceeded to shut down the Apple Store and Victoria's Secret, some of the most popular stores in the mall. And this aesthetic that the security was creating just really made it go overboard. We ended up shooting a video.
48:07 Speaker 06 We took some video from iPhone and we put it on the internet. And four days later, the video had a million views and there's something like 10,000 tweets about Thomas Elliott. This social experiment really spoke to so many social themes. It was a remarkable day I'll never forget, and I would love to tell you all more about it. Thanks so much.
48:26 Meg Bowles? Remember, you can pitch us at 877-799-MOTH. That's 877-799-MOTH. Or online at themoth.org, where you can also share the stories you heard in this hour or others from the Moth archive.
49:01 Meg Bowles? That's it for this episode. We hope you'll join us again next time.
49:18 Speaker 03 This episode of The Moth Radio Hour was produced by me, Jay Allison, and Meg Bowles, who also hosted and directed the stories in the show. Co-producer is Vicky Merrick, associate producer Emily Couch. The rest of The Moth's leadership team includes Sarah Haberman, Christina Norman, Sarah Austin Jenness, Jennifer Hickson, Kate Tellers, Marina Kluch, Leanne Gully, Suzanne Rust, Sarah Jane Johnson, and Aldi Casa. Special thanks, by the way, to the taxi driver who found our host, Tiff Stevenson's phone in the back of his cab and, like a hero, returned it to her just before showtime. Moth stories are true, as remembered and affirmed by the storytellers. Our theme music is by The Drift.
50:01 Speaker 03 Other music in this hour from Rhiannon Giddens, Charles Bertue, and Melina Poxinos. We receive funding from the National Endowment for the Arts. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. Special thanks to our friends at Odyssey, including executive producer Leah Reese-Dennis. For more about our podcast, for information on pitching us your own story, and everything else, go to our website, themoth.org.
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