Feel Good: The Moth Radio Hour

In this hour, stories to boost the spirit. A cruise to Antarctica, a fresh loaf of bread, and bedtime stories. This episode is hosted by Moth Director Jodi Powell. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by The Moth and Jay Allison of Atlantic Public Media. Storytellers: Born 50% deaf, Ellis Miller learns what they've been missing. Ron Hart shares a bedtime ritual with his daughter. Darrell Thorne performs on an Antarctic cruise… and encounters some choppy seas. Silvana Clark finds her purpose. Cormac Stevens discovers the joy of baking bread. Faye Lane's self esteem is challenged when cast in an unfavorable role in the school musical. Podcast # 991

• 0:13Speaker 00

  This is The Moth Radio Hour. I'm your host, Jodi Powell.

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  In this hour, we are leaning into stories that make you feel warm and cozy, that take you into moments you wouldn't mind living twice. Moments you want to slow down, that remind you, "Oh, this. This is what it felt like." Roll out that blanket with a cup of tea, find that spot on the beach or near a fire. Let the smallest things be exactly as big and meaningful as they actually are.

• 0:47Speaker 00

  Our first story comes from Ellis Miller. Ellis told the story at a Detroit Grand Slam in 2019, where we partnered with WDET. Here's Ellis.

• 1:01Speaker 01

  When I was little, I believed that babies came from God's factory in the sky, and that the day I went down the assembly line, they were missing a few parts. One of the parts I'm missing is a tiny piece of bone in my left ear, making me 50% deaf. Now, growing up, this didn't have a big impact on my life. I had to sit in the front of the class, even though I was more of a back-of-the-class personality. I was terrible at the game telephone,

• 1:43Speaker 01

  and my mom would take me birdwatching, and I thought she had superpowers, because I could barely hear the birds, let alone find them in the trees. Now, when I was 30, I started to worry about what would happen as I got older if the hearing in my right ear gradually faded. So I did some research, and I talked to my doctor, and he told me about a surgery where they would implant a tiny piece of metal in my ear and restore all of my hearing. And I was so excited for the possibility to find out what I had been missing this whole time. So a month later, I had a surgery date. After the surgery, I had to wait several weeks for my ear to heal

• 2:26Speaker 01

  before we would even know if it was successful. So I waited, and I waited, and I went back to work, and I kept waiting. And one day, I was with a coworker, and I was walking across my office, and I got to the door, I turned the doorknob, and it creaked. And I turned it again, and I heard this creaking noise. And I started turning it over and over, because I didn't know that doorknobs made sounds when you turned them. My eyes filled with tears, because I had expected things to get louder, but I didn't know there were entire sounds that I had never heard before.

• 3:09Speaker 01

  My coworker is watching me, standing there, turning the doorknob. And she said, what was probably a typical voice, "Are you okay?" And I didn't know what to say. I was really embarrassed and overwhelmed, so I just rushed out of there, and I could hear my feet as I walked down the hallway. When I got in the car and I shut the door, I jumped, because it sounded like it slammed. And the whole drive home was like being in an action movie, because I could hear these traffic noises coming from every direction. When I got home, I sat in the silence of my living room, and I started crying,

• 3:54Speaker 01

  because everything was too loud. Over the next week, I wore an earplug to help my brain try to process all the new sounds it was hearing. Now, I tried on every single pair of shoes that I owned to hear the different sounds each one made as I clomped through the house. I apologized to my cats for telling people that they were terrible at purring. They were very good, very loud. And I'd go into my backyard, and I would hear birds, so many different kinds of bird sounds.

• 4:33Speaker 01

  And each time I heard one, I knew exactly what tree they were sitting in. Unfortunately, this didn't last. As my ear continued to heal, the implant shifted, and the world went quiet again. I was determined to get back hearing, so I had the surgery a second time a year later, and the same thing happened: lots of waiting, tons of new sounds, and then quiet. This time, I was too heartbroken, and I couldn't take that roller coaster again to try a third time if it wasn't going to work. So I forced myself to accept that this was the way it was going to be.

• 5:16Speaker 01

  Later that year, I got sick. I caught a cold. And as I was sniffling and sneezing, I blew my nose, and the implant shifted. And for a few hours, I had full sound again until I sneezed. And now, almost every time I get sick, something like this happens: hearing returns for a few hours, sometimes a few days. I'm the only person I know who looks forward to catching a cold. Once this happened, and it was a Sunday, so I went to church as usual,

• 5:59Speaker 01

  and I heard our choir sing a song. And I was able to pick out every single note that they sang, every single part. And I thought, "Oh, this is why people get so excited to go to church." They get to hear this every week. And I know that it won't last. I know there's always going to be a limit to the number of creaky doorknobs that I hear and bird songs that I listen to. I know that there will be countless songs I only half hear. But I live in this state of hope,

• 6:42Speaker 01

  waiting for the next time that something shifts, and wondering what it will be that I hear next. Thank you.

• 7:00Speaker 00

  Ellis Miller is the pastor of a church in Granby, Connecticut, where they live with their dog, Murphy. Ellis told us that several years later, the implant no longer shifts into place when they're sick, but that first sneeze always gives them the thrill of hope. The experience of gaining and losing their hearing left them with a lot of empathy that they draw on when working with people in their community as they deal with hearing loss due to aging.

• 7:30Speaker 00

  I asked some of the tellers in this episode if they have a warm and cozy ritual of their own, or a go-to way to unwind. Ellis sent this. "Where I live, there are a lot of hiking trails. Whenever my partner Kate and I have big feelings or are overwhelmed by life, we quote, 'Take it to the woods.' We go for a hike and keep walking until we've talked everything out." It never fails to give perspective and right size, whatever it was that felt overwhelming.

• 8:14Speaker 00

  Our next story comes from Cormac Stevens. He told it in Burlington, where we partner with Vermont Public. Here's Cormac, live at The Moth.

• 8:27Speaker 02

  When I was six years old, I ate the perfect piece of bread. My parents brought it home in a brown paper bag with a red stripe going down the side. The loaf was oblong, with a ridge of crust along the top, and the crust was a caramel golden brown, shiny with bubbles, and the inside was snow-white. I loved that bread, and to me, it became the epitome of what bread should be, the platonic ideal: bread with a capital B. When I was 12 years old, I started baking bread. My mother taught me how to make the sandwich loaves that she made two of every week. And the recipe was so simple that even a child could follow it, and I did.

• 9:10Speaker 02

  All the way up until my mother would turn out the dough from the mixing bowl, and with a few deft twists of her hands, she would turn it into a perfect sphere. And I would try the same thing, and the dough would stick to my hands, and it would tear, and all I would get was this big, shaggy mess. And I would look at her, and I would ask her what she was doing that I wasn't doing, or what I needed to do to make that work. And all she could really say to me was that I didn't know how to do it yet, and that I just had to keep doing it over and over and over again until I knew how to do it. And so I did.

• 9:50Speaker 02

  And every week until I was 18 years old, I baked bread. When I was 19 years old, I finally got a book on bread. And, uh, not sandwich bread, but nice bread, artisan bread, capitalized bread. And I learned a lot from that book. I learned that an oblong loaf is called a batard, and I learned that the ridge across the top of the loaf is called an ear, which you get by scoring it with a lom. I learned that a shiny crust is caused by steam in the oven, and that most commercial bakeries will inject steam into the oven, and that it's almost impossible to get that level of steam in a home oven. That last part I learned while baking my way through that cookbook

• 10:35Speaker 02

  and trying to get to my perfect loaf of bread. I never quite got there. I never got to capital B good. But I got pretty good at baking bread. Well, I thought I got pretty good at baking bread. Because when I was 22, I was living with my parents after graduating college during what we called the novel coronavirus. And, um...

• 11:03Speaker 02

  I applied to work at a bakery. And in my application, I presented myself as a fairly accomplished home baker with 10 years of experience. And I had read so many books at that point. And I... But my first day came along, and I realized that knowing all the names for things is not the same thing as knowing what they are or how they work. And my first day, I was inundated with new words, with new phrases, with new motions that I needed to learn. Instead of baking two loaves a week, I was baking 2,000 every single day. And in the light of that, I did not feel like an accomplished home baker.

• 11:47Speaker 02

  I felt like I was 12 years old, looking at my mother's hands again. But I went home that night, and I came back the next day, and the next day, and the next day, and I did it over and over and over again, until I knew and I learned. I'm 24 years old now. I know a lot more than I used to. I know how to shape the dough into a batard. I know how to score it with a lom so that it forms an ear. I know how to load it into the oven and inject it with steam. And I know when to take it out when it's a perfect caramel golden brown. I know how to take the bread and load it onto a wire rack and send it into the next

• 12:32Speaker 02

  room, where the packers will take each loaf, and they will slip it into a brown paper bag with a red stripe on the side. And I don't know where it goes after that. But in my more sentimental moments, I do like to think that some of it goes to a six-year-old kid, and it makes them just as happy as it makes me every day.

• 12:54Speaker 00

  That was Cormac Stevens. Cormac is a baker from Waterbury, Vermont. He currently lives in Philadelphia with his girlfriend Lucy and his cat Pomodoro. Since telling this story, he has learned how to laminate pastry, but his first love continues to be bread.

• 13:39Speaker 00

  In a moment, we go on a trip across the country in an RV and to a dance party in Antarctica, when The Moth Radio Hour continues.

• 13:48Speaker 03

  The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

• 14:04Speaker 00

  This is The Moth Radio Hour. I'm Jodi Powell. Our next story was told at a Grand Slam in Seattle at the Town Hall, where we partner with public radio station KUOW. Here's Silvana Clark, live at The Moth.

• 14:23Speaker 04

  I'm in Manhattan, meeting with my literary agent. Now, this sounds very hoity-toity, but she has just said to me, "I've been an agent for 12 years. I've never had an author with such dismal book sales as you." Very encouraging. "I'd written 10 books. I can write the books. I just can't sell the books." One publisher gave me a two-book contract, gave me an advance, and the day I turned in my manuscript was the day he went bankrupt. Another publisher was so excited that my book was going to be a big bestseller, he told me to get an accountant to handle all my money.

• 15:04Speaker 04

  And my royalty check for the first year was $36.24. J.K. Rowling had nothing to worry about. And I left that office feeling pretty discouraged, and I decided to put my pathetic book-writing career on the back burner. I started applying for real jobs. I tried and tried. Nobody wanted to hire me, and I was feeling pretty depressed. But I heard there was a shoe charity looking for some volunteers for one morning to help out at this homeless shelter. So I thought, "I'll go, even though I'm depressed and I don't want to." So there were 15 volunteers. We helped people get new shoes. And then afterwards, they invited all the volunteers to go for lunch at this restaurant

• 15:49Speaker 04

  across the street. We're all sitting at the table, talking, and I see one man over in the corner. He's a volunteer, all by himself, and he looked sad. And I thought, "I should go over and invite him to come over here." But then part of my brain says, "He doesn't want to sit with you. You're a failure. You don't have a job. You can't write books. Plus, you'd have to talk to him, and I am not good at small talk." But I feel sorry for him, so I go over and I say, "Hi, I'm Silvana, one of the volunteers." He smiles, and I awkwardly say, "Did you have fun volunteering?" And he says, "I'm glad we could give those people shoes."

• 16:30Speaker 04

  And then, because I'm bad at small talk, I say, "Do you want to come sit with us? You look sad." Then he says to me, "Thanks for the invitation. I'm Wayne, CEO of the Shoe Charity." I have just told the CEO of a multimillion-dollar nonprofit that he looks sad. But he came over and sat with us. Now, during the next eight months, my husband and I traveled cross-country to Bellingham. I still didn't have a job, and I still felt like a failure. I had an idea.

• 17:11Speaker 04

  I wrote Wayne a three-sentence email, and basically it said, "I hope you remember me. Why don't you buy my husband and I an RV, and you pay us to travel around the country giving away your shoes?" And I hit send. 10 minutes later, Wayne responds with, "Send me a one-page proposal." Now, I hadn't thought this through at all. I hadn't even told my husband that we might be having a new job. But I whipped together a proposal, and I sent it off. A month goes by. Wayne calls me and says, "I bought you guys an RV. Can you be here in three weeks?"

• 17:55Speaker 04

  And I said, "Of course." And then I went and told my husband we had a new job. And because we were empty nesters, he says, "Let's go for it." For almost two years, we drove a big, bright-blue RV to 34 states, giving away thousands of new shoes. And part of my amazing job was to find underserved charities. And we would go in on the designated time and literally kneel down and put new shoes on the feet of the people that we met there. We were at one location, and a man came in, and I said, "Hi, what size shoe do you wear?" He said, "I don't know. I just get hand-me-downs." So I looked at the faded tongue on his shoe, and I said, "It's a size 13."

• 18:40Speaker 04

  I brought him some 13s. He put them on. He said, "Do you have anything bigger? Sure." So I went and I got him 14s. He put those on, and he said, "Bigger? Sure." So I went and I got him a 15. I could tell he was embarrassed, so I just went and got him a 16. I put him on. He walked around, and he said, "It feels so good to be able to walk without crunching my toes." And I had the privilege of going and giving away shoes at the Association for Abused Deaf People. And a week later, we gave away shoes at the Society for Torture Survivors. And you know, I may not have been a bestselling author like J.K.

• 19:22Speaker 04

  Rowling, but I was able to make a little impact in the lives of the people that I met. And I found purpose in giving away shoes, and that was kind of more magical than Hogwarts. And as for the two books that I wrote after the RV tour, they both flopped.

• 19:40Speaker 00

  Silvana Clark spent five years traveling across the country for several companies as a brand ambassador. Along with telling over 55 stories at Moth Story Slams, she now tells highly dramatic stories to her three-year-old granddaughter. Since spending 19 months giving away shoes, Silvana got another six-month job traveling in an RV. She visited camps for foster kids and entertained them with skits, magic tricks, and of course, stories.

• 20:29Speaker 00

  Our next story is from Daryl Thorne. He told this at a New York City Story Slam where WNYC is a media partner of The Moth. Here's Daryl.

• 20:39Speaker 05

  It's March 19th, 2022. It's 11 o'clock in the morning. I'm nine feet tall and covered in 2,000 mirrors, top to bottom. On my feet are stilts, brand new, that I've never worn before. On my head is a mirrored globe with the continents and latitude and longitude lines cut out. I can see through them. On my body is a brand new, custom stilt suit with mirrors that I've had designed. And in my hands are silk chiffon fans that are about five feet long, a blue and white ombre. And I'm feeling really great and really happy because everything's working well, particularly

• 21:23Speaker 05

  because it's freezing cold. The stilts are working well, the headpiece is perfectly in place, and I'm able to grip my hands tightly with the fans billowing out behind me. And I'm feeling really secure. I'm having to take really long strides in my stilts because I'm trudging through snow. And the hardest part of all is this ferocious wind that is blasting into my face because I'm walking across the top of a glacier in Antarctica. So four months earlier, I get the call from a client, and they say, "Do you want to go on this perform with us on the expedition cruise to Antarctica for 10 days?" And at this point, I've been working for myself as a performance artist and costume designer

• 22:06Speaker 05

  for about eight years, but this is definitely the most exciting thing that's happened to date. So I'm like, really thrilled, but also I feel this sinking sensation in my stomach because I realize this is going to be very difficult for me. I'm someone who has always been risk averse, and I describe myself as, you know, having a very high self-preservation instinct. But really, it just means that there's a lot of fear. Flying, turbulence, like the slightest bump, I'm thrown into a panic. My palms start sweating, as they are now. I feel lightheaded and, you know, I have other fears as well.

• 22:47Speaker 05

  Strange dogs, undercooked chicken, roller coasters, elevators, choking on a bay leaf. There are many things. And basically, anything that makes me feel there may be a risk, I tend to shy away from. So I had certainly shied away from any gigs on a cruise ship. The idea of being on a boat tossed around in the ocean, it was not for me. But I thought, you know, this is amazing. And who knows? Maybe the waters aren't so bad down in the South. So I go to a meeting with this client. First meeting, we're laying out the performances, he's explaining the themes, et cetera, and I notice there's four days on the calendar where there's nothing scheduled. And he says, "I might as well tell you, that's when we're going through the Drake Passage. Those are the stormiest waters in the world.

• 23:29Speaker 05

  30 to 60-foot waves, and it lasts for 36 hours." So my heart sank, my stomach flipped, my palms immediately began sweating, and I just was filled with terror instantly. And he saw that in my face, apparently. He said, "It's okay, you know, other people have canceled because of the Drake Passage, so just let us know." So I go home, I'm thinking it over, and I'm just realizing, I have to do this. I can't not do this because of fear. So I'm committed, and basically, I spend the next three months with just this growing pit of dread in my stomach as I'm designing my six new costumes and laying out performances and gathering all the things you need for an expedition to Antarctica.

• 24:09Speaker 05

  So the date comes, fly to Argentina, board the ship, and the captain comes on and says, "We're delaying for six hours because apparently there's a horrifying storm in the Drake Passage." So I'm like, okay, this is my worst fear in the moment. And I'm stuck here, there's nothing to be done, so I'm trying to just manage myself. The six hours pass, and we're leaving Argentina, heading into the Drake. And it just so happens that the people who put this cruise together brilliantly put a dance party that would coincide with going right into the Drake Passage. They happened to throw a party called Daybreaker, and they're masters of these sorts of things. So I was like dreading this.

• 24:54Speaker 05

  I heard about the dance party, I'm prepared, and basically, that's exactly what happened. We get into the Drake Passage, indeed, these massive waves start coming, the DJs start spinning, and we start dancing. And it is like the most incredible, leaping and spinning and twirling, and just like you would jump in the air, and the floor is either leaving you or it's coming to meet you, and it's totally unpredictable. And it was like totally thrilling. You felt like a kid on a trampoline, and all of this pent-up anxiety and dread that I'd had is just being expressed out of my body, and it was amazing. And 36 hours on the Drake Passage, and indeed, we had 40 knot winds and 20 to 25-foot waves, and I was totally fine.

• 25:39Speaker 05

  I was just like, and even sleeping, you know, the boat is going like this, I thought that was going to disturb my sleep. I slept like a baby in a cradle. And I woke up the next morning, and it's completely still and silent, and I open the windows from the cabin, and there's Antarctica in its pristine beauty. We get in the Zodiac, I'm in my stilt suit, I got my stilts, we're going to the landing, there's a glacier. So I've got my stilts put on, and someone is holding this hand, someone's holding that hand, and my friend Eli, who's the client, is pushing my ass, and I'm climbing up a glacier in Antarctica, wearing 2,000 mirrors and a pair of stilts. And I get to the top, and it's like a brilliant sunny day.

• 26:19Speaker 05

  I can see far into the distance on my stilts, and it's the colors and the penguins and the ice, and it was the most incredible workday of my life. Thank you.

• 26:31Speaker 00

  That was Daryl Thorne. He is a Brooklyn-based artist and performer, creating work at the intersection of sculpture, costume, and storytelling. Drawing from a childhood in the Alaskan wilderness to the pulse of New York nightlife, Daryl's work explores transformation and the many ways we find each other. Since wearing his stilts on a glacier in Antarctica, Daryl has added sand dunes to the mix, performing twice on his stilts in front of the Great Pyramids in Egypt.

• 27:14Speaker 00

  Daryl is currently developing a full-length theatrical storytelling work, blending autobiographical stories with visual spectacle, co-directed by former Moth artistic director Catherine Burns and theater artist Julie Atlas Muse. Go to themoth.org for more information. And for Daryl's rituals, he said nothing in the world is better than daily meditation, but close seconds would be dancing, sauna, and ice cream. In a moment, a story right before bedtime, and a story right from the beauty shop.

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  That's when The Moth Radio Hour continues.

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  The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

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  This is The Moth Radio Hour. I'm Jolie Powell. Our next story was told in New York City, where WNYC is a media partner of The Moth. Here's Ron Hart, live at The Moth.

• 28:30Speaker 06

  So I have a mixed marriage. My wife is a reader and I am not. When we were expecting our first child, she tells me that if you read to children, they become readers, and that sets them up to succeed in life. And then she sent me an article that she knew I wasn't going to read. But we both agreed that when our daughter, Anina, was born, that we definitely wanted her to be more like my wife than me, so we were going to read to her. And I got assigned the plum job of the pre-bed storytime.

• 29:10Speaker 06

  Every night, we'd sit in a rocker in Anina's room, she'd be on my lap, I got a book, she has a sippy cup full of milk. When she was 18 months old, Anina fell in love with a book called 10 Minutes to Bedtime. Some fans, all right. It starts with a father shouting over his shoulder, "10 minutes to bedtime!" As he's saying this, his daughter is opening the front door to the house, allowing in 10 hamsters from a traveling hamster circus. Why? Because all children's books are written by people tripping on ayahuasca or other heavy psychedelics. As the hamsters load in, the little girl does her level best to try to get through

• 29:55Speaker 06

  her nightly rituals before the deadline of bedtime. On every page of the book, her father is counting it down. "Nine minutes to bedtime, eight minutes to bedtime." But she gets roped in by these rascally hamsters. "Four minutes to bedtime." They draw her into their circus shenanigans. She loses track of time, and before you know it, her father shouts, "Bedtime!" In a panic, she quickly throws on her pajamas and dives into bed, just in time for her father to kiss her good night. Now, in terms of reading, this book has like maybe 50 words in it, but every page has like all these big pictures with tons of details, so the job of storytime became talking

• 30:39Speaker 06

  about the details, you know? She'd sit in my lap and point, and I'd be like, "Yes, the little girl brushes her teeth before bed, just like you." And Anina would lean in, devouring this story. But here's the thing, when you're part of a toddler, there's a thin band of time between when my kid goes to sleep and when I go to sleep. And unless there's enough time, that is the only opportunity I have to see a movie that does not involve an animated princess, mermaid, or unicorn. So my storytime strategy shifted. She would point, and I'd say like, "Yes, the girl's putting on her sock. The sock is gray, like the slowly dimming light of twilight as the sun gently sets."

• 31:24Speaker 06

  I became audio ambient. I could bang out 10 minutes to bedtime in four minutes tops, and most nights, her eyes would close before the book did. But then one night, she points, and I say, "Oh, that's hamster number seven." Because all of the circus hamsters wore sweaters with numbers on them. Why? Probably ketamine.

• 31:49Speaker 06

  But I made the critical error of turning back one page to show her that number seven had been there as well. And that was when her little toddler face melted off of her skull. She dropped her sippy cup and took the book from me and started flipping through pages, looking to see where he was. And then she closed the book and handed it back to me to start over so she could find this little stalker on every page. So we did that for a couple nights. And then she found hamster number four. And it was like she had cracked the Nazi's enigma code. Before you know it, we were finding all 10 hamsters on every single page of this book. And they all have their little circus agendas going. So I just have to narrate like, "Oh yeah, there's hamster number three again. He's still juggling. What a crazy guy."

• 32:33Speaker 06

  And all the little toddler neurons in her head were going off. Now, this was not putting her to sleep. This had become the most exciting part of her day. 10 minutes of bedtime was taking 40 minutes, 50 minutes, an hour. Night after night, the same chair, the same story, the same hamster. I was trapped in my own personal Groundhog Day. A movie I would never see again. And then one day, I come home and I peek into Anina's room. She has every doll she owns arranged in a semicircle. And she's sitting in our chair, holding the book. And as I watch, she points at the pages and in her little squeaky toddler voice,

• 33:16Speaker 06

  she's like, "See hamster four?" Apparently, she's from Boston as a toddler. She so loved our story time that she was literally acting it out. And I thought, "Damn it, my wife was right." Because she was still too young to read. And yet, she had become a reader. And so I snuck up behind her and I said, "Bedtime." And she started giggling and she jumped up and she threw on her pajamas and she dived into bed. And I tucked her in and said, "Goodnight." And we laughed and laughed because she was recreating that moment from her favorite book. It was a perfect moment.

• 33:58Speaker 06

  And because she was 18 months old, we then had to redo it seven more times. I don't tuck Anina in anymore. As a matter of fact, literally today, I moved her into her freshman dorm. You guys gotta stop crying. She's going to Sarah Lawrence, which is an amazing school. It is also a school I cannot afford. But Anina is going there on an academic scholarship because it turns out, when you read to kids, they become readers, which sets enough to succeed in life.

• 34:43Speaker 06

  Thank you.

• 34:53Speaker 00

  Ron Hart and his wife raise their two children in Los Angeles. Ron now hosts storytelling sessions in their backyard on summer nights. Anina is attending Sarah Lawrence and will be off to Germany for a year to study art history. Ron is still not a reader, but Anina very much still is. Ron said that was a very emotional day for him. He had literally just left his baby on their own. During the subway ride, he burst into tears three or four times, thinking about the weight of the moment. When he looked up, he realized everyone in the train car had edged several feet away from him. He wanted us to include an apology to any riders he disturbed that night.

• 35:37Speaker 00

  So, New Yorkers, Ron Hart is sorry for crying on the subway. You can share these stories or others from The Moth archive and buy tickets to Moth storytelling events in your area through our website, themoth.org. Our final story was told way back in 2006 at Anina's stage.

• 36:16Speaker 00

  Here's Faye Lane, live at The Moth.

• 36:26Speaker 07

  Fatty, fatty, two by four, couldn't get through the bathroom door. When I was in the third grade, I heard that song almost every single day. And it just about broke my heart because what I wanted more than anything in the world was to be a beauty queen, to be special. Because I grew up in my mother's beauty shop in Texas. It was this old A-frame house with big mirrors and swivel chairs in the front room and shampoo bowls in the old back bedroom. And my mom saw the same ladies week after week after week.

• 37:05Speaker 07

  So it was as if I had this constant stream of overly indulgent grandmothers, which might actually kind of explain the fat thing. Baby, you own a moon pie? Okay, go look down in the bottom of my purse. There's a banana moon pie with your name on it. But be careful because my gun is in there and I don't know if the safety's on. No matter how bad the teasing got at school, and it got bad, the beauty shop ladies could always make me feel better. Well, I like teasing. Your momma's teasing my hair right now.

• 37:47Speaker 07

  In fact, if it wasn't for teasing, my hair would be just as flat as a pancake. My favorite beauty shop lady was Miss Helen. She would say, "Baby, don't you listen to those horrible children. They're just jealous. You're not one bit fat. You're just voluptuous. And you can sing like a little bird. Can they sing? I bet they can't sing." Sometimes I would sit under the dryer next to Miss Helen and I would pat her soft arms and knead them like dough. And we would talk about things. We would mostly talk about food because she loved food the way I loved food. And she would say, "Baby, all I need in this world is a glass of buttermilk and a warm piece of cornbread."

• 38:32Speaker 07

  So one day, I said, "Miss Helen, how come you're not fat?" She said, "Oh, bless your heart, child. I am. I'm as fat as I can be." I said, "Well, you don't look fat." She said, "Well, that's because I know how to camouflage." I said, "Camouflage? What's camouflage?" And she said, "Well, that's where you hide something so people can't see it." I said, "Wait a minute. You can camouflage being fat?" She said, "Good lord, yes, child. I'm stuffed into this girdle like a pig in a blanket." Don't you just love pigs in a blanket? Miss Helen's girdle got me to thinking. So that night, I went into my mother's underwear drawer.

• 39:14Speaker 07

  And my mother was tiny, she still is, so she didn't have any girdles. But because she worked on her feet at the beauty shop all day, she wore these really tight support stockings that are like a cross between pantyhose and a rubber band. And I stole a pair. And then I went to the sewing basket and got the pinken shears and cut the legs off. Et voila, I had made myself a girdle. The first day I wore the girdle to school was a living nightmare because it was about 115 degrees that day. And the sweat was trickling down my back and into the girdle. And at the bottom, where my little fat legs stuck out, my thighs were rubbing together.

• 39:56Speaker 07

  And by the end of the day, I could just barely walk. But the second day was much worse because on the second day, Keith Schaefer, who was the cutest boy in our class and as mean as a rattlesnake, lifted my dress on the playground. He said, "Oh, my god, y'all, look, she's wearing a girdle." 10 years old, and my life was over. But it wasn't because I was really lucky on the inside. And I had this really rich, creative imagination. So sometimes I would sit on the porch of the beauty shop after school in this glittered-up

• 40:39Speaker 07

  Burger King crown, pretending like I was a beauty queen, sitting up in a convertible in a parade. And sometimes I would practice my beauty queen acceptance speech. "Oh, my gosh, thank you so much. You know, when I was just a little fat child, y'all made fun of me, but I forgive you. For in the words of Jesus Christ, to who I dedicate this crown, y'all knew not what y'all did."

• 41:15Speaker 07

  I just knew, I just knew in my heart that one day my life would change. So you can imagine my excitement when I heard that Mrs. Gandy's third grade spring production would be Peter Rabbit, the musical. Because hello Flopsy, right? My fallback position was Mopsy, but I figured at the very least there was a whole garden full of flowers. And I could just see me as a big languid droopy iris, or a perky little daisy, or like a sophisticated chrysanthemum, you know? So I stood in shock and horror when it was announced that I had been cast in the pivotal role of the green bean.

• 41:58Speaker 07

  The green bean costume consisted of a green leotard with crepe paper peapods safety pinned all over it, and lime green tights, and this two-foot-tall peapod hat with a curly thing on top. I went to Mrs. Gandy after school in tears. I said, "Mrs. Gandy, I cannot do this. I cannot wear this. Whoever heard of a fat green bean? They're gonna make fun of me. And Mrs. Gandy, I can sing. My talent is wasted on this bean." She said, "Rhonda Fay, you've listened to me, child. In my show, there are four bunny rabbits, and there are a lot of flowers, but there

• 42:41Speaker 07

  is one green bean, and you are it." She said, "Now, I will write you a solo, but I want you to get up there and pour your heart out on that stage, and don't you let those children tell you who you are. You show them who you are." And I decided in that moment to be the best green bean ever to grace the stage. But what to do about that hideous costume? I laid it out on my Sears canopy bed to assess the damage. First of all, this horrible leotard. I strategically re-safety pinned the crepe paper peapods to hide my figure flaws.

• 43:26Speaker 07

  And then I attached my Burger King crown to the peapod hat. And then I had a brainstorm. The bedazzler. The bedazzler is like this rhinestone for, rather, a staple gun, like a staple gun for rhinestones. So I bedazzled that leotard to within an inch of its life, and then, just in case my panties showed, I bedazzled my panties. And I looked in the mirror, and I felt so beautiful. Until opening night, when I stepped backstage and I saw Betty Renee Boyd and Michelle Swinford

• 44:06Speaker 07

  in their pink fluffy Flopsy and Mopsy costumes, and there was Keith Schaefer in his Farmer McGregor drag looking as menacing as ever, and I thought, "Oh, my God. What have I done? I look like a big green disco ball. I look like Elton freaking John." So I just closed my eyes, and I stood there, holding my breath, and I heard the curtain open, and I heard my music cue, and I could hear Mrs. Gandy backstage going, "Rhonda Fay, go, go." And I just couldn't do it. I just, I couldn't breathe.

• 44:50Speaker 07

  After a few minutes, I peeked into the audience, and I saw my mom, still in her uniform from the beauty shop, looking really nervous. And there was Miss Helen, and all the other beauty shop ladies, they were all there, and they came to see me. And, you know, it was because they loved me no matter what. And I just couldn't let them down. So I took a deep breath, and I started to sing. And the song I sang that night is still really close to my heart, because it's sort of become a theme for my whole life.

• 45:23Speaker 07

  (Singing) I'm the teeny weeny bean, living in the garden grain. I love to bask in the sun all day. All I do is sleep and play. Wasn't so bad. From my smallest beanie jean, to my teeny weeny spleen, I am healthy through and through. Eat me, I'll be good for you.

• 46:04Speaker 07

  (Applause) From Dallas Clear to Aveline, and all of Texas in between, y'all have surely never seen a bean so keen and lean and mean. I'm a green bean queen. (Applause) The next day at school, I felt this subtle shift. Nobody called me fatty all day, and the seventh grade boy gave me a high five in the hallway.

• 46:48Speaker 07

  He said, "Look, y'all, it's the little green bean." And ever since that night, on the stage of Reinhardt Elementary School Auditorium, I haven't needed anybody to tell me that I'm okay, special even. Because for a few minutes in the spring of 1975, I was a green bean queen. Thank you.

• 47:10Speaker 00

  That was Fay Lane. Fay is an acclaimed keynote speaker and corporate trainer. As a solo performer, Fay has delighted and provoked audiences worldwide. She lives in New York at the Chelsea Hotel, and is currently the Artisan Resident and Chief Inspiration Officer for Thanksgiving Square in Dallas. When we asked Fay what her cozy rituals are, she told us she loves to sit in the lobby

• 47:47Speaker 00

  of the Chelsea Hotel, people watching, and writing in her journal. Do you have a story to tell us about rituals or moments you would do anything to live again? You can pitch us your story by recording it right on our site. The best pitches are developed for Moth shows all around the world. There are Moth events year-round. You can find a show near you and come out and tell a story. The Moth can be found on all major social media platforms. That's it for this episode. We hope you'll join us next time.

• 48:23Speaker 00

  And that's the story from The Moth.

• 48:37Speaker 03

  This episode of The Moth Radio Hour was produced by me, Jay Allison, and Jodi Powell, who also hosted and directed the stories in the show, along with Catherine Burns. Co-producer is Vicky Merrick, associate producer Emily Couch. Additional Grand Slam coaching by Michelle Jalowski. The Moth's leadership team includes Gina Duncan, Christina Norman, Marina Kluch, Sarah Austin Jenness, Jennifer Hickson, Jordan Cardenale, Caledonia Cairns, Kate Tellers, Suzanne Rust, Sarah Jane Johnson, and Patricia Uraina. Moth stories are true, as remembered and affirmed by the storytellers. Our theme music is by The Drift. Other music in this hour from Bill Frisell and Epidemic Sound.

• 49:19Speaker 03

  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, which we hope you'll do, and to learn all about The Moth, go to our website, themoth.org.