Host: Meg Bowles
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Meg: [00:00:13] This is The Moth Radio Hour. I'm Meg Bowles. And today, we're taking you to London for a live Mainstage show.
Now, imagine you're sitting in a darkened gothic revival style church. The sun is setting through the stained-glass windows, candles illuminate the eaves, the wooden pews are packed and the energy is buzzing as our audience awaits an evening of stories on theme of taking a leap and going all in. Live from the Union Chapel in London, here's your host for the evening, actor, comedian and writer, Tiff Stevenson.
[cheers and applause]
Tiff: [00:00:49] How beautiful. Welcome to The Moth.
[cheers and applause]
Tiff: [00:00:54] Hello, I'm your host, Tiff Stevenson. I'm local and cheap. [audience laughter] Also, a sexually confident woman in my 40s. Yeah. [audience laughter] The men are like frightening. [audience laughter] People are frightened of sexually confident women in their 40s. It's what I went as for Halloween last year. [audience laughter] People were like “Hideous. Kill it.” Who's been to The Moth before? Let me hear you cheer.
[cheers and applause]
Okay. A few of you, about half, I would say. If you've never been to The Moth, let me tell you about The Moth. It's nonprofit. Excellent. It's storytelling. It's first-person storytelling. And we have storytellers coming up tonight telling true stories, personal stories from their lives, because The Moth believes that building community and empathy through storytelling is more important than ever before.
[cheers and applause]
I think that's a beautiful sentiment. The storytellers will use notes, no cheat sheets. We have three stories. This is how it's going to run. Tell you how the night's going to go. We have three stories and a break where you can go to the bar.
[cheers and applause]
Yeah. See, that's how you know you're in the UK and not America's. People will cheer going to the bar [audience laughter] as a part of the evening. [chuckles] And tonight's theme for the show is All In. That's theme for tonight's show. Stories about going all in. Like, the time I went to Paris, I went all in on mezcal. [audience laughter] I drank a lot of it. In fact, I was still throwing up on the way to the Eurostar, the next day. I walked up to the desk having done a little puke in a bin. I'm very classy. Let's get that out of the way. As I walked up to the desk, the man behind the check in counter said, “Is it contagious?” [audience laughter] I said, “Sorry. What?” He said, “What is making you sick? Is it contagious?” And I had to say, “No, I did this to myself.” [audience laughter] It’s Beautiful, beautiful.
So, as I introduce our storytellers tonight, I like to Introduce them with a little bit of a question to get you into the mood and the vibe of the evening. And because it's me, I've asked a question about fashion. I like to know when our storytellers have gone all in on fashion. I've gone all in on fashion plenty of times. There was the time I bought fingerless gloves and thought they were a good idea. [audience laughter] Yes, exactly. Fingerless gloves, not a good idea. Not combined with a shawl [audience laughter] in London when it's foggy. [audience laughter]
As I said, I asked everyone a question before this. And our first storyteller said, when she went all in on fashion, she said, “I have to dress up for work. I work with families in museums. In the last few weeks, I've been a pirate, a spider, a very sweaty anteater and a spunky squirrel.” [audience laughter] Okay, so strap yourselves in and get ready. And please welcome to the stage, The Moth stage, our very first storyteller, Kate Oliver.
[cheers and applause]
Kate: [00:04:09] I was frozen with fear. I couldn't move a muscle, as he lifted the gun up to point at my face and he said, “Pow.” Now, I'd never been paintballing before. [audience laughter] I never wanted to go paintballing. I'd never expected to go paintballing. The only reason I was there was it was my friend's 30th birthday and he'd got the tickets as a present. And this in itself was surprising, because neither he nor I, nor the two people we'd gone with were the type. We are friends from being in the same gay show choir together. [audience laughter] So, our only previous engagement in sport together was choreography to Tina Turner songs. [audience laughter] I feel it really summed up our expectations of the event that he ended the invitation with, “I hope they have pink paint.”
When we arrived, it was not as we'd expected. We got dressed up in these kind of camouflage onesies, like the big jumpsuits, and we walked down into this basement arena for round one. Now, round one is where you're just with your friends. So, it's just the four of us, and you're trying to work out how it all works and what to do. We're in this huge arena. It's about the size of a football pitch. It's all underground. It's totally dark in there. There’s these big black and neon shapes, these abstract shapes, that you're meant to of dive behind to hide and shoot. And it's totally black and there's techno music playing. So, it's silly. It's silly there.
And we treat it like it's silly. We start shooting each other or trying to. We're rolling around on the floor. We're doing movie scenes with each other. And all this lasts right up until the point that one of us actually hits someone else. Because paintballs hurt. Paintballs bruise. Paintballs can break the skin if you're getting too close. And this is when our silliness started to turn to fear, because we knew that after this, we were going into round two. And in round two, you're not with your friends anymore. You're with groups of strangers.
As we walked up the stairs back to the waiting room, we saw all these groups of strangers, all taking it much more seriously than we were, including this group of eight teenage boys. [audience laughter] About 15 or 16 years old, one of whom raised his gun up to point at me. Now, if you haven't been to paintball before, there are two groups of people there. One is this group of teenage boys. They go every weekend. The staff know their names. They've brought their own guns. [audience laughter] You can bring your own guns to paintball. They are there to prey on the weak. [audience laughter]
And the second group of people, the weak, [audience laughter] we are a bunch of gays who've just realized we're there for their target practice. [audience laughter] But the reason I froze up so badly when this happened was not because I'm afraid of paint. This came from a far more primal place. I was flashing back to when I was this teenager's age, about 15 years old. And in school, the most terrifying thing in the world to me was teenage boys. I was the weird, androgynous, nerdy kid in the class. You probably remember the weird, androgynous, nerdy kid in your class. If you've wondered how they're doing, we're fine, I'm fine. Thanks. [audience laughter]
I had this big frizzy hair, like swept straight back. I had these thick glasses on. I would walk around the edge of the playground on my own every break time with my head down, carrying my briefcase. [audience laughter] Kids would shout stuff at me and they'd throw stuff at me. Once in class, they banged on the window and shouted stuff. A couple of kids came to my house one time. So, it got pretty bad. And so, my main memory of being 12 to 15 is just feeling so tense all the time, and just feeling like a target, and wanting to hide and just wanting to disappear.
And so, in that waiting room, in that space, when this teenager raised that gun, I was the exact same person. I was terrified. I was so frozen. I was ashamed. I felt so embarrassed. I knew that in a minute my friends would notice that I was afraid of this child, and they'd be ashamed of me too. But as I panicked, something shifted. He lowered the gun and he suddenly looked really confused. He suddenly looked very young. And he said to me, “Miss, did you bring a cockroach to my school?” [audience laughter] And I did. I did. I did. [audience laughter]
I used to work in the London Zoo Schools outreach program, [audience laughter] and it was my job to go around schools and teach kids about endangered species and about habitats. We would bring animals from the zoo with us. Not the wild animals like the lions and tigers, but snakes and lizards and ferrets and giant insects, like these rainforest cockroaches. The cockroaches, by the way, are particularly cute animals. His name was Charlie. He was very sweet. This job was exactly as awesome as you are imagining right now. [chuckles]
We would drive up to a primary school, and the kids would see the van out the window, and they'd all be going, “The zoo's here. The zoo's here.” And then, we'd walk into the classroom or the assembly and we'd be like, “Is everybody excited?” And they'd be like, “Yes.” [audience laughter] It was like being a celebrity. [chuckles] And the first day, I went to a secondary school where the teenagers are. I was definitely nervous, because teenagers, as you know, are not allowed to like things and are not allowed to show that they're enjoying something. So, when we went in, there was stony silence. But then, we got out the snake and one of the kids was really scared. But then she touched it, and it wasn't slimy like she imagined. And then she asked a question, and then they were all asking questions and they were laughing and having fun. I just got to be that cool, popular person that I didn't get to be in school.
And though this job was so important to me and these experiences were so big for me, I don't ever expect one of these kids to remember me after this day. Like, I'm always just going to be this vague memory of like, the day the zoo lady came to school, you know? Like, you probably remember when the animal person came to school, right? If you've wondered how they're doing, I'm fine. We're fine. [audience laughter] Thanks so much.
But this time, this one time, I got recognized outside of work. This would change everything, because this teenager, he leaned over to his friends and he told them who I was, and they all started going, “Oh, my God, it's zoo lady. Zoo lady. Zoo lady's here. Zoo lady's here.” They were talking about the ferret and they thought it was going to bite them, but then it didn't. It was soft. They were so excited and they had such a good day and we were all suddenly laughing. When we walked down into that arena for round two, it was like we had eight personal bodyguard snipers [audience laughter] next to us. [audience applause]
We walked into that arena. We were haphazardly diving behind the cardboard boxes. They took up strategic positions and they were picking off people I couldn't even see [audience laughter] at the other end of the room. Nobody got near us that day. We walked out of there completely paint free, apart from the accidental shots, we'd hit each other and ourselves. [audience laughter] And it was amazing. It was amazing. It was so amazing to feel like I was that terrified kid inside. I was still there, but the people around me, they just saw me now and they just accepted that.
And now, today, I still work with young people. I'd be lying if I said I didn't still sometimes get that jolt of terror when a young person says or does something that sparks a memory for me. But now I know that I can breathe, and I can accept it and I can move on. Because I know now, I am still that scared kid. I'm still that same person. But I'm not just that kid anymore. I'm zoo lady. [audience laughter] Thank you.
[cheers and applause]
Meg: [00:13:47] Ah, yes. What an opener. How fantastic. Give it up once more for Kate Oliver. Well done.
[cheers and applause]
Kate Oliver has all the coolest jobs. She's an educator in environmental charities, museums and zoos, and a psychotherapy student. She spends her free time running the Radical Rest project, encouraging people to have more rest. And she says she absolutely sees the irony in this.
She's only been paintballing one other time since her first adventure. And she said once again she encountered a gaggle of teenage boys, but this time, she and her friends got their butts kicked.
We'll bring you more of this special live hour from London, when The Moth Radio Hour continues.
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Jay: [00:15:12] The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.
Meg: [00:15:19] This is The Moth Radio Hour. I'm Meg Bowles. And today, we're bringing you a live show from Union Chapel in London. The theme of the night was All in. And your host is Tiff Stevenson.
[cheers and applause]
Tiff: [00:15:32] So, moving on to our next storyteller. When I asked him about the time he went all in on fashion, he said “Two words. JNCO jeans.” I said, “I didn't know what they were.” And he said “They were balloon jeans, the hugest, overly large jeans you could wear.” I said, “Enough said, I get it. I get the visual.” Please welcome to The Moth stage, Navied Mahdavian.
[cheers and applause]
Navied: [00:16:08] My wife, Emily and I, we were on our land for the first time. We were trying to figure out where our tiny house would soon go, which was more difficult than we had anticipated, because looking around, there weren't any reference points. It's just land for miles. Sagebrush and dust for as far as we could see. It was the first time I'd ever been able to say my land. I remember that day saying it over and over and over and over again. As I'd say it, I focused on the way it sounded. I exaggerated the motion of my lips and my mouth, “My land.” Emily said, “Stop doing that.” [audience laughter]
It's 2016, and Trump has just been elected. And so, I did what any reasonable Middle Eastern American could do at the time. I moved to the middle of nowhere America. And not just anywhere, cowboy country. We had visited the state of Idaho the summer before on a whim, and immediately, we had fallen in love with its mountains, its landscape, its real estate prices. [audience laughter] And so, we bought six acres in one of its most remote areas, sight unseen. We made the decision to move from San Francisco, epicenter of American liberalism, to Mackay, Idaho, population, 500 cowboys. [audience laughter] But we could own a tiny house, we could maybe start a family and most importantly, we could both pursue our dreams of becoming artists.
Before moving, I had been a fifth-grade teacher. But what I really wanted to do was to be a New Yorker cartoonist. I know what you're thinking, if you want to become a New Yorker cartoonist, move as far away from New York as possible. Makes sense. But what I've learned about being a cartoonist is you have to see the world askew. You have to, in order to poke fun at things, to make connections other people can't see. Mackay, Idaho, was perfect for this, because everything felt slightly askew, particularly for a city boy like me, who knew nothing about farming or ranching. For example, it took me two years to realize that all chaps are, in fact, assless. [audience laughter]
So, for the first year, we mostly kept to ourselves, which was easy to do, because technically we were like 20 minutes outside of town, past the farmers for Trump flags and the Make America Great Again welcome sign. And of course, there was the occasional stare that went on too long, which may or may not have been because of the complexion of my skin, and the occasional pointed question like, “You're not a Muslim, are you?” which was definitely because of the complexion of my skin. But when we actually made it into town, people were usually really welcoming, and they were kind and we got some of that small town charm that we had moved there for in the first place.
On one of these trips into town, we were buying groceries, stocking up for a couple of weeks. Emily stopped outside of the movie theater in town, and she lingered a little longer than usual. The theater had been closed on and off for, like, 10 years. It has this beautiful art deco marquee that's like a homing device, particularly for somebody like Emily, who is a filmmaker. So, on this particular day, she drops her groceries and she has her hands in her face, plastered against the glass. I could almost hear the gears whirring.
As my arms are getting increasingly tired, I'm getting increasingly nervous, because if you can imagine a graph where the X-axis is the length of time that Emily spends quietly thinking, and the Y-axis is how much trouble we're going to be in. [audience laughter] This would have been off the charts. And so, as soon as I saw her smile in the reflection, I knew that was that, we were going to reopen the movie theater. [audience laughter]
On the drive home, she explained that this is what we can do for the town. We don't know anything about farming or ranching, but what we do know is movies and art. And now, I'm excited at the thought, because if this was going to be our home, we needed some way to give back to the community, to become known entities, real members. Instead of being that terrorist, which is something somebody had called me, I could instead be that movie theater terrorist. [audience laughter]
And so, we started up an arts council, which allowed us to rent theater for cheap. We found and refurbished the original 1940s popcorn machine. And I rallied the community to help us clean up the movie theater, our community, which is something I hadn't been able to say before. I remember saying it over and over and over again. And as I'd say, they'd focus on the way it sounds, “Our community.” Emily said, “Stop doing that.” [audience laughter] And so, we reopened theater.
The morning of opening night, I was having a cup of coffee in the local coffee/bait/taco/beer shop. [audience laughter] As I'm sipping my coffee, I'm imagining the thunderous applause that we're obviously going to receive after the movie that night. Standing ovation, cowboy hats being thrown high into the air. [audience laughter] When my neighbor at the counter, he asks me a question. He's an older cowboy, and his breath was hot with coffee and his handlebar mustache was glistening with sticky bun. He leans in and he asks “You're not trying to bring that Boise, Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, artsy-fartsy, social justice warrior crap here, are you?” [audience laughter]
I'm actually ready for this question, because Emily and I, we know our audience. And I respond confidently, “No, we're actually showing an indie Western.” And he asks “John Wayne?” And I said, “No, Robert Pattinson, the Twilight guy.” [audience laughter] And so, blank stare, he says, “You should show John Wayne.” [audience laughter] That night, it's opening night, I'm too nervous to sit in theater with everyone. And so, I stood outside of the auditorium. And the theater was packed that night. Some people came on dates, some people came alone, everybody had popcorn. As I stood, I thought about how some people even took selfies of themselves with the tickets underneath the glow of the marquee, which was now on illuminating main street.
And so, the movie starting, and I lean into the curtains because even if I can't watch it, I at least want to listen to it and enjoy it. I hear the words from the movie, there's a gang-bang social tonight. And so, I'm grasping the curtains-- I should say at this point, it's an important part of the story that I actually didn't have a chance to watch the movie before showing it. So, by the time Robert Pattinson was masturbating a quarter of the way through the film, [audience laughter] I was laying horizontally on the ground, carpeting pressed against my cheek. I could actually hear audible groans coming from theater at this point, but that just may have been the sound of Robert Pattinson achieving completion. [audience laughter]
So, after the movie, needless to say, I raced into the lobby and I tried as much as I could not to make eye contact with anyone [audience laughter] as they shuffled out of theater, their eyes wide, their cowboy hats pressed tightly against their chest, and I really believed if I just don't move, if I stand perfectly still, maybe nobody will be able to see me. Kind of like that scene with the T. Rex in Jurassic Park. Not a super auspicious start.
A question we got a lot after that was, “Are you going to show new movies?” These were new movies, just indie movies that nobody had heard of. We couldn't show big budget films, because we couldn't afford to. But that's not why we had opened theater in the first place. That's not what we wanted to do. We really believed if we show good movies, we can earn the community's trust, our community's trust, even if we were showing subtitled documentaries about whale hunting in the Faroe Islands. [audience laughter] If you build it, they will come, became our mantra, but no one came.
Night after night, I'd flip the switch on in theater and it would reveal maybe one, maybe two people in the auditorium. And so, we relented. We showed John Wayne, [audience laughter] and everybody came. They really loved John Wayne. I remember getting swept up in the excitement and I decided that this time I'll sit in theater with everyone. We show the movie, The Quiet Man, which if you haven't seen it's, a classic story, boy moves back to Ireland, boy meets girl, boy meets girl’s brother, boy fights girl's brother and in the end, everyone is happy and friends for life. It's a movie I've seen many times and I've enjoyed it every time I've seen it.
But watching it that night in that town, in that theater, the screen framed by the silhouettes of cowboy hats, watching John Wayne physically drag and shove Maureen O'Hara, the five miles back from the train station. It felt different. And I'm a fan of John Ford, and I actually love John Wayne and it is just a movie, but it has this idealized past that masks misogyny, deeply conservative values, and it felt just like the town itself. They came, and they laughed and they saw themselves reflected back, but I didn't.
Even after showing John Wayne Star Wars and other fan favorites, things didn't really improve for the. A lot of my conversations with Emily at the time turned to the question of, should we even be doing something that nobody wants? It didn't help that theater was impossible in the winter to keep warm. I joke that we can maybe buy our one customer one big coat. [audience laughter]
And so, most nights I spent by myself in theater drawing cartoons, bundled up in my big coat, the sound from the movie playing to an empty auditorium. One of these lonely nights, this older cowboy walks in, someone we had affectionately nicknamed Racist Dave. [audience laughter] Racist Dave walks in and he asks for his nightly popcorn. As I'm buttering his popcorn, he sits down and he told me a little bit about the history of the place that I didn't know. For example, underneath the movie theater had once been a gambling hall. And across the street above the bar had been a brothel into the 1960s. Again, cowboy country.
As I hand racist Dave back his popcorn, he says almost to himself, lots of history in this place. And that word stayed with me. History. It was easy to feel nostalgic in theater. The art deco marquee outside, it evoked simpler times. I wondered, maybe that's what brought Emily and me there in the first place, this sense of nostalgia, this desire for something simpler. And it also occurred to me that maybe Racist Dave and I had more in common than I had previously thought, apart from the casual racism. But I now know that nothing is ever that simple.
In 2019, our daughter Elika was born. Emily and I made the tough decision to leave our small town and move back to the big city. As much as we had tried to become members of the community, sometimes something just isn't a fit, like a vegetarian joining a local hunting club, which I also have a funny story about. [audience laughter]
On our last trips into town, Emily continued to linger outside of theater, but the theater felt different. It felt smaller now. And for a while, the community, actually, they kept the marquee on, but the smell of popcorn was gone. After we closed theater for good, we learned that back in the old days when film was still shown on print, reels were smuggled in from this wealthy town over the mountain, and that allowed our town to watch movies without licensing them. So, for free. In its entire history, theater had never been viable, which was fitting and also kind of romantic.
And looking back, I think that maybe that's what it takes to be an artist, to be a dreamer and a risk taker and a little naive. But you have to try something to see if it works. And if it doesn't, well, you get out of dodge and you try again. Thank you.
[cheers and applause]
Tiff: [00:29:16] Navied Mahdavian.
[cheers and applause]
Fantastic. If you don't know, The Moth is an independent arts organization supported by members and generous donations. And if you want to find out more about workshops in schools, other events and workspaces, please visit themoth.org. Let's have one more round of applause for our storytellers.
[cheers and applause]
Meg: [00:29:45] Navied Mahdavian is a cartoonist and writer whose work has appeared in the New Yorker since 2018. He's the author and illustrator of the graphic memoir, This Country: Searching for Home in (Very) Rural America. Since leaving his tiny house in Idaho behind, Navied and his family have now settled outside of London, and he continues to poke fun at the things he sees slightly askew.
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Coming up, more from our live Mainstage show at the Union Chapel in London, when The Moth Radio Hour continues.
Jay: [00:30:53] The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.
Meg: [00:31:00] This is The Moth Radio Hour. I'm Meg Bowles. You're listening to a Mainstage event we produced in London at the historic Union Chapel. And here's your host, Tiff Stevenson.
Tiff: [00:31:10] I said I'm in my 40s. I'm a very sexy age now. I'm the kind of age where if I turn down an alcoholic drink at the bar, people are like, “Oh, are you-- Is she on antibiotics?” [audience laughter] Because they want to know, sometimes I order a cranberry juice just for an air of sexual mystery, [audience laughter] to keep it fresh and exciting.
I'll tell you how you can tell that you're middle aged when you start buying your clothes in places that also sell food. [audience laughter] Yeah. That would be my fashion all in. I like it, because if I can double down on a pair of shorts and some chicken wings, I'm barbecue ready. That's me. I'm good to go. Just those little signs.
So, I asked our final storyteller tonight the same question that I've asked all the others, tell me about a time you went all in for fashion. And she said, “When I was 21 years old, I went to Jamaica for the first time to discover my roots and heritage. We were going to a party on the beach, and I decided that my outfit should be maybe the shortest booty shorts with the word Jamaica emblazoned across them [audience laughter] and a top with Jamaica emblazoned across it in case anyone had forgotten whereabouts in the world we were. [audience laughter]
I hopped into the taxi to head to the party. When we got five minutes away, I made him turn back and take me home [audience laughter] because I lost all confidence in it.” So, please welcome our final storyteller for this evening to The Moth stage, are you ready? [audience laughter] Catherine, I've just realized that I've not written your surname, but I know what it is. It's Catherine Joy White. Please welcome her.
[laughs and applause]
Catherine: [00:33:18] So, the first time I went swimming, I was five years old. I was bouncing in my car seat with this untamable excitement. And it felt like freedom. So, we pulled up in the car park, and I made my way to this leisure center, taking in its bright lights and these loud voices and this sharp tang of chlorine. It's a leisure center right in rural East Midlands. But to me, it felt like Disneyland. I got in there, and I got changed in the cubicle and I made my way to the edge of the pool, taking extra care to walk, not run, even though every single part of me-- I didn't want to run, I wanted to fly. And when I got in that water for the first time, that's exactly what it felt like. I swam whenever and wherever I could. Lakes, the swimming lessons I learned to snorkel and then later to scuba dive, because that wasn't enough. I just loved it.
But then, fast forward 10 years, and that childhood jubilation has become locked in a prison of my teenage body. So, puberty is happening, and the thought of stripping down, much like the Jamaican booty shorts in a swimsuit every week, was a form of fresh hell. And it wasn't just these changes to my body, but I also relaxed my hair at that time to make it really straight, because that was the cool thing to do. And of course, relaxer is destroyed the moment water goes anywhere near it. But if I didn't relax my hair, then not only would I be ridiculed at school, but my swimming cap wouldn't fit over my afro. So, I was in a lose-lose situation.
I became really disillusioned and miserable with it all. I looked around and I thought, “There's no one here who looks like me. I don't fit here.” So, I stopped. Swimming's not for me. In January 2020, just as the earliest strains of coronavirus were being reported at the bottom of our weekly news cycle, I unexpectedly lost my uncle Delroy. And it was so unexpected that when I got that news, all I could say was, “What?” Because we'd just been together at Christmas, which was 10 days earlier. We'd had the annual Christmas quiz, and he'd been quizmaster, and we'd had this big argument about Stormzy, of all things. He helmed our family since we'd lost our grandfather. So, it just made no sense to me that he was no longer there.
And I fell apart, I think my family fell apart and then weeks later, we're in a global pandemic, the world fell apart. I developed this sort of thing that was just pushing down on my chest. And at every moment, I felt like I was looking behind, looking over my shoulder, just waiting for this next bad thing to happen, because something bad was happening, I was sure of it. But then, I would try and reassure myself I'm a positive person, “No, no, no, you're fine. You're absolutely fine, because the worst possible thing has already happened.” So, okay, deep breaths.
And then, in January 2021, one year later, I got a message in a group chat with my friends. I still remember this really surreal detail of an apology for the way the message was being conveyed, not for the actual message itself. And the message said that my friend Simon had ended his life by suicide. Well, I couldn't utter the word what this time, because it was beyond all comprehension, so I just paused. I wanted to scream, but I couldn't because this thing was weighing deeper and deeper on my chest. And in lockdown, there was no other option available to me, so I walked.
I walked every day and I passed this lake. It became quite intriguing to me. It was vast and mysterious and imposing, and I went back to it again and again and again. And one day, I stopped at this lake and looked at it. I just thought, I've got to get in. It was an icy English January, so there wasn't really anyone else around, but I still have my teenage fears in the back of my head. So, I glanced in the bushes, made sure there was no creepy stalker lurking and stripped off my clothes, bra and pants, and I got in. Oh, my God, it was freezing, [audience laughter] like a thousand needles stabbing every single inch of my body, freezing. But as I gasped for breath and tried to remember those motions, I'd been taught all those years earlier, I felt something.
So, I went back the next morning, in proper swimsuit this time, and I felt it again. I went back again the next day and the next, and days turned into weeks. And one day, I'm in this routine and I'm swimming, and something happened with that same thing and it came up and up and up and up and I just started to sob. I don't know if anyone's actually experienced the feeling of crying in a body of water before, but it's actually quite hard to stay afloat. [audience laughter] So, I was panicking and swam to the shore, because I didn't want to drown. I got to the shore and I sat with my arms around my knees and I cried like a baby. But I knew in that moment I'd found something with this swimming.
I carried on and carried on and the weather was getting a bit warmer. And one day, there I am headphones in walking to the lake and there's this woman in my spot. [audience laughter] I'm looking at her thinking, this is my place, this is my space. I spend my life making polite chit-chat conversations with older people. I just want to swim. So, I got in the water and swam as quickly as possible and got out, so I wouldn't have to speak to her whilst we got dressed. She's there smiling at me all kind and nice. And I just thought, leave me alone.
Came back the next morning, there she is again, smiling. Instead of feeling this childhood jubilation of the five-year-old, I just felt like a five-year-old, this is my space. Why are you invading it? And every morning that week, same time, same place, there she is. And I started to just feel trapped. Anyway, one morning, we swim, we're out same time, getting dressed as usual, and she offers me a slice of lemon cake, homemade. So, obviously, I thought to myself, I'm going to have to eat this, aren't I? [audience laughter]
I gritted my teeth preparing for this polite conversation about the weather or something that I really didn't want to have. But weirdly, she didn't seem to want to talk to me, she didn't seem to want to disturb me and we just sat and ate the cake in peace and went home. I began to grow quite accustomed to her presence. It felt really nice. We didn't bother each other. We were both just there, doing our thing separately, but together.
And then, one morning, I came up to the lake and she wasn't there. And the next morning, she wasn't there again. And I looked for her. I looked for her every morning that week, but she didn't come back. I felt that thing in my chest again coming up as I wondered what was happening to her. I didn't even know her name. And she didn't come back. So, I did the only thing I knew how to do, I kept swimming.
One day, I walk up to the lake and she's back. So, I'm smiling at her first this time, probably like a weirdo, because I was so happy to see her. And the next morning, probably like everyone here, I'd got into baking during lockdown, and I brought her a slice of banana bread and we shared that by the edge of the lake together. She told me that she had buried her husband and described the socially distanced funeral broadcast over Zoom and the goodbye that she hadn't said. It was the strangest feeling, because I was listening to her, and she's 40 years older than me, and she's German and I've tried with all my might not to like her, but we so intrinsically understood each other.
I spoke to her about my uncle and about Simon. She didn't ask how he did it, or was he depressed or any of those questions that I'd become really resistant to hearing. She just listened without need for any explanation. I realized we've both come filled with sadness to this lake. Spring turns into summer, and we keep swimming and now we're not just in the fair-weather territory. We've got other swimmers coming in, so we welcome them into our weird gang of [chuckles] misfits. We slowly all swim together. We have a WhatsApp group. And you message in it and see when you want to go for a swim and there's always someone to swim with. I began to realize actually we're all in this strange place of coming to the water, because we're looking for some form of connection.
Now, I left that house which was in Oxford, and that lake. I moved to London last summer and I don't swim every day anymore. I think I don't need it in that same visceral way. But every time I'm back in the water, I still feel that childhood excitement and I feel that first icy dip and I feel that sacred ritual of the time when I swam every morning, because it kept me here, and I especially feel the healing that I found in the kindness of a stranger.
[cheers and applause]
Tiff: [00:44:08] Catherine Joy White, everyone.
[cheers and applause]
It was so funny. I met everyone yesterday for the first time, and I think I didn't write Catherine's full name down on my card because I was like, “Oh, I just know her.” [audience laughter] So, Catherine also has a film out based around this story. And it's in festivals and it's storming and winning awards, so you should definitely check that out. Just smashing it.
[cheers and applause]
Meg: [00:44:40] Catherine Joy White is an award-winning actor, filmmaker, author, activist, gender equality expert and CEO of Kusini Productions. She's the author of This Thread of Gold: A Celebration of Black Womanhood and the book, Rebel Takes: On the Future of Food. You can find out more about Catherine and her film that Tiff mentioned, as well as info about all the storytellers you've heard in this hour on our website, themoth.org.
Tiff: [00:45:07] All that's left for me to say really. Now, we've heard all our stories is thank you to you, the audience, because the storytelling literally can't happen without an audience. So, thank you to you, guys. Otherwise, we're just one person in a room telling a sad, lonely tale to ourselves. So, give yourselves a round of applause.
[cheers and applause]
Sharing stories has to involve an audience. I think it's how we connect. It's how we find our humanity. It's how we reach out to each other, find understanding, empathy, learn, get new ideas. And so, this is the first ever Moth I've hosted and I hope it's not the last, but I've absolutely loved this evening. So, thank you. I've been Tiff Stevenson. I hope you've enjoyed me as well. We're going to give it up. I want to give it up for storytelling in all its forms. It's fantastic.
[cheers and applause]
Meg: [00:46:10] As Tiff mentioned, this was her first time hosting The Moth. But what she didn't say is that she's an internationally acclaimed actor, comedian and writer. Her credits are far too many to mention. But you can find out more about her on Instagram, @tiffstevensoncomic, and on our website, themoth.org.
And if you happen to have a story you're itching to tell, why not pitch us on our website, look for tell a story and you'll find all the information you need to leave us a two-minute pitch.
Thomas: [00:46:39] My name is Thomas Kramer. I want to tell you all a story called celebrity for the day. Back in April, my buddies and I conducted a real telling social experiment. We convinced an entire mall that I was a famous celebrity, not a celebrity impersonator, but that my real self, Thomas Elliot, which is my first and middle name was there.
I surrounded myself with a real attention drawing entourage, but nonchalant and much like a real entourage would be. And then we had staged some ordinary mall goers who recognized me as fans throughout the mall. We picked this focal meeting point, a busy part of the mall where everyone would collapse on me to create a bit of a frenzy-- and a frenzy is what was created.
That day, I literally signed hundreds of autographs, took almost as many pictures. Grown women were handing me their children. People were telling me that I was their favorite actor of all time. Well, security called on about 10 minutes later and we thought were going to get kicked out of the mall when security and local police showed up. They said to us, “For your own protection, we need to provide you all with a private security escort.” So, we proceed to shut down the Apple store and Victoria's Secret, some of the most popular stores in the mall. And this aesthetic that the security was creating just really made it go overboard.
We ended up shooting a video. We took some video from iPhone, we put it on the internet. And four days later, the video had a million views, and there was something like 10,000 tweets about Thomas Elliot. This social experiment really spoke to so many social themes. It was a remarkable day I'll never forget, and I would love to tell you all more about it. Thanks so much.
[whimsical music]
Meg: [00:48:30] Remember, you can pitch us at 877-799-MOTH. That's 877-799-MOTH. Or, online at themoth.org. Or, you can also share the stories you heard in this hour or others from The Moth Archive.
[light hearted music]
That's it for this episode. We hope you'll join us again next time.
[overture theme]
Jay: [00:49:19] This episode of The Moth Radio Hour was produced by me, Jay Allison and Meg Bowles, who also hosted and directed the stories in the show. Coproducer is Viki Merrick. Associate producer, Emily Couch.
The rest of The Moth's leadership team includes Sarah Haberman, Christina Norman, Sarah Austin Jenness, Jenifer Hixson, Kate Tellers, Marina Klutse, Lee Ann Gullie, Suzanne Rust, Sarah Jane Johnson and Aldi Kaza.
Special thanks, by the way, to the taxi driver who found our host, Tiff Stevenson's phone in the back of his cab and, like a hero, returned it to her just before showtime.
Moth Stories are true as remembered and affirmed by the storytellers. Our theme music is by the Drift. Other Music in this hour from Rhiannon Giddens, Charles Berthoud and Melina Paxinos. 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 Audacy, including executive producer, Leah Reis-Dennis. For more about our podcast, for information on pitching us your own song story and everything else, go to our website, themoth.org.