Over My Head: The Moth Podcast

This episode originally aired on September 18th, 2019. This week, we're talking about stepping out of your comfort zone, those moments where you're really wondering if you're going to sink or swim. Hosted by Dan Kennedy Storytellers: Diana Thompson finds herself in a Scottish dancing group, at her mother’s insistence. Karen Crowley, a former store clerk ends up as the supervisor in a residential program for youth. Podcast # 620

• 0:02Speaker 00

  Welcome to The Moth Podcast. I'm your host, Dan Kennedy. This week, we're talking about stepping out of your comfort zone. Those moments where you're really wondering if you're going to sink or swim. Don't most of us feel like we're in over our head a lot of the time? I think a lot of us are anxious. These are anxious times, and life is a pretty anxious prospect some days. But the funny thing about it is, you stand up straight and you realize the water is not so deep. We have two stories for you this week from two first-time storytellers. First up, a story from across the pond. Diana Thompson told this one at a slam we did in London,

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  where the theme of the night was "Mama Rules." Here's Diana, live at The Moth.

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  Hi, this is my first Moth ever. It's Thursday evening. I've just arrived from work half an hour ago. And I'm standing outside this church hall in southwest London, in the suburbs, in Surbiton, actually. It's an event that I'm not interested in attending, but my mother was really keen on us going, so I went along to support. It was the open evening of the Scottish Countryside Dance Society. Does anyone know what Scottish countryside dance is? So it's a very complicated form of dancing that has a lot of choreography, that's based on different couples. And it's all very symmetrical and very beautifully done. But it also means that if one of the dancers messes up,

• 1:38Speaker 01

  the entire thing falls apart, kind of. And I've done it very briefly before, but not really. And we walk into that church hall. And I don't know if you guys know, but deep southwest of London is not really as diverse as central London is. So the average age in the room was about 65. And I walked in with my mom. And our entrance was very much noticed. My mother is my height. She was, um, she's wearing jeans and a very colorful top and wearing a white headscarf on her head. And in the very British polite way, everybody tried not to stare. And everyone was very smiling.

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  A couple of people approached us and they welcomed us into the space and they asked us to join the dances. Every single dance I or my mother took part in completely fell apart.

• 2:34Speaker 01

  The tea break happened and, um, I was like, yeah, we've got this. It's all right. People are not too staring. It's fine. And I go and I grab a cup of tea for my mom. And as I look back, I see people approaching her. She's very nervous because her English is not very good, which made the instructions of the dances not really easy for her either. So I got really worried and I could see her nervous smile on her face and I just paced really quickly to stand by her and be there to help her with the English. And I was just hoping that no one would ask that one specific question. But of course, everybody did. "Where are you from?" As a Syrian who's been living in London for eight years, I do long the days when I would say Syria

• 3:19Speaker 01

  and people would stare at me very blank and think, "Oh, where was that again?" But it's no longer the case. Now the questions come in three. "Where are you from?" "Syria," I said. Everybody smiled and nodded, eyes getting wider and wider in curiosity. Second default question is, "How long have you been here?" Well, I've been here eight years. My mom has been here for about five. And third inevitable question is, "How did you make it here?" And I would explain that I was a student before the war happened and then my brother was here, who was also a student, and we managed to bring my mom over when we were working and, um, we had to apply for asylum and it, it's complicated, but she made it here on a plane. I would always have to reassure everyone.

• 4:06Speaker 01

  You see, my mom is an amazing woman. Everybody says that about their mom, probably. But she's been through a lot in her life, before and during the war. One of the many things that happened in her life was losing her job because her architectural practice was blown up by a bomb. She lost family members and she ended up having to be forcibly displaced in a country where she hardly speaks the language at age of 56. But here we are, at the church hall in Surbiton, dancing to the tunes of Scottish Countryside Dance music. The music was about to wrap up and the evening was wrapping up

• 4:49Speaker 01

  and one of the society members came over to check how we enjoyed the evening. And everyone was very sweet because every time we made a mistake, everyone said, "Oh, no, it's all right. Nobody gets it first. You have to do it for a bit until you get on with it." And the lady was explaining about the society and how to become members and so on. And I was translating to mom. And I said, "Oh, thank you." I picked up the flyer and said, "So, you know what? Yeah, that's okay. We'll think about it and come back." And then mom pulls me in my hand and goes like, "No, we're signing up now." And I'm like, "What? Weren't you here? Didn't you see the mess we created? What do you mean, 'sign up now'?" She's like, "No, no, we'll sign up now." And I'm like, "Okay." Because when mom wants something, mom wants something. So, we sign up. And the dances are every Thursday.

• 5:34Speaker 01

  And it's been four months now where my mom shows up every Thursday to the dance. I try and do my best to be there for most of the Thursdays. And every time I show up in the dances, I make sure I sit out at least a couple of dances to just watch her. And just look at this woman, dancing with a wide smile, messing up her steps and not caring, and just enjoying herself, holding her head up high, talking to people in her very broken English, and connecting with everyone, and making friends, and choosing to have the life she wants, no matter what. And I think to myself, "If I ever turn 61 with half of her courage,

• 6:19Speaker 01

  I'll be so lucky." And then last week, it was my mother's birthday. We received this phone call from the head of the college where she learns English. And we're told that my mom was nominated for the best improving student in the class of English, and she is to be awarded in this ceremony at the town hall. And I'm 31, and I don't know if I will ever have kids of my own and become a parent. But you know that pride that people talk about when they have kids? I am so grateful for my mom because she got me to feel that even without having kids. I'm proud of my mom because my mama does rule. Thank you very much.

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  That was Diana Thompson. Diana says it's been exactly a year since her mother started dancing. She's continued to dance weekly and has even joined an additional beginner class. Diana says, quote, "I've been going with her about twice a month, and now it's me who trembles through the dances." Thanks for sharing your story with us, Diana. I love that one.

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  Our second story today comes from Karen Crowley. Karen told this story at a slam that we did in Burlington, Vermont. The theme of the night was schooled. Here's Karen live at the mall.

• 7:46Speaker 02

  So, the family that I grew up in, we didn't do college. Not as in like didn't do college like it was a rule that you couldn't go to college, but it was just not something that was part of our lives. I grew up in a college town, and there were those white collar professional people. Most of my friends' parents worked as professors at the college. And then there was us, the families that did the blue collar work. And we would maybe pour the foundation of their house or fix their cars, but we didn't go to college. So I did what I was expected to do and at nineteen, graduated from high school, got married, and started to work as a cashier in the grocery store, a local store around the corner. And I did that for the next couple of years,

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  very contentedly, living the life that everybody expected me to live. And then for reasons that I can't remember now, my then-husband and I decided to move to a different apartment. And I guess it wasn't until we got there that we thought, huh, there's actually no grocery store around the corner here. And in fact, there wasn't anything around the corner. And so there was a problem because somehow I needed to be contributing. We didn't have a second car. So we came up with a strategy. Clearly, the criteria for my new job was that it needed to be on his route back and forth to work. And as long as that was the case, it was a good job. So luckily, I actually found a job

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  that was on his way back and forth to work. And it was a clerical job. I can do this. Paperwork, okay. Well, this job happened to actually be in a residential treatment program for adolescents. And these were adolescents that, you know, were struggling with the kind of issues that one is struggling with if they're an adolescent in a residential treatment program. They weren't necessarily the easiest kids. We were in a city called Brockton, Massachusetts, which you may have heard of. And it hasn't changed much in the last thirty years. So there I was. I was twenty-two, working in this program, doing my job, getting dropped off by my husband and picked up by my husband. So I'm working out okay.

• 10:00Speaker 02

  Except that besides the fact that I like my job, I am fascinated by what's going on around me. I love these kids. They are so cool. The way that they think and the way that they make sense out of their world and... Stories that they've got, and I can't get enough of these kids. So, pretty soon, you know, I'm volunteering. Well, yeah, I could take this kid to the doctor's appointment and hang out, or I'll take him to the park and be the second staff person there so that they can go today. And I started spending time with those kids, and they started spending time with me. You know, suddenly, my desk was like the spot in the program that everybody was hanging out. And slowly but surely, without meaning to,

• 10:41Speaker 02

  I kind of wandered my way into being a staff member in this program. And I thought to myself, well, they're not gonna let me get away with this for very long. I didn't go to college, which is a silly thing to be thinking, because they all knew that I didn't go to college. But somehow, it was like I thought they were gonna someday wake up and say, "You have no right to be doing what you're doing." But they didn't, and I apparently was the only one thinking that. And I got involved in what I was doing. I spent time with the kids, I did counseling with the kids, I did groups, I took them. It was really cool and really fun, and I loved it. And I knew that I was good at it. You know, at that point, it really owned me. I was on fire in a way that I had not ever seen anybody be before.

• 11:25Speaker 02

  I thought it was, you know, like the only thing that could ever have happened to anybody that was this good. But I still had this kind of gnawing in the back of my head that, you know, I might not get away with this for very long. And I occasionally took a college course, you know, just trying to stave off that inevitable, "They're gonna throw me out of here." But they still hadn't thrown me out. And a couple of years later, I ran into a problem I hadn't really anticipated. That same local college had decided that they would place a master's-level intern with us. Not an unusual thing to do. But in this case, because it was my particular focus area, I was going to be the supervisor. I was going to supervise this master's-level clinician,

• 12:09Speaker 02

  and that was clearly going to be the end. Finally, it was here, no doubt in my mind. So, I was freaked, I was really freaked. And then, I met Brian, my intern. And then I was, whatever it is that comes immediately after, freaked in a big way. So intimidated by this guy, who couldn't have been more of those people.

• 12:37Speaker 02

  than anybody had ever been. He drove a BMW. He had parents that had gone to college, whose parents had gone to college, whose parents had gone to college. I mean, it was just, he was one of them, and I was one of us. And man, was it gonna show up now? And somehow, again, here I am, almost at the end, but I'm gonna hang in there. And Brian didn't get a lot of supervision from me for the first couple of weeks, because I really didn't feel like I had a right to speak to Brian.

• 13:08Speaker 02

  He wasn't getting much from me at all. But, you know, he was hanging out, and, you know, he seemed okay. Everything was going along. And one day, at this residential treatment program, I walked into a room, and what I saw, opening that door, was Jimmy, standing on the dining room table. Now, Jimmy was a seventeen-year-old kid, a big seventeen-year-old kid. And he had, and I quote, "a propensity toward violent crime." And Jimmy was, Jimmy had lost it. Jimmy was standing on the dining room table screaming, screaming obscenities. And Jimmy had a knife. Apparently Jimmy had managed to steal a steak knife from the kitchen, and Jimmy was standing on top of this table,

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  slashing at himself with a knife. Next to Jimmy, I see Brian. And I say, "Ha, Brian's got it. I don't have to worry about this at all. Brian knows what he's doing. Brian can take care of this. Brian has the master's degree. Brian will be fine."

• 14:11Speaker 02

  At no point did it occur to me that I've been dealing with situations like this quite successfully for the last few years, and I don't need Brian. Clearly, Brian's got it. I'm not needed, and I step back. Brian steps up. And I hear Brian say, "Jimmy, I think it's very important that we recognize that these feelings that you're having are related to your abandonment issues from your mother."

• 14:39Speaker 02

  I mean, Brian got that far before it was all, it just clicked into place for me. I said, you know, Brian knows what he's doing, but he doesn't know what to do. Clearly, Brian does not know what to do. He knows what's going on, he doesn't know what to do. And I knew what to do. I knew that I could step up, and I did, and I could say, Jimmy, what the hell are you doing? And Jimmy stopped, and he looked at me like, oh, you're here. And I said, Jimmy, give me that damn knife. And Jimmy gave me the damn knife.

• 15:22Speaker 02

  Jimmy sat down and said, oh, you know, whatever, I'm not really, and, you know, he started to kind of sulk like I had taken away his toy or something. But Jimmy was, Jimmy was there. Jimmy was engaged. Jimmy was fine. And I knew that. And I knew that I didn't have to worry about whether or not I had a right to be there. I had connected with Jimmy. I could connect with people. I could form relationships. I could be helpful. And I had a right to do those things.

• 15:50Speaker 00

  That was Karen Crowley. This story took place about three years into what is Karen's now 40-year career in the helping profession. She says that after all this time, the fire still burns. Karen lives in Vermont with her sailing captain husband and rambunctious lab Abby. So what's a time that you felt like you were in over your head? Drop us a line on social media. Tell us about it. The Moth is on Instagram, @themothstories. You can also pitch us your own story right on our website, themoth.org.

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  We love hearing from you, so please keep reaching out. And until next time, from all of us here at The Moth, we hope you have a story-worthy week.

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  Podcast production by Julia Purcell. Dan Kennedy is the author of Loser Goes First, Rock On, and American Spirit. He's also a regular host and storyteller with The Moth.