Pod Insights The Moth The Moth Podcast: Grocery Trips and Italian Trysts About this episode This week's stories are going to take us from a sexy Italian tryst, to a life-changing realization. From learning to love, to learning to accept help from others. This episode was hosted by Michelle Jalowski.
Storytellers:
Julie Baker learns to come to terms with her blind cane.
Hanna Bowens goes to Italy to meet someone she met on a dating app.
Podcast # 916
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2:03 Speaker 02 I'm Michelle Jalaski. This is The Moth. Right now, we're in Boston, a city where over 1,675 people have gone onstage and told a moth story. Here's one of those tellers, Julie Baker.
2:20 Speaker 03 When I hear the doorbell ring, I think, "Seriously?"
2:28 Speaker 03 But it's Jill, and even death wouldn't be a good excuse for blowing off Jill. So I put on my coat with a hood, I grab my rolling old lady carriage, I grab the blind cane, and I head downstairs. There she is, my blind coach.
2:52 Speaker 03 I didn't seek out a blind coach. I didn't know that blindness was a sport that required a coach. But when my neuroophthalmologist told me that my MS-related optic nerve damage had crossed over into legal blindness, I was like, "Okay, whatever. I see just as well as I saw yesterday." And she said, "She referred me to the Mass Commission for the Blind." I asked her if she was allowed to do that without my consent, and she thought I was joking. I wasn't joking.
3:38 Speaker 03 I tell Jill on the phone that I really don't want to waste her time. I'm sure she's a really busy person, and I'm not actually blind-blind, because I can still do stuff on my own. She just listens, she says, "Mm-hmm, mm-hmm," and she makes an appointment to come to my house. She's carrying a blind cane. She had asked me on the phone what my height was, and I saw the cane, and I said, "Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm not doing that. I'm not that kind of blind. I get around just fine."
4:21 Speaker 03 She said, "Okay, okay, so do you ever fall?" I said, "No, no, no, no." "Well, not out on the street. I fell down the stairs, but it's because it's a new house to me and I have no depth perception. But now, my son and I went to Dollar Tree and we got duct tape that's bright orange and purple sparkly and royal blue and we put it on each step so I don't fall down the stairs anymore." She said, "Yeah, is your son gonna follow you around with duct tape?" I thought that was a little rude.
5:05 Speaker 03 She asked me if I ever got lost and I said, "No, I put in headphones and the Google Directions told me to go up here and turn right and go up there and turn left and I was fine." She said, "How about in the dark?" I said, "Well, I just get rides in the dark. I don't really like to walk around in the dark, especially the new neighborhood." She said, "Okay, well, I'm gonna give you the phone number of somebody who's also a reluctant cane user. And you call her and you hear her story." "Whatever, I'll call her so I can tell her I talked to this woman and we're very, very different." I call her and she's funny.
5:49 Speaker 03 She tells me some funny stories about Jill, which I appreciate. She also thinks Jill doesn't have much of a sense of humor. She tells me everything changed when she named her blind cane. And she named him Stanley and she introduced him to children in her classroom. She was a teacher and she traveled the world with Stanley. And Stanley helped her explore and be independent. She said, "Maybe you need to name your blind cane." I said, "Uh, yeah, I don't think so because if I were to name the blind cane at this point, his name would be fucking dickhead."
6:38 Speaker 03 And then I fell in the street.
6:42 Speaker 03 I wasn't using fucking dickhead.
6:46 Speaker 03 It was a new sidewalk to me. I didn't know the sidewalks by heart the way I did in my old neighborhood. So I didn't see where the roots kinda made it buckle. And I tripped and I fell. And it was hard. And I ripped my pants and my knee was bleeding. And I was laying there on the sidewalk. I was embarrassed. It hurt. And I was pissed because Jill was right. And I wasn't safe without the blind cane. So I sent her a text. I said, "Fine, fine. I'll do the blind cane training."
7:31 Speaker 03 And we did.
7:34 Speaker 03 And we took the train and we walked upstairs. And I still was not happy. I didn't like that I needed the goddamn blind cane. And I was gonna do whatever I could do to avoid certain blind cane situations. I told her that people would think I was faking. Because when I'm on the train with the blind cane and I'm looking at my phone, they know I can really see. And I'm probably just trying to ride for free.
8:11 Speaker 03 She said, "Yeah, do you think blindness is all black and white? Because it's a spectrum." When she suggested we go to the grocery store, I said, "No, no, no, no. There's this thing called Instacart. And I don't have to do that. And if I wanna run in for oat milk, I know exactly where it is." She said, "Okay, what happens if you need something, Instacart doesn't have it and you don't know how to find it?"
8:42 Speaker 03 So I meet her. We go to Shaw's. It's raining. I said to her, "How do blind people deal in the rain? I have the old lady carriage. I have the blind cane, and it's raining. How am I supposed to do that? Do blind people not get to use umbrellas?" She said, "Well, you have a hood, right?" We walk to the store, and I'm angry, and it's raining. But I did it. And I asked for things that I couldn't find. And when I left the store, the sun came out. And I said to Jill, "I'm OK on my own from here." And I snapped my cane open like a Jedi lightsaber.
9:27 Speaker 03 And I went home with everything on my list.
9:45 Speaker 02 That was Julie Baker. Julie is a writer, storyteller, and mom of two adult children who almost always text back. She's getting ready to walk the Camino de Santiago Portuguese coastal route, 175 miles from Porto to Spain, with a blind cane named Stella and her partner Paul. Julie, that's amazing, and we can't wait to hear how it goes. And if you'd like to see a photo of Julie and her cane named Stella at the Acropolis in Athens, check out our website, themoth.org/extras. On this episode, we have two stories. You just heard the first about learning to accept help. And this next one's all about a steamy Italian tryst. But you'll have to wait a few seconds for it. We'll be right back.
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12:25 Speaker 02 Welcome back. Up next, we'll find some unlikely lessons in the most unlikely place of all, a dating app. Hannah Bowens told this at a New York Story Slam where the theme was deal breakers. Here's Hannah live at the mall.
12:40 Speaker 06 Thanks. So I turned 30 at the beginning of this year. Thank you.
12:50 Speaker 06 And I learned that the quickest way out of an identity crisis is sexting an Italian that you met on a hookup app.
13:02 Speaker 06 So I was living in Chicago, he was in Rome. We'll call him Luca. And very quickly, my daily flirting, virtual flirting conversations with Luca became like the best part of my day. We were exchanging dirty texts, photos, voice notes, you name it. And I had never done anything like this before, but I loved it because when I was talking to Luca, I was not, I wasn't this like sad, depressed, anxious, over thinker who was struggling to function. I was confident, I was sexy.
13:44 Speaker 06 I knew exactly what I wanted and I was someone worth wanting. And I tried to keep it, I tried to take things slow. So I waited eight weeks before I got on a plane to Italy.
14:02 Speaker 06 To meet Luca.
14:05 Speaker 06 And I spent the entire plane ride, I should have been learning Italian words for like catfishing, help me.
14:13 Speaker 06 No, I was smiling the whole way, really proud of myself because I was turning my pathetic life into a real life movie. And whether that movie was gonna be the next great love story or a Netflix documentary about my murder, that was for fate to decide.
14:32 Speaker 06 And for anyone wondering, I did, I bought my own flight, I paid my way. It put me into debt, but when you have nothing left to lose, like a looming credit card bill is really nothing. It's a small price for the chance I love. So I met Luca outside the airport in Rome. We got into his car to drive to Tuscany. And I was absolutely sick with nerves, but he was sweet, he was cute, he looked just like his photos. He even had a piece of pizza for me in the car to eat on the way. And my entire body just relaxed in that moment because you don't bother with road pizza if you're plotting murder. So, we pull up to Tuscany to our rustic villa.
15:17 Speaker 06 It's sunset and if this is all starting to sound like too good to be true, yeah, I thought so too. And I just was like, you know what? That's my inner self saboteur. And I am not gonna let that toxic prude ruin this for me. So, like, put that to the side. But as the night went on, the more wine I was drinking, that voice just got a little bit louder and I just kept thinking, you are a phony. You're just over here performing for the stranger. He is gonna see right through you. And I felt suddenly really stupid for being there, like kidding myself that I was deserving or capable of this kind of like happiness.
16:01 Speaker 06 So, you know, sexy thoughts, all sexy, sexy foreplay. And at one point, we sit down by the fire. We're like on the carpet in front of the fire. And that's when I look at Luca and I'm, I can tell something is weighing on him too. So, I pour another glass of, I still can't pronounce it, Montepuciano, whatever, wine. And he opens up that he had lost all of his savings in like an investment that went bad earlier that year. And he was starting to save up again, but he had moved in with his mom in Rome.
16:40 Speaker 06 And I could tell just the shame on his face when he was telling me this was all too familiar. And I shared with him that I had lost my day job earlier that year. The side writing project I'd been working on for two years was recently put on hold indefinitely. And I had also moved in with my parents. So, there we were, two adults who had taken big risks and it landed us broke sending nudes from childhood bedrooms. And...
17:16 Speaker 06 Depending on your perspective, it could seem very pathetic, but in that moment, it seemed incredibly romantic.
17:27 Speaker 06 I'm gonna save the dirty details of the rest of the weekend for the teacher script. But it was great. It was a lot of fun. And I left. I went back home. And we drifted apart. And it sort of turned out that distance and work turned out to be deal breakers. But I think being on that silly app that was just meant for fun with no strings attached, we discovered people that we liked, each other, but also we could be people that we liked,
18:09 Speaker 06 confident, playful, fun, with a little bit of passion still left. And he's still a good friend.
18:22 Speaker 06 I had a really good way to end this, and I just totally blanked on it. I'm sorry.
18:28 Speaker 06 Yeah, thank you.
18:37 Speaker 02 That was Hannah Bowen. Hannah's risk-taking continued with international pet sitting until she found her own cat, Moses, and settled in Chicago. Her next project is a podcast about sex in the movies. She still believes it's more important that the risk pays off rather than the credit card bill. That's it for this episode. If you're enjoying the podcast, why not tell a friend about it? So many of our listeners are here because their families and loved ones told them about The Moth, and we'd love if you could share our stories with the people you care about. From all of us here at The Moth, have a story-worthy week.
19:10 Speaker 07 Michelle Jalowski is a director at The Moth, where she helps people craft and shape their stories for stages all over the world. 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 Sarah Haberman, Christina Norman, Jennifer Hickson, Kate Tellers, Marina Kluchay, Suzanne Rust, Leigh Anne Gully, and Patricia Orenya. The Moth Podcast is presented by Odyssey. Special thanks to their executive producer, Leah Restonis. All Moth stories are true, as remembered by their storytellers. For more about our podcast, information on pitching your own story, and everything else, go to our website, themoth.org.
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