Walking the Walk: The Moth Radio Hour

This episode originally aired on April 11th, 2023. In this hour, stories of finding one's way—through heartbreak, adolescence, times of crisis, and public nudity. This episode is hosted by Moth storyteller Samuel James. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by The Moth and Jay Allison of Atlantic Public Media. Storytellers: Kristin Lee tries to make friends at genetics camp. 8-year-old Maura Schneider and her friend hatch a revenge plan after experiencing their first rejection. Kaya Jarvis gets the help she needs from an unexpected source. Samuel Blackman contends with the realities of working in pediatric oncology. Annie Linn navigates having her mother as her high school English teacher. Evie O'Reilly goes on her first naked bike ride. Podcast # 812

• 0:13Speaker 00

  This is The Moth Radio Hour. I'm your host, Samuel James. This time, we have stories of people walking the walk, some on their own, some with some help, and others who, let's just say, need a little extra nudge. We have stories of uniquely awkward situations, unrecorded love, the search for beauty, and what it's like to have a crush on a classmate when your mom is the teacher. We start with a story from one of The Moth's Grand Slam events in Boston, where we partner with PRX and local public radio station WBUR. Here's Kristin Lee, live at The Moth.

• 0:52Speaker 01

  I'm 13 years old and just said goodbye to my parents after they've dropped me off at the University of Iowa dorms for summer sleepaway genetics camp. I am so excited. I'm gonna stay up late talking to my roommate, hang out with friends whenever I want to, plus, we're gonna learn about mitosis and meiosis and Mendel and mutations, and how can this possibly not go well? When I get back up to my room, my roommate Megan has just moved in, and the first thing she says to me is, "I knew you were gonna be friends from the moment I saw the clothes hang in your closet." That's a little odd, but at least she likes me. And that first day, a small crew of girls forms around Megan and me, and I'm so excited, I've already made my friends. The first week of camp is a paradise of biology.

• 1:37Speaker 01

  We make 3D models of the double helix structure of DNA, lining up those As and Ts and Cs and Gs. We transcribe DNA sequences into RNA and translate that into amino acids and protein structures, and I feel like we've been given the secret code of life, which we have. I geek out over Punnett Square problem sets and mapping pedigrees, shading those circles and squares to show how a disease is transmitted through a family. Classic summer camp activities. It's the best. I have to admit, though, I'm getting some weird vibes from my new friends. Every morning, as we walk through the university quad on the way to class, Heather makes fun of my hair and teases me about the keychains on my backpack. Tori scribbles on my homework and crumples it up.

• 2:22Speaker 01

  Megan starts borrowing my stuff without asking, and I find notes on my desk written in my eyeliner that say, "I'm wearing your sandals today." But it's okay, I know how to deal with people like this. 13 years growing up as a Chinese-American girl in Iowa have taught me how to fit in as an interloper. Be super nice, erase my own personality, go with the flow. It's never failed me before, and surely it's not gonna fail me at nerd camp where, by definition, no one here is too cool for school. So, I keep trying to be as agreeable and accommodating as possible. At the end of the first week of camp, we're playing a game in class that requires other people to help us solve our mystery genotypes.

• 3:05Speaker 01

  This involves passing slips of paper to our friends with questions on them, like, "If I had a kid with someone who has attached earlobes, is it possible that our kids could have attached earlobes too?" And if the answer is no, then I know that I'm homozygous for the autosomal dominant trait of having detached earlobes. Super simple, but... During the game, my friends, instead of passing back real answers to me on the slips of paper, they write, "Why are you so ugly?" and "You're stupid." And at the end of the game, I'm the only one who hasn't been able to figure out my genotype. As the classroom empties out, I sit in my chair and I rack my brain, trying to think of what I've done to offend Megan and Tori and Heather and the others, and I really can't

• 3:50Speaker 01

  think of anything. But I hope that maybe this is just some weird hazing ritual. Maybe if I weather anything that they throw at me, they'll finally accept me. So I trail along behind them to the cafeteria. We set our trays down at the same table where we always sit, and the other girls pass around a look, and Megan says, "I have a story to tell. Last summer at camp, there was this girl who no one liked, and she kept trying to hang out with us, and we didn't know how to get rid of her." Heat floods my face. Thus far, I have refused to read the signals that these girls have been sending me because I'm under the mistaken impression that ignoring meanness in other people is the nice thing

• 4:35Speaker 01

  to do and will make it go away. But now Megan here has told such an obvious parable that she's basically forcing me to read between the lines. I know she's talking about me. I know I'm not wanted. I get up quickly, bust my tray without having to walk back to my room, but I can't even take refuge there because soon Megan and the other girls go back there to hang out, and I don't want them to see me crying. But I have a new problem. Tonight is the Friday night dance, and the last thing I wanna do is go to a dance without any friends. So I ask the camp counselor if I can just stay in my room and read a book, but she says no. So I go out on the hall, new plan, ask a random girl if I can use her dorm room phone.

• 5:19Speaker 01

  I unspool the cord as long as it can go to try to get some privacy, and I call my mom and I say, "Mom, please come pick me up, I am done with camp." Because you see, I live 10 minutes away. I live in Iowa City where camp occurs. There is no reason for me to stay in this place for another week. But my mom says no. So my last plan is just to hide in a corner of this girl's room and try not to cry until the time of the dance. I shuffle off to the dance alone, and in the dorm basement, 90s tunes are pumping. "Wanna Be" by the Spice Girls, "Everybody" by Backstreet Boys. And in my normal life, I'm too self-conscious to really be much of a dancer, but tonight, I'm like, "What the heck? I don't know anybody here who I care about. Why not let loose?"

• 6:02Speaker 01

  Because these girls' rejection of me, yeah, it's kind of broken me, but it's also freed me. Because why contort myself into something else when it's not gonna make people like me? Why not just be myself? So I let the music take over, and I dance. I get pulled into this big dance circle, and everyone around me is smiling, and I'm feeling the beat, and soon I'm smiling too. So when the camp counselor taps me on the shoulder and says, "Hey, your mom's here," I'm like, "What? Why is my mom here?" And then I remember that a few hours ago, I was bawling and asking to go home. I end up staying at camp. I do learn very cool stuff about mitosis and meiosis and mutations and Mendel, and

• 6:45Speaker 01

  I make new friends who are nice, normal people, but I never forget that there really are mean people in this world, and you can't always win them over with kindness, but you don't have to let them crush your spirit. Thank you.

• 6:59Speaker 00

  That was Kristin Lee. Kristin is an avid reader, book reviewer, an aspiring writer who lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts with her partner, three children, and a mini Golden Doodle, Fluffy. Kristin ended up working in a genetics research lab during summers in high school and went on to major in biology in college, which eventually led to medical school. You can see a picture of Kristin and Fluffy on our website, themoth.org.

• 7:42Speaker 00

  Maura Schneider shared this next story on another Grand Slam stage, this one at the Lincoln Theater in Washington, DC, where we partner with local public radio station WAMU. Just a note, Maura alludes to teenage sexual awakening. It's all very innocent, but just wanted to mention. Here's Maura Schneider, live at The Moth.

• 8:05Speaker 02

  I once lived in a world where sex was only practiced between two consenting Barbie dolls. My best friend Emily and I spent so many unsupervised hours when we were seven in her basement, kneeling in front of Barbie's dream house and carefully unvelcroing blouses and pressing nippleless boobs against chiseled chests and giggling. And then, when we were eight, the summer we were eight, we emerged from that dark basement and realized, we went to the pool, and we realized that non-plastic living boys could also make us giggle. We would whisper about the cutest ones and laugh when they belly flopped or tried to eat a whole hot dog in one bite.

• 8:49Speaker 02

  And there was one boy who ruled them all. This muscly blond middle schooler named Scott. When he was there, I felt like there was a magnet pull in my chest pulling me towards him, and he was so beautiful, it was like the world was brighter and better when he was there. Emily liked him too, my best friend, and so we would tread water next to him, trying to get his attention. And she was really bold, so she'd say things like, "Looks like that modeling contract's gonna come through, Scott," or "Tie my underwater handstand." I was really shy. I would try and talk, but I would just stare at him.

• 9:30Speaker 02

  Hoping that that would evolve into a romantic relationship. Instead, Scott, after a week of being these perpetual giggling shadows next to him, Scott got tired of it. And he pushed us away from him in the pool and yelled, "Ugh, you guys are so annoying. Just leave me alone." I was heartbroken. Emily and I gathered up our stuff and ran back to her house. And once we had changed, we went back down to the basement where we were just seething with anger. See, we'd been playing relationships for years now with dolls and stories and movies, and the girl and the boy always get together.

• 10:15Speaker 02

  We had no framework for rejection. And before I go on, I just want to remind you that there are a lot of adults in the world who do not know how to handle rejection without lashing out. And I still had 12 of my baby teeth. So we started plotting, like, I wanted to take that pain and get it out of me and on to Scott. And I do not know why, but the solution was a letter. A sexy letter. A sexy prank letter. We would write a letter and sign it from a made-up name, and it would drive him crazy. And he would never be able to find her, so we'd win.

• 10:59Speaker 02

  So we started writing. Emily had better handwriting, so she was doing most of the writing, and she was coming up with some real good lines about butts. And I was inspired by all of those hours of research at Barbie's dream house. I said, "Write this down. I want to get naked and hug and kiss you." It was the best. And we signed it "Love Sally" because we thought that was the sexiest woman's name. We ran over to his house and like jammed it in the mail slot when the coast was clear. And then we ran home and played it cool. And because I was eight, the next morning, I had basically forgotten about it.

• 11:41Speaker 02

  And I was playing dolls in my second-floor bedroom, and I looked out the window, and there is Scott marching down the street with his brother, and he's holding the letter. My mom was working, my sister was watching us. She and Scott were the same year in school, and I shouted down to her, "Don't let him in." But, okay, my sister's awesome, but she was like not very cool in school, and Scott was. And she chose status over sisterhood and escorted him upstairs. And I panicked and ran to the bathroom to hide, but our bathroom door didn't lock, so I had to like jam my shoulder against the wall, open the door. And Scott and his brother and my own sister are pushing on the other side.

• 12:24Speaker 02

  And, but I've got a lot of adrenaline, so I'm folding my own. And every once in a while, the door pops open, and Scott and I make eye contact in the mirror. He's still so cute. And I pop it back, and he starts interrogating me. And I'm denying everything, everything. And it's the longest conversation that we've ever had. And then, and then he's like, "Who's Sally? Who's Sally?" And I'm like, "I don't know. I don't know." And then, "Who's Sally?" And I say, "Um, I think she goes to Emily's school." He leaves. He goes down, and I'm like, "Oh, my God. He bought it." I'm in the clear. And then I think, "Dang, I sold out my best friend like really quick."

• 13:05Speaker 02

  And then I'm like, "Can we still have that romantic relationship?" Well, surprise, it was not over. Scott's mom called my mom and Emily's mom, and they had what must have been the most awkward conversation my mom has ever had as a mom. And afterwards, she came home and came up to my room and sat on my bed and said, "Um, Maura, do you have any questions about your body or your feelings?" And I'm like, "Oh, my God, no, no, I don't want to talk about this." But when I opened my mouth, I just start crying.

• 13:44Speaker 02

  And I'm embarrassed, and I know I'm in trouble, but I, I started this summer thinking that sex was just a game that you played with dolls. And then in the last 24 hours, I had burst into this world of, of shame and rejection and erotic revenge letters. And now, everybody in my neighborhood knew that I knew what sex was. And I realized, once you go into that world, you can never go back. Thank you.

• 14:18Speaker 00

  Maura Schneider is a writer and illustrator living in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Her graphic essays have appeared in The Believer and No Tokens Journal. She is currently working on a graphic memoir about sexuality, consent, and caregiving. What I love about Maura's story is not just the sudden realization that she's in over her head, but that she's got to stay there a while. Maura told me that she wishes she'd learned earlier not to be so scared of embarrassing herself, but the absolute lack of control that comes with parenting encouraged her back to that place of bold, gut-driven risk-taking that gave her the nerve to get up on the

• 14:59Speaker 00

  moth stage at her first slam and win. In a moment, stories of helping hands during crisis when The Moth Radio Hour continues. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. This is The Moth Radio Hour. I'm Samuel James. As I was listening back to these stories, I was reminded that walking the walk doesn't

• 15:44Speaker 00

  just show others who you are. Along the way can reveal who you should be, who you can be, and who you want to be. And sometimes, even more than that, like with our next storyteller, Kaia Jervis. They shared their story at a showcase we produced featuring stories from women and girls that we presented in partnership with the Kate Spade Foundation in New York. A quick note that this story references an eating disorder. Here's Kaia Jervis.

• 16:16Speaker 03

  In March of 2020, my parents drove me and my sister from our New York City apartment upstate to spend quarantine in a little cabin. It was heated by a fireplace. For the first two months, it didn't have running water, so we had to use our neighbor's hose to brush our teeth and take showers. It was very tight and cramped, and like everyone else, we were kind of going crazy. We were fighting a lot. I was finishing eighth grade at the time. I didn't want to be stuck in a house with my family. My sister didn't want to be stuck in a house with the family. My parents didn't want us to be stuck in a house together or with us. And it was a lot. And throughout eighth grade, you know, I felt very isolated and insecure, and I didn't

• 16:59Speaker 03

  feel very connected to the people around me. And I was going through a lot of depression and anxiety. And this got really heightened in quarantine because I had more time to just sit with my thoughts, and I didn't have the distractions of taking the subway and always being surrounded by people and things to take me away from what I was feeling. And, you know, throughout my life, I've always kind of dealt with bad feelings with food. You know, if I'm having a bad day, I would eat something that made me feel really good and happy. But in eighth grade, I kind of approached food in a very different way. Instead of eating something that made me happy, I would restrict to take my mind off of things that were causing me stress and to give me something else to focus on.

• 17:42Speaker 03

  And this progressed a lot in quarantine, to the point where all I could think about was food and what I would eat and what I would not eat, and how many calories I wanted to eat, and how much I weighed, and what I looked like. And this got worse and worse throughout quarantine, and I couldn't think about anything else. And my mom wanted us to really connect, and so she started making these really elaborate dinners a couple of times a week. And she would make us all get off of our phones and sit us down at the table and present us with roasted vegetables and salad and pasta and whatever she could come up with, and have us all eat there and sit together. But these dinners didn't really help me, and they made me feel very stressed out because I would look at this plate in front of me and not be able to eat it.

• 18:26Speaker 03

  And I would try to hide it from my parents, but at one point, I couldn't hide it from them. So I had to sit my mom down and tell her that I had an eating disorder and that I needed some help with it. And so my parents were very supportive and they signed me up for therapy. And my mom started driving me down to a doctor's in Manhattan once a week where I would get weighed and I would have to list everything that I ate that day and everything that I'd eaten that week. And I was very lucky to have this help, but I also felt very watched and in trouble. And like I was doing something wrong, which I was, but I also couldn't really tell that I was doing something wrong at the time. And you know, this went on. I kept on going to these doctor's appointments.

• 19:09Speaker 03

  I kept on having therapy, but it wasn't really helping that much because I still felt really isolated and disconnected. And one time while my mom was driving me to the doctor's appointment, she brings up my friend Lana and she's like, hey, why don't you reach out to Lana and ask her to hang out? You know, she lives right by the doctors. You guys could go to the park. It might be nice for you to talk to someone outside of the foreign family members that you're stuck in a house with. So I reached out to Lana and Lana was one of the only other black girls in our mostly white Upper West Side middle school. So we always had this connection that I didn't really feel with any of my white friends. And we always understood each other on a deeper level. And I reached out to Lana and we made plans.

• 19:53Speaker 03

  And throughout quarantine, she was one of the only people I ever actually stayed in contact with. I was kind of isolating myself from school and my friends and even my family because all I could think about was food. And so I reached out to Lana and we make plans to hang out and I'm really excited. And the next week I go to the doctor's appointment. It's very cold in there and the doctor isn't very nice and I'm being weighed and I feel very watched again, but I know I'm going to see my friend in a couple of hours. So I make my way from the doctor's appointment. I walk 10 blocks to her house. But as I'm walking over to her house, it hits me that I'm sick and I have an eating disorder. And when you hang out with people, you're supposed to eat and you're supposed to have

• 20:35Speaker 03

  fun eating and you're supposed to talk with each other and not focus on the food. But all I could focus on at the time was food. So I'm making my way over to her house and I'm very excited, but I'm also deeply, deeply stressed. But I pick her up and we do a little air hug and we start walking over to Central Park. And then she's like, hey, there's this pizza place around the corner and it's really good. Do you maybe want to get a slice? And I'm like, sure, yeah, I love pizza. Like that sounds great. But we go to the pizza place and I'm really stressed out the entire time. I get my slice though and we go over to Central Park and we sit down at this really nice bench and it's super sunny and the wind is blowing perfectly. And she's telling very great stories.

• 21:17Speaker 03

  She's a very funny person and we're like looking at TikToks or whatever. And she starts to eat her pizza. And I look down and I open up this box in front of me and I can immediately smell how good this pizza will taste. And I look at it and it has the perfect amount of cheese and the right crust. And it has all of these things that I really love, but also all of these things that at the time I'm really scared of. You know, cheese and oil and bread and whatever. And so I don't want to be weird and I don't want Lana to suspect anything and I just want to have a normal hangout. So I take a couple of bites and I kind of just make myself eat.

• 21:58Speaker 03

  But I don't finish the slice and it's okay and she doesn't notice anything. And we just go on with the hangout and it's okay. And the next week I go to the doctor's again and we hang out again and we get pizza and I'm still really scared and I don't finish my slice, but at least I know Lana won't be watching me and I know that she'll still treat me like I'm normal. And this goes on. Every week I go to the doctors, I go to therapy. I feel really watched by everyone, including my family. You know, my mom would check my plate every meal and I would have to list everything I ate. But I would always get to see Lana every week and we would always eat together and I would always be able to laugh and focus on what she was saying.

• 22:38Speaker 03

  And over time, these hangouts really helped me because I'm able to associate food and eating with my friend and the laughter and the joy I feel when I'm around her and also when I'm eating with her. And it's now about to be ninth grade. We're about to start high school. It's a very big time. I'm kind of nervous about that, but I'm also really excited to start something new. And I'm doing a lot better with food. I'm eating a lot more. I'm feeling a lot less stressed about it. And a big reason for that is Lana. And so we're hanging out and that day we get pizza and we decided to go to Riverside Park. And we find this really nice spot that's away from everyone where you can see the river and we're covered by trees.

• 23:21Speaker 03

  And we start to eat our food and I notice that I'm not thinking about the food and I'm just thinking about what she's saying and how nice it looks that day. And so I decide I want to tell her and I go, hey Lana, throughout quarantine, I've had an eating disorder and I'm a lot better now and you're one of the main reasons I'm a lot better. And I'm scared to tell her this, you know, I don't want things to change. I want to feel normal. I don't want to feel watched. But she gives me a hug and she tells me she's proud of me and she tells me how strong I am. And things go back to normal and we watch TikToks and we talk and we laugh and it's fine. And throughout ninth grade and high school, I'm now a junior.

• 24:04Speaker 03

  We've stayed friends and I'm fully recovered now. And every time we hang out, we eat together and we laugh and we share stories. And instead of focusing on food and the negative parts of it and the things that are scary about it, I can now focus on what I love about food and also what I love about the people that I share food with.

• 24:28Speaker 00

  Kaya Jarvis is a 16-year-old born and raised New Yorker. They said they spend their hours going to school, playing in a band, making art, curled up in a ball with headphones on and skipping around with friends. To see a picture of Kaya and find out more about any of the storytellers you've heard this hour, as well as info about other Moth Live events, you can visit our website at themoth.org.

• 25:12Speaker 00

  Our next story is from Dr. Sam Blackman. He shared this emotional story about his work in pediatric oncology in Seattle, Washington, where we partnered with public radio station KUOW. Live from the Abbey Arts Center, here's Sam Blackman.

• 25:32Speaker 04

  I looked in the usual places. I looked in the lab and the labor and delivery ward and the operating room, but for me, the images under the microscope were just mostly interesting. And the birth of a child, if it's not your child, is not beautiful. And, uh, sorry. And in the operating room, I found more brutality than beauty. As a second-year pediatric resident, if there was beauty in medicine, I wasn't seeing it. After 100-hour work weeks, a kid could crap rose petals and I would just dutifully put some in a vial and note it in the chart. And don't confuse cute with beauty.

• 26:16Speaker 04

  Sick kids, even really sick kids can be cute, but disease is not beauty and parents of sick kids are not beautiful. Parents of sick kids are terrified. And when you feel that the life of your child is in danger, you want some element of control. And what you don't want is a second-year pediatric resident, and you certainly didn't want me at that time. Because between the crushing fatigue and the constant fear of screwing up and not knowing enough, not only was there no beauty in my life, but I was actually getting uglier because I would let the frustration and the fear creep in and sometimes my words would hurt the people that I was there to help. And it turned out that there were moments where I was so ashamed because for someone

• 27:01Speaker 04

  who so desperately wanted to be a doctor, I was not being the doctor that I wanted to be. I was not being my best self. Brianna's mother took this to a whole new level. The rage that she felt and that she made the team feel pervaded us on a daily basis and we all knew why. Her child was going to die and there was nothing that we could do about it. She had the period worst period tumor period ever. She had a diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma, a bastard of a tumor that invades the brainstem. It's inoperable, inoperable in all situations. You can't touch it with chemo or radiation. It's 100% fatal and most children die within eight months of diagnosis.

• 27:43Speaker 04

  And her rage was compounded by the fact that she was a single mother and she was going through this alone. And so she would wall herself off. She kept the glass door to her room closed. She kept the curtains drawn and the lights off and she wouldn't let us in at all for rounds. She wouldn't even let us in to examine Brianna because what was the point? And so we would dutifully hover every morning outside of her room to go over the day's labs and to go over the plan. And we would beg to come in, but she would not let us come in and she wouldn't even talk to us or want to hear the treatment plan, except for when she wanted us to use her treatment plan. And then we would negotiate. Substitute herbal tea for water? Sure. Skip the steroids and blood pressure medicines? No. Coffee enemas?

• 28:27Speaker 04

  What about coffee enemas? We had a week-long debate about coffee enemas. It's a thing. And my attending had never heard about coffee enemas and so he sent me to go research coffee enemas. And when I came back, he said, you go into the room and tell her why we can't do daily coffee enemas. And so I went into the room. But because I presented both sides of the issues to her, she actually started to let me in, literally let me in. I was the only doctor who could go into the room. And every day I would sit outside and we'd round as a team and then I would go into the room and I would examine Brianna and I would talk to her about the plan and then I'd come out and communicate with the team. And so for a few weeks until I went off service, I was exclusively Brianna's doctor.

• 29:11Speaker 04

  But then rotations end and teams rotate off and residents change and I went on to the next thing.

• 29:18Speaker 04

  About a month later, I was coming home from dinner with my wife on a Saturday night. My pager went off and it was a nurse from the pavilion, which is the part of the hospital where the palliative care patients stay. And the nurse said that she thought that Brianna was dying and wanted to know if I would come in. Now, I wasn't on call or on service, but something told me that I should go. So I called my attending on service and I said, "Would you meet me there?" Because I've never attended a death before. And believe it or not, attending a death is a lot more complicated. You don't just sort of stand there and wait for the person to die. One of the horrible things that they neglect to tell you at the start of your pediatric residency is that children take a really long time to die because they've got brand-new hearts and brand-new lungs.

• 30:02Speaker 04

  And their bodies really try to cling to life. And think about that for a minute and think about what that looks like. So it was 10 o'clock at night, and for the next four hours, we did our job. We gave medicines to help her agonal breathing and to alleviate any pain. And when we couldn't do any more, we stood by the door and we bore witness. The nurse went in, unchecked on her, and came out and said that she thought that Brianna had stopped breathing. And the attending physician said to me that I should go and pronounce her dead because the mom knew me and appeared to trust me. And I said, "All right, but I've never done this before. I didn't know what to expect."

• 30:42Speaker 04

  So I quietly went into the room and I said, "I need to examine Brianna one last time." And then I performed the ritual. I felt for the absence of a pulse. I put my stethoscope on her chest and I listened for a full 60 seconds for the absence of a heartbeat. And I said to her mother, "I'm so sorry for your loss." And I noted silently the time of death. And as I was getting ready to leave the room, I turned to her and I said, "Is there anything I can do for you?" And she paused and said, "Could you pray with me?" And I hesitated because I'm a lapsed Jew from New Jersey and I don't really pray and I don't really believe in God.

• 31:27Speaker 04

  And frankly, pretending to pray in the face of a dead child seemed like the absolutely wrong thing to do. But then, there in that moment, it dawned on me that this wasn't about me. Brianna's mother needed me to be the doctor that she saw me as, and this was the opportunity for me to be the doctor that I wanted to be. And so there in that room, lit just by silent glowing monitors, I had the one truly beautiful moment for myself in medicine, where a stranger held my hands and we stood over the body of her daughter. And I closed my eyes when she did. And when she started to speak, words of a prayer that I had only heard a few times

• 32:12Speaker 04

  before somehow came forth. "Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come; thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." Thank you.

• 32:25Speaker 00

  Sam Blackman is a pediatric oncologist, cancer drug developer, and chief medical officer at Day One BioPharmaceuticals. He lives on Orcas Island in Washington State with his wife Julie, daughter Annika, and a menagerie of pets. Sam said his decision to enter medicine was less about science and more about understanding life and what makes it so precious and special. This experience was a tipping point for him, and he has carried the memory of Brianna with him for over 20 years. You can see a picture of Sam from his residency days on our website, themoth.org.

• 33:21Speaker 00

  Coming up, navigating teenage crushes in high school where your mother is also your teacher, when The Moth Radio Hour continues.

• 33:41Speaker 05

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

• 33:52Speaker 00

  You're listening to The Moth Radio Hour. I'm Samuel James. We all know that high school years can be strange and nerve-wracking, and that's what Annie Lynn told us about at a story slam we produced at the Miracle Theater in Washington, DC, where we partner with local public radio station WAMU. Here's Annie Lynn, live at The Moth.

• 34:19Speaker 06

  As I prepared to enter high school, my mom introduced a new rule. I would have to call her Mrs. Hobblett. And even though I threw a huge fuss about calling her by her teacher name, it turned out that this was not the most difficult part of our mother-daughter-student-teacher relationship that we were going to have to navigate. I was a highly dramatic teenager who just wanted to fall in love, and she was a stoic Norwegian-American teacher who just wanted her students to love grammar. And she laid out some pretty strict rules at the beginning. She was not going to pull any strings for me. This was not going to be like the drama teacher who cast her daughter as the lead in every play. No resentment there.

• 35:03Speaker 06

  But, and I didn't really want her to or need her to, because I was a super goody-goody rule follower. So she didn't really need to do anything for me, for me to get along in high school. The one exception that she did make was that she bumped me up on the list for driver's ed. Not because she wanted me to get my license any earlier, you can drive in Montana at age 15, but she wanted to make sure that I learned how to drive on the icy Montana winter roads. But then, things got a little more blurry when she actually became my teacher. It turned out that her omnipresence had a bit of an effect on my romantic life. And so when I first had her as a teacher my sophomore year for English, and I started

• 35:48Speaker 06

  to scheme about how she could be useful in more ways than just teaching me how to write, which she was very well-known for being very good at. But my first high school boyfriend broke up with me several days into the school year. And it was not a serious relationship. We held hands a couple times and he kissed me on the cheek, but I still was very dramatic and wanted to feel all the feelings. And so I plotted this revenge plan that I pitched to my mom over dinner. I said, "So, Mom, Nate's desk is not that far away from your desk, and you have this..." She called it the "dinger," this high-pitched bell that she would ring. She probably got it at the mom's store to get students' attention. And I thought, "You could just ring it in Nate's ear and it would be very nonchalant.

• 36:33Speaker 06

  He sits right there. Just consider it." And she didn't. But it turned out that the population of boys in that particular sophomore English class would be fodder for many dinnertime conversations throughout the year. As I recovered from the heartbreak of Nate, something very surprising happened, and that Caleb started flirting with me. And he was much cooler than me. He was the star of the basketball team, and I was not quite sure what to do with all this attention, especially because the attention mostly came in the form of him telling dirty pickup lines to my easily scandalized self.

• 37:13Speaker 06

  So for example, walking into class, he says, "Hey, Annie, let's do math. Add a bed, subtract the clothes, divide our legs, and I'll multiply." I know, a real winner, on and off the court. So I go my own way, and we're working on our individual writing assignments. And he pokes me across the aisle. He's like, "Hey, Annie, do you want to help me with my math?" And I was like, "Okay, bring it over here." I was very, you know, this was not uncommon for people to ask me for help with homework. And he's like, "No, will you help me with my math?"

• 37:56Speaker 06

  And I was like, "Okay, bring it over here." And he goes, "No, will you help me with my math?" And all of a sudden, the joke clicks into place, and I screamed, "Oh, my gosh!" And my mom whips around. She goes, "You two, detention." I said, "Mom, Mrs. Hobblett!" I had never had detention in high school, and now my mom was my sentencer. And she wasn't just going to settle for any old detention. She decided that instead of going to the detention room, we were going to clean her classroom. So over dinner that night, I tried to plead my case, like, "You should be glad that I had that reaction to a dirty joke."

• 38:37Speaker 06

  She said, "You should be glad that I just got you an hour by yourself with Caleb." And I realized that she was right, and so I prepared for this detention with great hope. Like, in the very romantic setting of my mom's classroom, I could have my first real kiss. And so the day of detention, I dressed up very... My mom's looking at me over breakfast, like, "Okay, you're taking this really seriously." And we go, and I've got, you know, I'm really excited, and he just acted like we were not there because of his attentions to me, and there was nothing between us. And it was the first of many heartbreaks of the roller coaster of my sophomore year

• 39:22Speaker 06

  with Caleb. And later on in the year, I said to my mom, "I am so over him." And she goes, "Okay, good. Well, just please, can we not, can you not develop feelings for anyone else in this class? It's becoming a little bit disruptive." And I was like, "Oh, who could I possibly like in the class?" And she raised her eyes at me and was like, "Patrick." And I don't know if it was motherly wisdom or teacherly wisdom, but Patrick and I are married. And we are expecting our first child this fall.

• 40:03Speaker 06

  And I am not a teacher, so I'm going to have to figure out another way to really shape and influence my child's life, both academically and romantically.

• 40:19Speaker 00

  Annie Lynn works on global public health and is based in Bozeman, Montana. When she told this at a Story Slam on the theme of mothers, she was about to become a mother herself, and now she's getting ready to do it all over again with her second child. I asked Annie if her mother had used her teacherly wisdom to predict anything else in her life. She said her mother predicted both, that Annie would be able to hold her own out in the world, but also that she'd sometimes struggle with letting things go. According to Annie, both, especially the latter, are definitely true.

• 40:57Speaker 00

  You can see a picture of Annie and her mom, aka Mrs. Hoblit, on our website, themoth.org. If you happen to be in Fremont, Washington, at the height of summer, you might come upon the annual Fremont Solstice Parade, which features people on their bikes in various states of nudity, covered in body art. Our final storyteller, Evie O'Reilly, told us about her first time joining this annual tradition. At a Story Slam we produced in Seattle, Washington, where we partnered with local public radio

• 41:41Speaker 00

  station KUOW. Live from the Abbey Arts Center, here's Evie O'Reilly.

• 41:50Speaker 07

  So, the first time you do the naked solstice cycle, you want to look amazing. And you have a lot of plans, and you have a lot of objectives. And they fall away because you have life. And so, the day before, you get body paint, and that morning, you wake up earlier than you ever normally wake up on a Saturday, and you paint yourself, and you look in the mirror, and you think, "I look fantastic. My god, I should do this every day. I thought I was bad at makeup, but this is amazing." Now, this was established with clown paint down the center of my body, a smashing green side and an orange side, because I was going to be the Irish flag. And then you have this moment where you look at yourself, "Oh, this is brilliant. God, just such a..."

• 42:33Speaker 07

  "What about my back?" And so, you panic, and you think, "He'll be up..." Never mind, he'll be up, he'll do it. And so, you ring your friends, and you get that, like, morning, like, "What? Hiya, what are you up to?" "Oh, I was asleep." "Great, that's brilliant, I love that. Um, look, would you, um, do you mind coming over? Are you all right?" "Yeah, I'm great. Um, I need you to paint my bum." "I'm sorry, what?" "I, I need you to paint my bum." Long, long pause. "Okay." Click. Minutes later, I'm being painted. Now, the next thing was, I hadn't actually worked out, at the time I lived on Capitol Hill, how to get to Fremont.

• 43:17Speaker 07

  Normally, I would have taken a bus, but that seemed like a very bad idea under my current situation. Plus, I now had a bike that I wasn't entirely confident could make it to Fremont. I was sure it could make it somewhat along the race, whatever we're calling it, but to Fremont, I don't know. So, I now think, and I look at my friends, I'm like, "Your boyfriend has a car, right?" And she goes, "Yeah." So, what's Dan doing this morning? So, next thing I know, this poor, exhausted teacher is getting me in my car, going, "Try not to get painted, it's too late. There's gonna be paint, there is paint to this day." So, he gets me there, and then I have the next bit, which I can't work out, which I'm like, "Oh, there's all these people, how are we actually gonna drive in to drop me off? I'm a proper part of this parade."

• 44:01Speaker 07

  And I realize the only way to do this is to be dropped at the Nickerson Street Saloon, get out, and then run across the bridge with my bike, holding it, and then scream at the crowds, "I'm sticky, let me through!" This works very well if you're ever in an emergency. People scatter. So, now, this was a while ago, and at the time, there was still this vague fear of it being kind of illegal, and people, the sites, I, basically, I had no clue where to meet the other cyclists. So, I'm looking around, looking around, looking around. Finally, I mean, it's a moment of delight, you see another naked cyclist, and you're like, "Fantastic, great, we're all here, I'm doing something proper." So, I meet up with them, and we're all outside the hills, and they're like, "Oh, we do this little cycle to Ballard first, and then we come around," and I'm going, "I don't know

• 44:45Speaker 07

  what you're talking about, you should live on Capitol Hill, but I'll follow you anywhere." And it was brilliant, it was the year of the World Cup, and a lot of people were in different countries, so the Irish thing, I got a lot of people screaming, "Go Italy!" And I was like, "Yeah, yeah, we're all alike, it's great." And, uh, well, up until recently, but that's another story. So, we're cycling along, leery, and it's great, and we're almost at 15th, and, um, suddenly, that feather boa that I put on my bike is bringing back that quote from The Avengers where they say, "No capes." Turns out, no feather boas either, because I, it got stuck in my chain. And they all keep going, and I'm going, "Wait, wait for me, please wait, please, oh, no."

• 45:26Speaker 07

  And so, I'm there, outside a coffee shop, furiously tearing feathers from my bike chain, fully naked, painting as the Irish flag, as families are getting their morning coffee with their small children, looking at me going, "Oh, isn't that authentic?" And now, all I can do is cycle around the free lard area, which, as I said, I was, I had no clue where I was, and I keep cycling and cycling, and I'm looking for them, no clue where they are. And I would come across random people, and I'd go, "Hello, have you seen a large group of naked cyclists?" And they'd go, "N- no. Just you." Now, this went on for 20 minutes, the longest 20 minutes of my life.

• 46:11Speaker 07

  And yet, I had a little dress, I never put it on, I kept going, I looked endlessly, and finally, I found them, and I had this amazing race, and it was like this amazing justification. I'd been at my lowest low, and I'd found them, and at the very, very, very, very end of the whole thing, I was at PCC, I'd put the dress on, but I had this silver wig, and I was still painted, and I felt a hand on my bum, and I thought, "What the... This is not that time." And I turned around, and there's nobody there, and then I looked down, there's a tiny little person, she was about five, she looks at me, and she goes, "Um, are you real?" And I was like, "Yeah, I'm pretty sure." I mean, it's up for some debate at times, but yeah."

• 46:54Speaker 07

  She goes, "Awesome."

• 47:05Speaker 00

  That was Evie O'Reilly. Evie says that in addition to the Fremont Solstice Parade, she has also appeared naked on a bike in a Flaming Lips video, watching the planets. She says she'd like to give a shout-out to Wayne Coyne for normalizing and empowering nakedity, and poor Russ for helping with that first paint job, and all her friends who have helped in the years since. To see pictures of Evie painted as the Irish flag, and a pineapple, peacock, zebra, and even Jean-Luc Picard of the Starship Enterprise, you can find them all on our website, themoth.org.

• 47:48Speaker 00

  The Moth hosts slams all around the US, in the UK, and in Australia. If you want to throw your name in a hat for a chance to tell a story, you can find out all of the info for cities, dates, and upcoming themes on our website, themoth.org. The Moth finds a lot of storytellers from our Story Slam series, but if you have a story you'd like to share, and there isn't a slam in your area, you can always pitch us. Just go to our website, themoth.org, look for "Tell a Story," and you will find all the info for how to leave a two-minute pitch. That's it for this episode of The Moth Radio Hour.

• 48:29Speaker 00

  We hope you'll join us next time, and that's the story from The Moth.

• 48:44Speaker 05

  This episode of The Moth Radio Hour was produced by me, Jay Allison, Catherine Burns, Meg Bowles, and Samuel James, who also hosted the hour. Co-producer is Vicky Merrick. Associate producer, Emily Couch. Education program and grand slam coaching by Michelle Jalowski and Larry Rosen. The rest of The Moth's leadership team includes Sarah Haberman, Sarah Austin Janess, Jennifer Hickson, Kate Tellers, Jennifer Birmingham, Marina Kluch, Leanne Gully, Suzanne Rust, Brandon Grant, Inga Gledowski, Sarah Jane Johnson, and Aldi Casa. Moth stories are true, as remembered and affirmed by the storytellers. Our theme music is by The Drift.

• 49:25Speaker 05

  Other music in this hour from Stellwagen Symphonette and Epidemic Sound. Podcast music production support from Davey Sumner. 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.