Grocery Trips and Italian Trysts

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Go back to Grocery Trips and Italian Trysts Episode. 
 

Host: Michelle Jalowski

 

 

Female Speaker: [00:00:00] Calling all educators. Join The Moth this summer for the Virtual Moth Teacher Institute. MTI is for 5th to 12th grade teachers, whether you're looking to fine tune your strategies or a curious newcomer eager to learn more about Moth storytelling. Picture this. A new community of teachers all over the country, vibrant discussions, live storytelling shows, access to Moth curriculum and so much more. MTI will take place from July 14th to the 18th. Applications close on June 8th. Visit themoth.org/mti to apply today. 

 

Michelle: [00:00:33] I'm Michelle Jalowski. This is The Moth. Right now, we're in Boston, a city where over 1,675 people have gone on stage and told a Moth story. Here's one of those tellers, Julie Baker. 

 

[cheers and applause] 

 

Julie: [00:00:50] When I hear the doorbell ring, I think, seriously? [sighs] 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. 

 

I didn't seek out a blind coach. I didn't know that blindness was a sport that required a coach. But when my neuro ophthalmologist 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.” 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. 

 

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.” 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. I saw the cane and I said, “Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm not doing that. I'm not that kind of blind. I get around just fine.” 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 going to follow you around with duct tape?” I thought that was a little rude. [audience laughter] 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 going to 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 talk to this woman, and we're very, very different. I call her. She's funny. She tells me some funny stories about Jill, which I appreciate. [audience laughter] She also thinks Jill doesn't have much of a sense of humor. [audience laughter] She tells me everything changed when she named her blind cane. She named him Stanley. She introduced him to children in her classroom. She was a teacher. 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, “Ah, yeah, I don't think so. Because if I were to name the blind cane at this point, his name would be fucking dickhead.” [audience laughter] And then, I fell in the street. I wasn't using fucking dickhead. [audience laughter] 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 made it buckle. I tripped and I fell and it was hard. I ripped my pants, my knee was bleeding and I was laying there on the sidewalk. I was embarrassed. It hurt. 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.” And we did. We took the train and we walked upstairs. I still was not happy. I didn't like that I needed the goddamn blind cane. I was going to 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 [audience laughter] and I'm probably just trying to ride for free. 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, no. There's this thing called Instacart. I don't have to do that. And if I want to 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?” [sighs] 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. I'm angry and it's raining, but I did it. I asked for things that I couldn't find. When I left the store, the sun came out, and I said to Jill, “I'm okay on my own from here.” I snapped my cane open like a Jedi lightsaber [audience laughter] and I went home with everything on my list. 

 

[cheers and applause] 

 

Michelle: [00:08:15] 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. 

 

Welcome back. Up next, we'll find some unlikely lessons in the most unlikely place of all, a dating app. Hanna Bowens told this at a New York StorySLAM, where the theme was Deal Breakers. Here's Hanna, live at The Moth. 

 

[cheers and applause] 

 

Hanna: [00:09:14] Thanks. So, I turned 30 at the beginning of this year. [audience cheers] 

 

Thank you. I learned that the quickest way out of an identity crisis is sexting an Italian that you met on a hookup app. So, I was living in Chicago, he was in Rome. We'll call him Luca. Very quickly, my daily flirting-- virtual flirting conversations with Luca became like the best part of my day. We were exchanging dirty text, photos, voice notes, you name it. I had never done anything like this before, but I loved it because when I was talking to Luca, I wasn't this sad, depressed, anxious, over thinker who was struggling to function. I was confident. I was sexy. I knew exactly what I wanted and I was someone worth wanting. 

 

I tried to take things slow. So, I waited eight weeks before I got on a plane to Italy [audience laughter] to meet Luca. I spent the entire plane ride-- I should have been learning Italian words for like catfishing, help me. [audience laughter] 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 going to be the next great love story or a Netflix documentary about my murder, [audience laughter] that was for fate to decide. [audience laughter] And for anyone wondering, I bought my own flight. I paid my way. It put me into debt. [audience laughter] 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. [audience laughter] 

 

So, I met Luca outside the airport in Rome. We got into his car to drive to Tuscany. 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. My entire body just relaxed in that moment, because you don't bother with road pizza if you're plotting murder. [audience laughter] 

 

So, we pull up to Tuscany, to our rustic villa. It's sunset. If this is all starting to sound like too good to be true, yeah, I thought so too. I just was like, “You know what? That's my inner self saboteur.” I am not going to let that toxic prude ruin this for me. [audience laughter] So, 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 going to see right through you. I felt suddenly really stupid for being there, like kidding myself that I was deserving or capable of this kind of happiness. 

 

So, you know, sexy thoughts, all sexy, [audience laughter] sexy foreplay. At one point, we sit down by the fire. We're on the carpet in front of the fire. 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. Montepulciano, whatever wine. He opens up that. He had lost all of his savings in an investment that went bad earlier that year. He was starting to save up again, but he had moved in with his mom in Rome. I could tell just the shame on his face when he was telling me this was all too familiar. 

 

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. [audience laughter] Depending on your perspective, it could seem very pathetic. But in that moment, it seemed incredibly romantic. [chuckles] 

 

I'm going to save the dirty details of the rest of the weekend for the feature script. But it was great. It was a lot of fun. I left, I went back home and we drifted apart and it 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, confident, playful, fun with a little bit of passion still left. He's still a good friend. I had a really good way to end this, and I just totally blanked on it. I'm sorry. Yeah. Thank you. 

 

[cheers and applause] 

 

Michelle: [00:15:10] That was Hanna Bowens. Hanna'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. 

 

Marc: [00:15:43] 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, Marc Sollinger. 

 

The rest of The Moth’s leadership team includes Sarah Haberman, Christina Norman, Jenifer Hixson, Kate Tellers, Marina Klutse, Suzanne Rust, Lee Ann Gullie and Patricia Ureña. 

 

The Moth Podcast is presented by Audacy. Special thanks to their executive producer, Leah Reis-Dennis. 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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