Host: Jenifer Hixson
[overture music]
Jenifer: [00:00:13] From PRX, this is The Moth Radio Hour. I'm your host, Jenifer Hixson.
In this hour, Hidden Beauty from cosmetic to creative to cosmic. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder or at The Moth in the ear of the listener.
This first story is from someone important to The Moth, our founder, George Dawes Green. Already a celebrated author when he launched The Moth way back in 1997. George has continued writing novels. His most recent one, Kingdoms of Savannah, has a strong connection with the story you're about to hear.
We'll talk with George in a moment, but first, at Benaroya Hall in Washington, where we partner with Seattle Arts & Lectures, here is George Dawes Green.
[applause]
George: [00:01:01] There's a town called Surrency in the backwoods of Georgia, about an hour inland from Brunswick, where I grew up. And Surrency is just a Baptist church, and a holiness church and a gas station. But it was famous in South Georgia, because Surrency had two flashing lights about two blocks apart. So, if you were driving at night on Route 341 about 10 miles out of Surrency, you'd start to see this blinking blink, blink, blink.
You don't know it's two lights, because from here, it looks like one light. But you go a mile and it seems to stretch and it starts going bubbling, bubbling, bubbling, and you just don't know what the hell you're looking at. [audience laughter] Is that aliens? [audience laughter] Is that an alien spacecraft? Am I about to get probed here? [audience laughter]
After about seven or eight miles of this, you begin to get completely hypnotized. And if you don't snap out of it, you'll drive off the road into a pine tree and you'll be just another victim of the famous Surrency lights. [audience laughter]
When I was 19, I got summoned to Surrency. I had dropped out of high school and gone hitchhiking around the country for some years. But now, I was back in Brunswick, and I found a job at the local crisis hotline. Now, those were all the rage back in the early 1970s, because there was a nationwide war on drugs. Our crisis hotline was in this big Victorian house with live oak trees and Spanish moss.
I trained there for a few weeks, so that I could man the telephones. And if anybody was having a bad trip on LSD, I could be their friend. And my bosses were Don and Calvin. They were lovely guys, very mild, but they warned me that I might get some prank calls, but I should never hang up, because sometimes a call will start as a prank. But if you wait, then the caller will start to trust you and might open up about some real problems. So, I had this old-fashioned black telephone with a long cord that I could take out onto the veranda and wait for crises. [audience laughter] But crises didn't come, and I just waited.
I read novels. I read Robert Penn Warren and Flannery O'Connor. I wanted to be a writer, but I felt no inspiration. These were books about fascinating, tormented southerners. All of the people that I knew were mild, like Don and Calvin. So, I just waited. And then, finally, the phone rang and it was a teenage girl. And she said, “I'm having a bad trip.” I was trained to reflect, so I said, “You're having a bad trip?” And she said, “Uh-huh, because there's elves in here.”
I could hear people in the background going [giggling]. And I said, “There's elves.” And she said, “Yeah, and they're laughing at my shoes.” And I said, “They're laughing at your shoes.” And she said, “Uh-huh, because I got them at JCPenney's in the mall and they're ugly,” and she hung up. But about three nights later, she called again. I'll call her Tara. Tara was 17, and she was a high school dropout, like I was, and she lived with her grandmother. She called night after night. No crises. She'd just say, “Hello, my therapist,” mocking the whole therapy thing, and then, she talked.
She complained about boredom, she complained about her grandmother, she'd complain about my accent. She'd say, “Well, how come you don't sound like you're from around here?” And I said, “Well, I hadn't moved to Brunswick until I was 12.” She said, “Are you really going to be a therapist?” I said, “I hope not.” [audience laughter] I said I wanted to be a writer. She said she never read books herself, but she loved stories. And so, I told her the story of this Walker Percy novel that I was reading, The Moviegoer. And she seemed to like that.
She even came by the big Victorian house one night. The doorbell rang, and I opened and there she was with these long, red ringlets and kind of an angular face. And she said, “Hello, my therapist.” I had to tell her that we weren't allowed to have in person visits. She sniffed and floated away. And I told my bosses, Don and Calvin, that Tara made me uncomfortable, because it didn't feel like therapy. But they said I should hang in there, because maybe she was hiding some real pain and she'd open up. So, I hung in there, because I really wanted to do well at this job.
And then, real people started to call with real problems. There was a woman in her 50s named Betty. And she'd just call and weep for hours. But once I asked her, “What she loved?” I can't do her voice, but I will try, because this beautiful, smoky voice, she'd say, “Well, I love my Valium [audience laughter] and I love my Librium and I love my little dog, Willie, because he fights for me.” Willie was her incontinent old poodle. And I said, “How does he fight for you?” And she said, “Well, today, at the rectory, he came in and made a doo-doo on Lynette Taylor's purse. [audience laughter] And that dog just brightens my day.”
[audience laughter]
There was a guy named Albert, in his 60s, very lonesome. He had this high-country voice, and he'd say, “George, my wife almost never speaks to me.” Albert was always full of surprises. Like, often he and his buddies would go quail hunting. But Albert confessed to me once that he was a terrible shot. He said, “But you know, when you're on a quail hunt, everybody shoots at once. So, nobody ever knows who hits the quail.” [audience laughter] He said, “My friends, they all say, ‘Albert, you shot that bird. You're a good shot.’ But I think I have never shot a quail.” [audience laughter]
One time, Albert told me that as a young man, he had some intimate moments with his best friend. And even now, sometimes he'd put on a jacket and a tie and drive to Savannah, and go cruising, looking for some connection. But he said, “I never do nothing. I just drive.” But then, one night, Albert called. He seemed particularly sad. I happened to ask the question, “Was it hard to be a gay man in rural Georgia?” and he bristled. And he said, “I never said I was gay. I'm married. I'm a Christian.” I felt devastated to have used that word so casually.
After about an hour after we hung up, he called back and he said, “George, could you come out here? I just feel like I need to talk to somebody face to face.” Well, he said, he lived way out past Surrency. I was terrified to go, but I called my boss, Don, and he said I should. So, I drove out there. I made it past the Surrency lights. I came to this cinder block house, Albert's world, and I could see through the window there was this old woman watching TV, Albert's silent wife. And I knocked.
And you know, for all these hours of talking to Albert, I had created some picture of him in my mind. But the door opened, and instead was a girl in long red ringlets. She saw the look of astonishment on my face, and she said, “Hello, my therapist.” She said, “I thought you knew. You didn't know?” I said, “You were Albert?” And she said, “Yeah. George, I hunt quail every day, but I've never hit one.” She said, “You really didn't know?” and she turned and called her grandmother and said, “Grandma, my therapist and I are going to go sit out on the porch.” And so, we did. We sat in these wicker chairs, and this old dog came up, and she said, “That's Willie. Don't let him jump up. He'll make a doo-doo.” [audience laughter]
So, Tara was also Betty. She was Betty and Albert. And I said, “Tara, why did you invent these people?” And she said, “I don't know, I'm bored. I live in Surrency.” [audience laughter] She said, “You want a Jack and Coke?” I was humiliated partly, but I was also partly dazzled. But I didn't stay for a drink. I went home.
The next morning, I told Don and Calvin, and they were over the moon. They said, “This is clearly a case of multiple personality,” [audience laughter] which was the holy grail for psychologists in those days. They couldn't wait for Tara to call back. But she didn't. I waited on the veranda, but Tara never called. Nobody ever called, and the nights grew very long and I quit.
I got an equivalency diploma and went to the University of Georgia, which meant I often drove through Surrency on my way back home to Brunswick. I'd always slow down when I was in front of Tara's house, but I never saw her. But once, years later, I was approaching the Surrency lights, and there was this weird glow on the right side of the road, and somebody had an accident, driven off the road into a pine tree. There were other cars pulled over. The police were on their way.
But as I drove past, I could glimpse the driver. He had a jacket and a tie, and he was a small, elderly man. And I had a flash of, “Is this Albert?” But of course, it wasn't Albert. Albert was Tara's creation. She was such a powerful storyteller. And even now, when I write, I hear your voices, your character, something you did that freed me to create. And I hope that you got out of Surrency, and I hope you're not bored anymore and I hope you don't hate me for calling you Tara. I know you'd have come up with something much better, you'd have found something perfect.
[cheers and applause]
[whimsical music]
Jenifer: That was novelist and founder of The Moth, George Dawes Green. His books are The Caveman's Valentine, The Juror, Ravens, and his latest, The Kingdoms of Savannah, which won the 2023 Crime Writers Association top award, the Gold Dagger. I'd like to see that statue.
Well, George, we just listened to your beautiful story from Seattle. You had an unconventional ending to this story. And you're the founder of The Moth, so you get to do. You reached out to Tara directly in it. You had a message for her.
George: Yes. Her real name isn't Tara. I haven't seen that girl for 50 years, but I always hope that I'll run into her. And so, I think, well, somebody will know Tara or she'll be listening to this. If you're out there, Tara, again, I'm sorry I call you Tara, but you know who you are and I would love to see you again.
Jenifer: And Tara is especially important, because in your book, The Kingdoms of Savannah, she's fictionalized.
George: I kept imagining over the years what would Tara have become. And so, a few years ago, it came to me that Tara might well have gone to Savannah, and she could do any accent in the world, so she could easily persuade Savannahians that she was an eighth generation Savannahian. And in my book, she becomes the doyen of Savannah society. She has a detective agency, and she inveigles all of her dysfunctional family, her adult children to come in and help her with the detective agency.
It's a thriller. It's a contemporary thriller, but it's about stories, and Savannah stories, and how the stories of Savannah and Georgia really shape that area of the world.
Jenifer: Tara, look what you inspired.
George: To be honest, those stories in some way inspired the founding of The Moth, because I remember the night that it was revealed to me that Tara had made up all of those characters.
I can just remember that sense of the power of these Savannah stories. It was right around that time. It was not long after I worked at patterns at that hotline. But there was something about Georgia, I guess, because there was nothing to do. So, I guess that's why we were able to gather on porches and just listen to full stories. Absolutely, there's that. There are other elements to living in the south. There's that southern gothic strain which comes into the most casual, personal stories.
And so, I do think that the stories of Savannah were so vivid that years later, I was living in New York and missing those slow-drawled stories and going to cocktail parties. You know, there's always these vultures who will interrupt every conversation after 10 seconds. Not because they are particularly rude or interruptive, it's just the way of life in New York. And so, I think one of the keys to The Moth was, my thought that we needed to just shut everybody up and let people tell full 10-minute, 12-minute stories.
Jenifer: Here we are 25 years later.
George: 25 years later.
[whimsical music]
Jenifer: That was the founder of The Moth and novelist, George Dawes Green. Tara, whatever your real name is, I hope you recognize yourself in this story and reach out.
In a moment, sibling rivalry and a jar of Noxzema. Can't you just smell it? When The Moth Radio Hour continues.
Jay: [00:21:43] The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. And presented by the Public Radio Exchange, prx.org.
Jenifer: [00:21:57] This is The Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Jenifer Hixson. We're talking about hidden beauty, or in the case of this next story, emerging beauty.
Archy Jamjun told this story in New Bedford, Massachusetts, where we partnered with the Zeiterion Theater. Here's Archy.
[applause]
Archy: [00:22:17] I opened the bathroom cabinet, and my sister's beauty supply seemed to speak to me. “We'll make you pretty,” they whispered. “My cooling sensation works wonders,” said the jar of Noxzema cold cream. “I will tighten your pores,” declared the St. Ives cucumber face mask. And then, the bottle of sun and hair lightener threw it on the gauntlet, “I will give you white people hair.” [audience laughter]
I was 11 years old and constantly locking myself in the bathroom for the wrong reason. I just wanted to be pretty. Now, my parents’ friends always said that I was handsome and my sister, Annie, was pretty. But as her eyes moved quickly from me to linger on her, the truth became translucent. On this highway called life, Annie could stop traffic. And if I didn't figure it out, I would get runned over.
My sister's beauty allowed her to attend Barbizon, a modeling school in downtown Chicago attended by 12 other girls. On Saturday afternoons, they would practice essential life lessons, like how to walk down a runway and take off a jacket at the same time. [audience laughter] As I sat in the corner with my mom, I just seethed with envy. See, I had seen George Michael's music video for Freedom, which featured real supermodels walking down a real runway. I had practiced in our basement and I knew I could out walk all those girls. [audience laughter]
But even at our temple, my sister was the star. When they put on a production of the Manora, the Thai story of creation, they cast Annie as the lead angel. I had to play monkey number three. [audience laughter] On the ride home, my parents told my sister, what a great job she had done. They were so proud of her. And I, I crossed my arms and crunched myself into the backseat. I stared out the window at the moon and stars, wondering, what I would have to do to get out of her shadow?
I remember my mom turning back and looking at me, “Archy, why do you look so sad?” “Oh, that's Archy,” my dad started, “He see the moon and the stars and he think about science, just like his dad.” These people did not know me. [audience laughter] These people just saw their young Asian son, and figured I would be good at things like math and science, the academic roadmaps for nerds. I was not a nerd. I had Zack Morris, Saved by the Bell hair. [audience laughter] I was pretty. I would be a star like my sister. I had a plan.
Step one, go into the bathroom, lock the door. Step two, take my sister's jar of Noxzema, and lather it all over my face until its camphor, eucalyptus and menthol, made it feel like a cough drop. [audience laughter] Step three, take the St. Ives cucumber face mask, and apply it evenly and slowly, so it came off in one sheath instead of dozens of flakes. Step four, pump in that sun and hair lightener, because in the 1990s, nothing made an Asian person look cooler than orange hair. [audience laughter]
Step five, think about Keanu Reeves. [audience laughter] In 1991, Keanu Reeves starred in the mega hit blockbuster music video Rush Rush by Paula Abdul. [audience laughter] It was a remake of the classic film, Rebel Without a Cause, and I often imagined that I was Paula and Keanu was my rebel.
But one day, as I sat on the bathroom counter engaged in my beauty routine, I must have forgot step one, because the door busted open and there was my sister, Annie. She took one look at me playing with her stuff, and she was like, “Oh, my God, you need to stop. And don't you know these things are for girls only?” I grabbed the jar of Noxzema, “It does not say for girls anywhere on this product.” “It doesn't have to. Why can't you just be like other brothers? What is wrong with you? Do you want to use my maxi pads too?” [audience laughter] “Annie, I will use whatever I want. It is my bathroom too.” And then, I pushed past her.
In those days, however, my sister was so much stronger. She grabbed me by my T-shirt and flung me into the wall. She drew back her hand and clawed three marks onto the side of my face, like Nancy Kerrigan after the attack on her knee. [audience laughter] I fell to the ground screaming, “Why? Why? Why?” [audience laughter] Not only would these marks forestall my plans for beauty, I would have to explain them to the kids at school, where rumor had it, I might be gay. [audience laughter] That's when I decided I'd had enough. Now, this wasn't the first time my sister beat me up. It wouldn't be the last time my sister beat me up. But nobody was going to stand between me and my plans to beautiful.
Now, I didn't usually engage in boy activities, but I had been playing a certain video game, Street Fighter II, and I had become very adept at a certain character, the mistress of the tornado kicks by the tucking Chun-Li. [audience laughter] With the video game as inspiration, I rose to my feet and imagined my sister and I in Chun-Li's alley from the video game. To her utter confusement, I started bouncing around on my two feet, and then I pulled back my leg and kicked her with a loudy yah. [audience laughter] She grabbed her leg and fell to the ground. I had won, or so I thought. Like a phoenix I had failed to even kill.
My sister rose with angry flames of puberty and pride. [audience laughter] She lunged at me and pinned me to the ground, and then she started berating me, at which point I was reminded we'd had dried fish for breakfast. Then, just as she was about to claw the other side of my face, my mother intervened and saved me. And the next day, she took me to Walgreens, where she bought me my own Noxzema, my own face mask and my own bottle of Sun-In lightener. [audience applause]
Why did my mother do this, you ask? Because she was not ready for this conversation, and sometimes it's just easier to go to Walgreens. [audience laughter] There was someone, however, who was ready for this conversation, and that was my Aunt Nathu. My aunt had moved in with us about a year before this, and she had bright makeup, big hoop earrings, big curly hair. She reminded me of I Wanna Dance with Somebody, Whitney Houston, and I just fell in gay boy love with her.
A few days after this fight, she pulled me into her bathroom and she showed me how to cleanse my face in a circular motion to increase circulation, how to use a toner to pH balance my skin and then, she showed me the key to life, moisturization. [audience laughter] After I perfected my techniques with my Walgreens brands, she upgraded me to a line from Shiseido, and she gave me a mud mask from a dead sea. [audience laughter]
Before my aunt, there was always a part of me that I was hiding from everybody else. But in my aunt's room and her bathroom, I was free to be whoever I wanted to be. Growing up gay, there are these parts of you you're so ashamed of and you just don't even understand it yet, but when someone you love sees it and nurtures it, it isn't too much to say that it changes who you think you can be in this world.
When I came out to my aunt in my 20s, she looked at me and said, “Oh, my God, you must think I'm stupid.” [audience laughter] And today, my sister is a northwestern graduate and academic head of her department. What a fricking nerd. [audience laughter] And I, I have an MFA, which means my career is on a journey. [audience laughter] I love where it's been, but I have no idea where it's going. [audience laughter] But today, I walk with my head held high and a proud swish in my hips, just like my aunt taught me, because today, I truly believe I am beautiful. Thank you.
[cheers and applause]
Jenifer: [00:31:48] That was Archy Jamjun. Archy reports that he and his sister, Annie, officially ended their rivalry when she had her first daughter, Natasha. Natasha goes through more beauty products than little Archy could ever dream of. And like her uncle, loves watching RuPaul's Drag Race. Archy is the co-curator of outspoken LBGTQ stories at Sidetrack in Chicago. And for the record, Archy is beautiful. And you can see for yourself on our radio extras page at themoth.org.
[song playing]
I encourage you to become a part of the Moth by pitching a story of your own. Start with a turning point in your life, think about how it changed you and then fill in the colorful details. You'll have to keep it short for our pitch line, so plan it out. We only give you two minutes and it goes by quickly. But we listen to each and every pitch. Maybe one day, you could join storytellers on stage to share it. You can pitch us at 877-799-M-O-T-H or online at themoth.org, where you can also share these stories or others from The Moth Archive.
[song playing]
In a moment, a harrowing story about survival when The Moth Radio Hour continues.
[song playing]
Jay: [00:33:47] The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. And presented by the Public Radio Exchange, prx.org.
Jenifer: [00:34:02] You're listening to The Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Jennifer Hixson.
Our final story is told by Annette Herfkens in New York City. It's a story that wouldn't typically conjure the idea of beauty, but it's in there. And I should warn listeners that it involves an accident and has some intense details. Here's Annette.
[cheers and applause]
Jenifer: [00:34:31] November 14, 1992. We were on top of the world, my fiancé and I. Both investment bankers. We were going on a romantic getaway to the beaches of Nha Trang, Vietnam, South China Sea. We were 13 years together, Pasje and I, college sweethearts. We board a small plane with 31 passengers and 5 crew. Too small for me. I'm very claustrophobic. He had to convince me to get in. It's only 55 minutes, the only way to get there.
I sit down, pounding hard, counting the minutes. And the 50th minute, the plane makes this giant drop. Now, Pasje looks at me, scared. “So, this, I don't like,” he said. I said, “Don't worry, it's just in their pocket.” But then, another drop. People are screaming. He reached for my hand. I reached for his. Everything goes black.
I wake up to chaos and the eerie sounds of the jungle. One moment, roaring motors. Next, this jungle. I can see the [unintelligible 00:35:54] through the front of the fuselage. The cockpit has broken off. I'm stuck under a seat with a dead man in it as it turns out, when I push it off me. Left to me, I see Pasje still strapped in his seat. He has a sweet smile on his face, but he's dead.
I must have gone into shock, because my next memory is a little bit down the mountain, out on the jungle floor on thousand little twigs. I check my legs. They seem broken, big gaping wounds. I see the bone of my shin, blue bone, and the flesh curling around like a biology book. And the insects are having a bowl. I didn't know it then, but I only knew my pain, but I had 16 broken bones. My jaw was loose and a collapsed lung.
And behind me was Pasje. Pasje, my rock, my love, my life. Pasje’s, don't think of Pasje. Don't look back. I look around. There are more people on the mountain slope scattered around. Some are gone, some are moaning. But the man next to me is speaking in English even. We have a few conversations about when the rescuers will come. But I see the light going out or the life going out of him, I beg him not to die, but he does. By the end of the day, he's gone. Everyone is gone. Everyone is dead. There's no more sound coming from the plane, no more sound on the mountain. And never have I been so entirely alone and thirsty. So thirsty.
So, I begin to panic. But my collapsed lung forces me to breathe in, out, in, out. And it calms me down. People will be looking, my family, my boss, my colleagues. I just have to wait and trust, and don't look over my shoulder. Don't think of Pasje. That will make you cry, and crying will make you thirsty. You cannot afford to be more thirsty. You cannot afford to lose your wit. Look at what is. Look in front of you. Look at the jungle. Look at the beauty of the jungle.
I'm a city girl. I like shopping, I don't like hiking. [audience laughter] The more I focus on the leaf, the vein of the leaf, the dew catch on top of the leaf and the light in that dew catching the light, it's beautiful. I marvel at my lack of fear. I just tell myself to go to sleep at night. I wake up in the morning, I focus on the beauty. I keep track of time by glancing at the watch now and then of the dead man next to me. But then, I glance and I see what's coming out of his eye, that's moving, it's a maggot. That smell, I just have to move. I have to move.
So, I just move on my elbows and I drag along my broken bones. That's all I can do. I move past the dead man, past a few more dead people. I snatch a bag from a dead girl, and I settle in a more open area where I can see the sky and probably they could see me if they actually were looking.
I opened the bag. I found a blue rain poncho, bright blue. I put it on. Keeps me warm. Why am I so cold? It's supposed to be hot here. I'm so, so cold and so thirsty. But hey, it starts raining. I can hold up the poncho and I can just catch the rain. I see it filling up with water, and I get to sip it up. And those sips of water is better than the best champagne. That's how I kept myself alive. And by focusing on the beauty and it became more radiant.
By day six, I did not find the pain anymore. I was just one with this jungle, one with this process of rebirth and decay. I was like on some loving wavelength. I had love for the whole world, for everyone. I would not mind staying in forever. But then, I see a man. A man, he's dressed in orange. He's framed by the jungle growth. He looks at me, and he gets me out of my state of mind, right back to earth in my body, in the pain. I just think I have to make this decision. I have to get out of here.
My family, my family, they don't even know that I'm here. They will never know that I've been here. I start looking for my voice, “Hello, can you help me?” He just stands there and stares at me. I said, “Hello, can you help me? Would you please? [foreign language] Nothing. He doesn't lift a finger. He just stares at me. And now, I'm getting angry. This man is my ticket out of here. He has to get me out of here. [foreign language] [audience laughter] He leaves. Shoot, now, I insulted him. [audience laughter] But I don't mind. I just go back to my beautiful state of mind. I love it. I'm happy. I just stay there forever.
But then, at the end of the eighth day, I see a group of living men approaching, coming up the mountain. They carry bags for the dead bodies and the passengers list. They approach me and they show it to me. I see I have to point out my name, Annette Harriet, which is not my name. Annette Harriet. That's me. They give me a sip of water out of a plastic bottle that will be forever etched on my cornea.
And next, they put me on a cloth, bind the ends together on a stick and they carry me between the shoulders, out way into down the mountains, away from the wreckage. But now, I truly panic. I said, “I don't want to leave. I don't want to leave my Pasje. I don't want to leave eternal love. I want to stay here.” I really, truly, completely panicked. But the men realized that, and they tread so lightly as not to hurt me. And then, I realized I better be grateful to them. I find my sense of humor, I said, “Well, whatever I thought to be carried like a piglet out of jungle door through jungle, up and down.” I was grateful, and I am grateful. That was the end of the ordeal that changed the narrative of my life.
I mourned. I mourned. I mourned some more. I healed. I resumed my career. Got married. Got two beautiful children. When life got rough, as it did, I just went back to that beautiful place. The jungle kept on giving me strength. But there was this lingering mystery about the orange man. Did he exist? Was he a monk, or was he a ghost? A hallucination.
So, in 2006. I decided to go back to Vietnam, back to the mountain, up the mountain, together with six of my original rescuers and two Vietnamese officials. Very, very steep climb up the mountain in the heat. There was this one man extending a helpful hand whenever I needed one, he just seemed to be there. And after six grueling hours, we just get to the top of that mountain or wherever the plane was. Way up high. It was not magical at all, of course. There was a lot of debris laying around, pieces of carpet, Vietnam Airline colors, a window, a plastic window, an exit sign.
So, I just think, okay, let me go to my spot. Maybe I get the feeling back. I sit down and say hi to the ants and the twigs. And then, look at the crew, they were preparing lunch. And then, I see it. There's something about the way he's standing, something about the angle, perhaps. But hey, that man is the orange man, the man who helped me turn out to be the orange man. I hurry to the group. I asked a translator, please, please help me. I said, “Hey, it was you. You were there. You found us. You didn't say anything, but you did help me, obviously.”
The man very humbly giggled. He covered his mouth, he giggled, and he said, “Well, I'd never seen a white person before, and I've never seen blue eyes and I thought you were a ghost.” So, just picture this. This man comes to this site, he sees all these dead people, a wreckage, and then this little figure, white, blue eyes, pointy blue hat is the archetype of a ghost. So, can't blame him. Of course, I said, “And I thought you were a ghost.” [audience laughter]
But then, he goes on to tell me, try to translated that he actually thought finally that he was going to try to shoot me away. He already had me in this loop. And then, I had taken my hood off, and then he realized I was somewhat human, and he ran off and got fetched his friends, the rescue team. So, “Hey, had I not taken my hood off, I would have actually died and become a ghost?” Right. But I did get to thank him, and be with him and thank the other rescuers.
I'm very, very grateful for my experience on the mountain and for the enrichment of going back. I got to connect, connect to my higher self to nature or to God, if you will. The second time, I got to connect to my saviors and different families of the co-passengers. And in 2014, I got to go back and bring my daughter, and meet the orange man with whom she would not have been here. So, as it always is, the beauty is in the connection right here, right now.
[cheers and applause]
Jenifer: [00:48:14] That was Annette Herfkens. Annette was raised in the Netherlands, where she studied law and economics and met her fiancé, Pasje. After the accident, she went back to work and became a managing director at Banco Santander. Her book, Turbulence, details her life before and after the accident, and her lasting ability to find beauty in even the most dire situations.
She's eternally grateful to the orange man and all her rescuers, and thinks often of Pasje and all the other passengers who lost their lives on the mountain that day. To see a picture of Annette and Pasje and one of the orange man, his name is Cao Van Hahn, visit themoth.org.
That's it for this episode of The Moth Radio Hour. I'd like to thank all of the storytellers in this hour, each celebrating beauty in their own way. We hope you'll join us next time.
[overture music]
Jay: [00:49:25] This episode of The Moth Radio Hour was produced by me, Jay Allison, and Jenifer Hixson, who also hosted and directed the stories in the show. Co-producer is Viki Merrick. Associate producer, Emily Couch.
The rest of The Moth's leadership team includes Sarah Haberman, Sarah Austin Jenness, Meg Bowles, Kate Tellers, Marina Klutse, Lee Ann Gullie, Suzanne Rust, Brandon Grant, Sarah Jane Johnson and Aldi Kaza. Moth stories are true, as remembered and affirmed by the storytellers.
Our theme music is by the Drift. Other music in this hour from the Westerlies, Thelma Houston, Balkan Beat Box, and Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. We receive funding from the National Endowment for the Arts.
The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hall, Massachusetts. And presented by PRX. For more about our podcast, for information on pitching us your own story, which we always hope you'll do, and everything else, go to our website, themoth.org.