Squaring Up: The Moth Podcast

Two stories of planting your feet, facing your fears, and squaring up. This episode was hosted by Chloe Salmon. Storytellers: As a marine deployed in Iraq, Maia Molina-Schaefer takes comfort in her electric toothbrush that plays a Destiny’s Child song. David Smith overcomes his fear of taking communion Podcast # 1004

• 0:03Speaker 00

  Welcome to The Moth. I'm Chloé Salmon. When the going gets tough, when things look their darkest, when you feel like it's now or never, there are two avenues available. One, you can give up. Honestly, a classic for a reason. Or, two, you can dig deep and square up. In this episode, we've got two stories of planting your feet and facing your fears. First up is a story from Maya Molina-Shaffer, who told this at a New York City Story Slam, where the theme was splurge. Here's Maya, live at The Moth.

• 0:41Speaker 01

  The Marine Corps taught me a lot of survival skills. They taught me how to shoot, how to navigate, how to lead. But what the Marine Corps didn't teach me was that sometimes survival comes down to a toothbrush and Beyonce. You see why others packed extra ammo for war, I packed Queen Bay. It was 2006, and I was a brand-new second lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps. I just checked into my unit, and my first conversation with my commanding officer went something like this. "Lieutenant, welcome to the unit. We're deploying in two weeks for a 15-month-long deployment to Iraq. Here's your packing list.

• 1:24Speaker 01

  Get your shit together and get ready." "Roger that, sir." So before I had time to understand and to comprehend the gravity of going off to war for my first time at the height of the Iraq War, I focused on what I could do. I focused on the mission to get myself and my Marines prepared for this deployment. And I looked at that packing list that was very long and read kind of like this dystopian shopping spree. On one side, I had all the gear that I usually bring to the field, my uniform, my boots, socks, undershirts. But then on the other side, it had this weird domestic stuff. Sheets for my cot, shower shoes, a shower caddy.

• 2:08Speaker 01

  All the domestic stuff that reminded me that I was going to be living there and not just fighting there. And as I was preparing my gear, I had a really good friend who had also deployed, and she gave me some great advice. She's like, "Make sure you buy something that just brings you complete joy and happiness. It may not be useful, but at least it'll make you smile and laugh." So my best friend and I, who was also Marine, about a week before I deployed, we went on this super-special shopping mission. We were looking for those items that were going to make us just be happy in combat. My best friend, she decided to buy sheets with SpongeBob, because nothing says I'm a tough Marine like sleeping on sheets with a sponge, wearing square pants.

• 2:52Speaker 01

  And I followed suit. The first thing I bought was a kid's towel. It was a Finding Nemo towel. It had a hood with a fin and a tail, because nothing says I'm a prepared Marine like bringing appropriate aquatic gear to the desert. And then I decided to splurge on this really fancy toothbrush. You know, instead of bringing the free one that my dentist gave me a week before, I was like, "Nope, I'm going to spend a significant amount of money on this really cool toothbrush that played 'I'm a Survivor' by Destiny's Child when you brush your teeth." And I saw it, and I thought, "That's going to come in handy in combat."

• 3:33Speaker 01

  So fast forward, I'm in Iraq, and in between just bursts of intense action, there's these long, mundane, routine days. Every morning, I'd wake up, and I'd trudge all the way to the shower trailer in the scorching heat, and I'd take my two-minute regulation shower, and I'd prepare for what the day was about to throw at me. I put on my uniform, I'd lace up my boots, put on my body armor, my Kevlar helmet, I strapped my pistol to my waist, strapped my rifle over my shoulder, and I was ready to go, rinse and repeat, every single day. But one morning, when homesickness was hitting me particularly hard, I remember standing in that shower trailer, staring in the mirror, getting ready, and I started to think about my family and how much I missed them.

• 4:19Speaker 01

  And then I started thinking about my friends and wondering what they were doing and how much fun they were having without me. And then I went down this dark hole, and I was questioning all my life choices up into that moment, when all of a sudden, my thoughts were interrupted by that powerful Beyonce voice singing, "I'm a survivor, I'm not gonna give up." And the Marine next to me, she started laughing, she immediately started singing with me, like belting at the top of her lungs. And then a Marine from a shower cell joined in, and then another Marine, another Marine, and all of a sudden, there were six female, powerful voices, just belting out "I'm a Survivor" with steam rising all around us like this surreal music video. And it was in that moment, I learned something so profound.

• 5:05Speaker 01

  I learned that sometimes survival is not about the gear that you wear or the armor. Sometimes survival is about finding those perfectly beautiful moments of joy and happiness in the most unexpected places. Even if that place is in a shower trailer, in the middle of the Iraqi desert, thousands of miles away from home, surrounded by Marines singing along to a singing toothbrush.

• 5:31Speaker 01

  Now, fortunately, my unit made it home safely, and while I can't give all the credit to Beyonce, I can tell you this, that that splurge on that singing toothbrush gave me more of a tactical advantage than any of the gear the Marine Corps had issued me. Thank you.

• 5:57Speaker 00

  That was Maya Molina-Shaffer. She's a proud military veteran, gender equity advocate, passionate storyteller, and mom. After 20 years of military service, she now calls New York City home, where she dedicates her voice to gender equity, racial justice, and finding joy in unexpected places. We asked Maya what happened to the toothbrush, and she said, "Unfortunately, it didn't make it past that first deployment." But the lesson it taught her about finding joy in unexpected places and one very specific Beyonce soundtrack carried her through three deployments and 20 years of dedicated service. I've met Maya, and I can confirm to all listening that she is very brave and very cool to boot.

• 6:42Speaker 00

  I, on the other hand, am famously a bit of a scaredy cat. When I was a kid, my mom had to threaten to ban Nancy Drew books from our house because I'd read them and then be too scared to sleep. As an adult, I'm constantly misinterpreting very normal creaks in my apartment as a masked killer creeping toward my bedroom door. As such, I've always assumed that I'd be more flight than fight if it ever came to it. That was tested one night a few years ago, when I was out dancing with a friend. We were having a grand time when a drunken man approached and started to bother us, following us around the room when we moved to different parts of the dance floor to avoid him. Finally, I turned around and told him to leave us alone. Wrong move. He immediately got in my face and started yelling.

• 7:26Speaker 00

  I waited for the flight, but was wildly surprised when, instead, fight came roaring in. I planted my feet, refused to give the ground he was trying to take by looming over me, looked him right in the eye, and told him again, "Leave us alone." He was mad, but I was madder, and I was not moving. Shockingly, my scaredy cat ass was ready to throw down. My friend jumped into support, and in the face of the two of us, he turned tail and left. I think Nancy Drew would have been proud. After the break, a story about facing fears around a rite of passage. Back in a moment.

• 8:08Speaker 00

  Welcome back. Our next story is from David Smith, who told it at an Ann Arbor Grand Slam, where the theme was blessings in disguise. Here's David, live at The Moth.

• 8:22Speaker 02

  I should not have been surprised by my first communion, but I was. The nuns at my school told me about it, my parents told me about it, and we had practice at church, but somehow, it was the week of my first communion, and I really had no idea what was going on. And I couldn't talk to any of the adults about it, so I turned to the only other reliable source, it was the girls in my class, because I knew they were paying attention. Me, I was thinking about Batman and Robin, not my eternal soul. Anyway, so I went to Mary Pat. I said, "Mary Pat, you gotta help me out with this communion thing." And I'm sure she told me a lot of really good stuff, but what I remember is this. She said, "Whatever you do, David, don't touch the communion wafer with your hands, because it'll turn to blood."

• 9:04Speaker 02

  She said, "And also, don't let the communion wafer fall to the ground, because if you do, it'll fall to blood." And most importantly, she said, "You gotta have a good confession and make sure your soul is clean, because otherwise, when they give you the first communion, it'll turn to blood." And I'm like, I mean, even as a young kid, a young kid, I was a little squeamish. And so just the thought, if there was going to be blood in my mouth, I was just about to guarantee that I was going to be puking at my first communion. So I had to get this confession thing down. So I went to the other really reliable source of Catholicism, that was the Perrine Brothers. And one of the Perrine Brothers was a little older, and I said, "You gotta help me out with this confession thing." He says, "Look, it's no problem.

• 9:46Speaker 02

  You just go in and you tell the priest your sins, and he gives you a clean slate." And I'm eight years old, I don't have any sins, you know? And he says, "No, this is what I do. You gotta sound legit when you go in." So I go in, I say, like, you know, "I lied three times, and I, you know, I took the Lord's name in vain four times, I disobeyed my parents three times. That gets you through." I said, "Okay, I can do that." So Friday comes, it's time for our confession, and the whole class goes in, and I'm lining up, I'm thinking about it, I'm thinking about it. And if you haven't been, so the confessional looks kind of like a photo booth, you know? And you go in, and you pull the curtain closed, and you kneel down, and the priest is in the next compartment, right? And he's got this little door, and he slides it open, and there's a little screen there, so everybody's anonymous. But I know who he is, it's Father O'Malley.

• 10:29Speaker 02

  I just had him in basketball practice, and he knows who I am, because he was yelling at me, because I can't dribble to my left, you know? And I said, "Bless me, Father." I said, "Bless me, Father, for I've sinned." My last confession was, "Well, never, I never had one before. This is my first time, and I, you know, I took the Lord's name in vain three times, and I disobeyed my parents twice." And Father O'Malley says, "Okay," and he gives me my penance, and I go out. And as soon as I get out, I realize I forgot to say the thing about the lying, about the swearing. And so I go back in line, and I go back in again, "Bless me, Father, for I've sinned. My last confession was like five minutes ago, when I was telling you, I forgot about the swearing." And he gives me another Hail Mary, and he sends me on my way.

• 11:13Speaker 02

  And I think I'm okay, but I'm still like a nervous wreck all day Friday and Saturday. So now, Sunday morning comes, and my mom, you know, she gets me all dressed in the white shirt and the bow tie, and, you know, I'm looking good, but I'm pretty sure that there's going to be blood on that white shirt before the end of the day. So I get to church with all my, you know, the people from my class. We line up at the communion rail. And the father, the priest who's giving his communion is Father Godzal. And he's this really mean, scary priest. I mean, when he gives communion, he says like, he's like he's mad at Jesus. He gives this "The Body of Christ." And so the other thing that he's famous for is that if you don't open your mouth

• 11:55Speaker 02

  large enough, then he yells at you like right in communion. And he's, "Open your mouth." And it's humiliating, you know? And I'm, my whole family's here, my grandparents are here, and I don't want to be humiliated. So I'm kneeling and watching him out of the corner of my eye coming down at me. And I got my mouth open, my tongue sticking out, waiting for him, right? And it's taken forever, so my mouth is like drying out. But he finally shows up and he goes, he gives me the communion wafer. And I'm so worried about it falling on the ground that I snap my teeth shut and catch the tips of his fingers. And he was like pulling his hand back. And he didn't say this, but the look in his eyes was, "You're going to hell."

• 12:37Speaker 02

  And so I get up and I go back to, you know, to sit with my parents. And my mouth is so dry that the communion wafer is stuck to the roof of my mouth. And I'm trying to get it loose with my tongue, but I can't do it. I know I can't touch it with my hand. And I don't know what the rules are. I don't know if you're supposed to swallow it before you leave or if something bad will happen. And all through all this, I'm just thinking to myself, "Oh, my gosh, I got to go through this every week for the rest of my life." But like, listen, like a lot of other things that I worried about when I was a little kid,

• 13:14Speaker 02

  that never really happened because eventually I left the Catholic Church. So, but that experience stayed with me all my life. I mean, it's very vivid to me and I'm grateful because what it led to was really this great understanding, beginning with, I'm pretty sure that the creator of the whole universe didn't want that little eight-year-old boy to be terrified. And I also figured out that that human beings are at their best when they're not afraid. They're at their best when they are laughing and they're happy and they're loving each other and being kind to each other. And I have figured out that it's probably better for me to keep track of that stuff

• 13:58Speaker 02

  instead of just counting my sins. That's the gift that I got from that little eight-year-old boy. And it's served me pretty well. I mean, I feel like I've been on a pretty good path. But I will say there's probably one thing that has helped, and that's this. I'm pretty sure that that communion wafer is still stuck to the roof of my mouth.

• 14:27Speaker 00

  That was David Smith. He's a writer, a dedicated storyteller at The Moth, and a three-time winner of the Grand Slam competition. In 2024, he started a storytelling event in Flint, Michigan called Passages Storytelling. That brings us to the end of our episode. We hope that the next time the going gets tough, you're ready to square up.

• 14:50Speaker 03

  Chloe Salmon is a director at The Moth. Her favorite Moth moments come on show days when the cardio is done, the house lights go down, and the magic settles in. David Smith's story was coached by Jennifer Hickson. This episode of The Moth Podcast was produced by Sarah Austin Jenness, Sarah Jane Johnson, and me, Mark Sollinger. The rest of The Moth's leadership team includes Gina Duncan, Marina Kluchay, Jennifer Hickson, Jordan Cardenale, Caledonia Cairns, Kate Tellers, Suzanne Rust, and Patricia Uranya. The Moth Podcast is presented by Odyssey. Special thanks to their executive producer, Leah Reese Dennis. All Moth stories are true as remembered by their storytellers.

• 15:32Speaker 03

  For more about our podcast, information on pitching your own story, and everything else, go to our website, themoth.org.