Host: Meg Bowles

overture music]

Meg Bowles: [00:00:12] From PRX, this is The Moth Radio Hour. I'm Meg Bowles. And in this show, we'll hear stories from the heart. Deep loyalty, great pride and affection, unbridled passion. 

Love is a common theme in Moth stories. Perhaps, because love touches every corner of our lives, we cherish and celebrate it, we daydream about it and often find ourselves in pursuit of it, like our first storyteller, Kristy Hawkins. Kristy shared her story at a GrandSLAM in Denver, Colorado, where we partner with local public radio station KUNC. Here's Kristy Hawkins, live at The Moth. 

[cheers and applause]

Kristy: [00:00:54] I got divorced recently. My friends and family have decided that it's time for me to get back out there. One of them actually suggested that I should get on Tinder. [audience laughter] I'm not so old and out of it that I don't know what Tinder is. I know what it is. Actually, when I first got divorced, I asked my 21-year-old niece, if she thought I should sign up for the Grindr. [audience laughter] She explained to me that Tinder and Grindr are not the same thing. [audience laughter] But I don't really know how these sites work. I know what they are. 

But as my friend described it to me that night, and with the swiping left and the swiping right, it occurred to me this sounds so much like junior high. In junior high, when you like somebody, you would write a note and ask them, “Do you like me back? Check one. Yes. No. Maybe.” [audience laughter] And then, you wait for a response. It's straightforward. But for me, that's terrifying. If this is how dating is going to be, I'm not sure I want in, because I have really traumatic experiences with these notes. 

See, When I was 13, I was in love with a boy named Ryan. Ryan was tall, and blonde, and blue eyed and he was smart and quiet. He's what the kids today would call a hot nerd. I was not a hot nerd. I was what the kids today would just call a nerd. [audience laughter] I had a perm, and I had super thick glasses and I wore turtlenecks almost exclusively, like every day. [audience laughter] [audience cheers and applause]

Ryan was way out of my league. And I knew that. But it didn't stop me from loving him. I just loved him. I was not at all subtle about my love for Ryan. [audience laughter] So, a couple of his friends caught on that I liked him. These boys, Marcus and Adam, would just tease me about it, but I didn't care. I was in love. Well, this all came to a glorious, glorious head the Friday before spring break of my eighth-grade year. I went to my locker to get my books to go home, and there was a note stuck in my locker. And the note, I opened it up and read it, and it was from Ryan. And it said, “Dear, Kristy, I really like you. Do you like me too? Check one. Yes. No. Maybe. Love, Ryan.” [audience laughter] It said, love. 

It was happening. Like, this is happening. [audience laughter] I floated to the bus, and I read and reread that note all the way home, and imagining how Ryan and I were just going to be together forever. I knew that we would not be able to make our dreams come true until after spring break, because back in those days, we didn't have cell phones, so I would have to wait until we got back to school. But when I got home, we were ready to leave on vacation for spring break. The phone rang, just as we were walking out the door. My mom answered it. She called that it was for me. When I got closer, she stage whispers to me, “It's a boy.” [audience laughter] She's as surprised as I am, because I am not a kid that ever got called by boys. Believe me.

And so, I just knew it was Ryan. He was ready to get the party started. [audience laughter] He could not wait for spring break to be over. He wanted this to happen now. So, I was super cool. I was like, “Hey, Ryan. What's up?” And he was like, “Hey, Kristy. It's Ryan.” And then, he took a big breath and he said, “You know that note you got in your locker? Well, I didn't write it. Marcus wrote it. It was just a big joke. He thought it was really funny, but I didn't think it was funny. I just thought it was mean. So, I thought I had to call and tell you that I don't like you.” Oh, man. I felt all the feelings, like I was crushed, beyond crushed. 

But I gathered my wits and I said, oh, God, Ryan. Like, “I totally knew it was a joke the whole time. I would never fall for that. Well, anyway, Ryan, my mom's calling me, so I have to go. I'll see you in school.” [audience laughter] I just fell apart. I cried and cried and I cried. I cried for seven days straight at spring break. But when I got back to school, I hid my feelings. I never said a word about it to Ryan. I never said a word about it to Marcus. I just went on with my life. 

But fast forward 15 years, and I ran into Marcus in a bar, and I asked him after a few drinks, “Why in the hell did you do that to me? That was so mean.” And he said, “I had a huge crush on you, and that was my way of showing it.” [audience laughter] Okay. “Well, that sounds sweet. So, we got married.” [audience laughter] Yeah, we got married and we had three kids and we spent 10 years together. But wait, wait. You guys heard me at the beginning of this show, say that I just got divorced, right? [audience laughter] So, I'll spare you the details. 

But when Marcus left, it was like getting that note all over again and then getting a call telling me that the whole thing was just a joke. So, here I am. I'm 40. I'm going on 14, and I have to start dating again and we have to do it with technology. When I was in my 20s, we just put on beer goggles, and wrote a number on a napkin and hoped for the best. That seems simple. This is going to be tough. 

But I'm trying to look on the bright side. I don't wear glasses anymore and I don't perm my hair and I don't wear turtlenecks that often. [audience laughter] So, I'm liking my chances. I am liking my chances. So, I am here tonight to tell you that I am going to get on the Grindr [audience laughter] and I am going to find Orion, and I am going to be swiping left and swiping right, and one of these days, I'm going to get swiped back. 

[cheers and applause]

Meg Bowles: [00:07:20] Kristy Hawkins works from home for a large healthcare company. When she's not working or playing chauffeur for her three kids, she's entertaining the friends and family who are always coming in and out of her house. She says, “Life is very busy, but lots of fun.” 

When Kristy found out we were airing her story, she shared it with her ex-husband, Marcus. “They're still friends and coparenting like champions,” she says. When Marcus heard the story, he wrote to her and said, “You say all those things like hair and perm and turtlenecks, like they made you unattractive, but that isn't true. I loved your red turtleneck in Sally Jessy's in the short on the subway, curly on top do. It's amazing how we feel about ourselves and how other people see us.”

In the last year, Christy says she's gotten more serious in her search for love, and she's currently swiping and getting swiped a lot. She shared some classic yearbook photos of Marcus and Ryan. And yes, she is sporting her famous turtleneck. You can see those on our website. They're pretty cute.

Our next story comes from Kemp Powers. He told it way back in 2011 at a Moth GrandSLAM we produced in Los Angeles in partnership with KCRW. Here's Kemp, live at The Moth. 

[cheers and applause]

Kemp: [00:08:54] I'm 37 years old. I wasn't really very good at much of anything in my 20s, least of all marriage. But the decision to get a divorce wasn't an easy one. For a lot of people, the legal tangle is what stops them from getting a divorce. But in my world, that wasn't really a big decision maker. It was because we had a daughter. And going through with that meant that on some level, I was going to be losing her. If not literally, then figuratively. 

So, when people have a really bad breakup, it's not uncommon for one parent to be left feeling, like basically their kid is better off without them. And in my case, it wasn't very hard to convince me. To put it very simply, I really, really, really sucked at being a dad. When my daughter was a small infant, I swore that she was going to break some record for falling out of bassinets, falling out of cribs, falling out of beds. It always seemed to happen when I was the one that was watching her. 

I was hardly ever around. I travelled so much for work. In the rare occasions that I was there, any effort that I made to try to bond with her always seemed to backfire. When she was three months old, I bought her this gangly little puppet that I named Sanchez after my favorite reggae dancehall singer. [audience laughter] She was really into Sesame Street. So, I really thought that this puppet was going to bring her a lot of joy. Instead, it just fucking terrified her. [audience laughter] And from there, things just continued to get worse. 

By the time when she was six months old, I decided that it was really smart for her to know that fire was dangerous, and it was something that she should stay away from. So, one day, when I was making a cup of tea, I picked her up, holding her in one hand and the hot kettle in the other, I explained very carefully that you should never, ever, ever touch hot things because they could hurt you. At least, I did in my mind. Because in reality, by the time I got to the word touch, she'd already reached out and grabbed the bottom of the steaming kettle and burned herself. 

So, by the time my daughter was one years old, I was already pretty much afraid to be left alone with her. She suffered from a febrile seizure at 18 months and vomited in the middle of the night and inhaled it, almost choking to death. She was in the hospital for a week. I remembered looking at her in that incubator with the tubes up her nose and the butterfly IV in her hand and thinking to myself, “Dude, you're just going to fucking get somebody killed.” 

And so, I didn't fight, because I didn't really think I had any right to. I didn't fight the incredibly restrictive visitation rights that I had. I didn't fight when her mother asked for my approval to relocate to Phoenix. I didn't even fight when the visitation that we did agree upon fell by the wayside, because at the end of the day, they were too busy in their life out there for her to keep up with her schedule of visitation in Los Angeles. 

So, my friends, they were really supportive, but they weren't really able to offer me any counsel. It was this really bizarre twist that we had all grown up in this world where divorce was just a fact of life. But suddenly, I found myself in this adult world where every single family that I knew was nuclear. It was like we were suddenly back in the 50s, only I didn't have to drink out of a separate water fountain and I didn't have to worry about getting lynched from having had a kid with a white lady. 

But every single person that I knew my age was either so happily married that it bordered on sickening or so relentlessly single that it bordered on parody. My friends loved me and I loved them too. But to all of them, to the friends who were married, I was basically that single guy that they could live vicariously through. To the ones who were single, I was the divorcee, with all the responsibility that proved to them that them not having any kids and not getting married had been the right decision to make. 

So, I basically went on with my life and got used to the routine that we had. That was all I really had. The sporadic phone calls, the grudging pickups that happened at the halfway point between Los Angeles and Phoenix in an aptly named shithole of a town called Desert Center. It was a barren place filled with more scorpions and dust devils than people. And our drives out of the desert, my daughter and I hardly ever spoke. I was pretty glad about that, because not talking meant that I never really had to explain why we were in the situation that were in. 

So, one day, back in March, I get this telephone call, early in the morning, and it's from my daughter. I'm pretty surprised, because she almost never calls me. When I answer, she's distraught, she's crying. She says, “Dad, a tsunami has just destroyed Japan, and it's heading for California. You need to get out of bed right now and get to a high point immediately.”

Now, initially, I just had to assure her that there was no chance that a tidal wave was going to wash away Koreatown anytime soon, [audience laughter] but she was still too worried to be calmed down. So, to assuage her fears, I had to talk to her. And we talked. We talked about her piano lessons. We talked about her upcoming 13th birthday. We talked about her now six-year-old brother who lived with me, who she missed dearly. And we talked about me, who she missed just as much. It turned out that she still had her puppet Sanchez, which she hung on the wall next to her bed. 

When my daughter's 13th birthday came around, we made a pact, going forward we would speak every Sunday at 12:00 PM, no matter where we were. And when we spoke, she would get to ask me one question. It didn't matter what the question was, I had to give her the answer. And this was something that made me a little bit nervous, because I was finally going to be held accountable for something. When the first question came, it was, what was my favorite book? After that, it was, what was my favorite movie? A week later, what was my favorite song? As the weeks turned into months, these questions revolved about the things I'd done, the places I'd been and how I was living my life. 

My daughter is 13 years old and ‘10” tall, but I can still pick her up and I can still hold her in my arms. We talk every week now. When I hold her, every time that I see her. And when I do, I just make sure that I keep that hot kettle just a little bit out of reach. Thank you. 

[cheers and applause]

Meg Bowles: [00:15:36] Kemp Powers is an author, and a celebrated writer and director for both stage and screen. His screen adaptation of his award-winning play, One Night in Miami was nominated for an Academy Award. He's an amazing storyteller all around and dare I say, a pretty great dad. 

In an email, Kemp gave me a little update. He said, “In 2020, after my daughter graduated magna cum laude from her college in Arizona, she returned to Los Angeles and moved into my house. She's currently working at a Los Angeles publicity firm and continues to live at home with dad until she can save up enough to get her own place.” 

You can find out more about Kemp and any of the stories you hear in this hour on our website, themoth.org. 

Coming up, a shared passion for the brilliance of birds, except for pigeons, when The Moth Radio Hour continues. 

[whimsical music]

Jay: [00:17:06] The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. And Presented by PRX. 

Meg Bowles: [00:17:17] This is The Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Meg Bowles. 

Sometimes our love for things isn't appreciated by others in quite the same way. Something one person finds mundane might be magical through someone else's eyes. Our next storyteller, Niall Ashdown, developed a love of birds as a boy that astonished stuck with him long into adulthood. During the pandemic, the ordinary little feathered friends became lifelines. 

He said in an email, “In the midst of my not going out, a sparrow hawk sat in a tree and ate its meal and then sat there digesting it for another hour. Birds always fail to disappoint me. Sounds like love to me.” Niall shared a story that gives us a little insight into his particular ornithological obsession at an evening we produced at the Union Chapel in London. Here's Niall.

[cheers and applause]

Niall: [00:18:11] When I was eight years old, I was in a primary school classroom drawing. I didn't know what I was drawing. And then, when I'd finished my drawing, I realized what I'd drawn was a bird, and it was probably a robin. And from that moment on, I realized that the most important thing in the world was birds. 

Birds were brilliant. They still are. Birds can sing and fly. Think of anything else that can do both those things. [audience laughter] Don't think too hard. It's not the point of the story. [audience laughter] They can also dance, and dive and swim. They are just brilliant. The good thing about this was that my dad agreed with me. And so, we instantly struck up this common interest/obsession with birds. 

If we had summer holidays, the usual criteria didn't apply to our summer holidays as to its relative success or failure. We didn't judge it by the weather. For example, it was always in Scotland, so there was no point in judging it by the weather anyway or the landscape, which, of course, is beautiful in Scotland. We didn't judge it by that. No, we judged it by how many new birds we saw during that trip. There was one year when we saw nine. Nine. That was the best holiday ever. [audience laughter] Better than anybody else's holiday here that you've ever had. It was fantastic. 

And so, a lot of my childhood memories are sort of pivot around bird related experiences. If I could choose one, I would choose the time we stopped our camper van in a lay-by. If there's anybody American here, it's like a little bit of a road off a main road. There was a big patch of grass there. We got out of the van. We started to get mobbed by a pair of lapwings. Now, lapwings are like-- Anybody know what a lapwing is? One person. [audience laughter] There's so much work to do. [audience laughter] 

A lapwing is like a small plover, about the size of a crow, and it's also known as a peewit because of the noise it makes, which is peewit. It was a bit close to the mic. Sorry about that. [audience laughter] And so, they mob you if you get near their nest. And so, I'm getting mobbed and my dad's getting mobbed, and we get into the camper van or we used to call it a caravette back then. I realize caravette sounds like some awful trendy marketing solutions firm, but it was actually what we called a camper van back then. We got inside and then we got ready for bed, because we were staying overnight in our camper van in the layby. 

And then, my dad, about dusk, got out the van again and walked back across the grass. He came back quite excited, quite agitated. He said, “I found the nest. There's five eggs in it.” And I was like, “Brilliant. Brillant. Let's go, let's go. Lets go, dad.” He said, “No. We have already disturbed the birds enough. We must leave them. You are in your pajamas. It is bedtime.” [audience laughter] So, I thought that is so unfair. I lay in bed in my sleeping bag, just railing against the injustice of this pointless, spiteful decision. [audience laughter] 

I woke up in the morning after a very sulky night's sleep. I was actually woken up. It was about quarter to six, way too early, by a rough hand shaking my shoulder. And then, two big hands picked me up, shook off my sleeping bag and dropped me into a pair of Wellington boots, threw a coat on me, still had my pajamas on. We walked out across the dew soaked, tussocky grass back towards the nest. When we got to the brink of the nest, the eggs had gone and had been replaced by five little downy brown chicks. Beautiful, little baby birds. They'd hatched in the night. 

When I romanticize it in my head, I think there's still little bits of dried yolk on their fur. [audience laughter] Just before we get too close, they start to lift up on really long legs, their outsized legs and totter off over the tussocky grass, a bit like drunk women on stilettos, [audience laughter] or if that offends you, drunk men on stilettos, drunk people on stilettos. But it was wonderful. It was the most exultant moment of my young life. It was just heaven. 

Cut to about 41 years later, give or take a month, and I'm holding that self, same hand, and I'm in an ambulance. My dad is on his back, and he's frailer and he's paler, and he looks like he's dying. I think he is dying. His breath is shallow, his feet have swollen up in a grotesque way. He might have pneumonia. His kidneys are just not working. He hasn't been able to hear for years. 

I'm holding his hand, and I'm looking at him and I'm thinking, well, if this is it, then this is it. He keeps telling us he's had a good life. He doesn't need any more life. Is there nothing else to achieve particularly. If this is it, it will be fine. There's no need to grieve. Just let him go, because there are lots of losses you suffer as a child with your parent. There are little losses, little moments of grief during your life when he can't put you on his shoulders anymore, that's a loss. 

When he drops you off at university, in my case, university, and waves goodbye and you're standing there on your own two feet, on your own, that's a loss. When you're going for a walk, looking for birds, and you turn around and your dad, far from being 50 yards in front of you, is 100 yards behind you and he looks old, that's a loss. And this is a loss too, this strange distortion of my father lying in an ambulance. The other thing I think, is that if he is going to die, given my work schedule at the moment, [audience laughter] it would be really good if it was around now, [audience laughter] because I've got to go back to finish off my theatre tour. I'm doing a theatre tour in Houston, Texas. I've got to fly back there. 

Actually, I know that sounds callous, but I've been working with these people for about four or five months. During that time, they have seen me through my 50th birthday in Brooklyn, got me very, very drunk, paid for me to go and see LeBron James play basketball. One of the greatest experiences of my life as well. And then, I got very, very poorly myself. My stomach was very, very bad, and they helped me through that and I never missed a show. They have looked after me and I owe them. The last month of this tour, I owe them Houston.

So, we get to the hospital. Somehow my dad gets into a bed on the ward, and then the next day he's a bit brighter, actually. He's perked up a bit, and then he's not well. He's not going to get better, I don't think, but he's perkier. And then that continues for a few more days. It gets to the point where I hear from my brothers and sisters that my dad has decreed that in no circumstances must I stay here. I must go to Houston and finish the tour. So, I get to the point where I have to go, I have to get on a train. So, I go and see him for what might be the last time. I try to think of something profound to say or something useful to say. 

So, as any Englishman would do, I end up sitting there saying nothing and listening to the birds that are singing outside. There's blackbirds and there's a robin, There's a pied wagtail flittering around. They like car parks, so inevitably they're there. And there's also pigeons. A few pigeons cooing around. I hate pigeons, actually. 

When I say I love all birds, I don't love all birds. I hate pigeons. I have a visceral contempt for pigeons. I think they're the [beep] bird ever invented. [audience laughter] They're tiny little pinheads, and they're bloody everywhere. It doesn't matter where you go in the world, there's always pigeons. And they fly quite impressively, so they always look like they might be something more interesting. Ooh, that could be a hawk. No, it's another effing pigeon. It's another pigeon. I don't like pigeons. 

So, anyway, I lean forward because I have to go. I lean forward and my dad, who, as I've said, is hard of hearing and wouldn't have heard the blackbird or the robin or anything like that. I lean forward to him and I say, I love you. And he says, “What?” And I say, I love you. And I stand up, kiss him on the cheek and I walk out the hospital ward. And just as I'm leaving, I hear my dad say in a loud voice, “I know you do.” So, I get on the train, and I get on a plane, and I'm in Houston and I'm doing my show. 

Probably two and a half weeks later, at about half past 08:00 in the morning, I get a phone call and it's my wife. And my wife says, “Hello, darling, how are you?” I say, I'm fine. How are you? She says, “Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'm good. I'm good. How was the show?” Oh, it's great. Yeah. Yes, good. It's going very well. Thanks. “Good. Well, your dad passed,” and then the line goes dead on the word past. And I'm thinking, oh, no. Oh no. It's got to be passed away. 

So, I'm waiting for the phone to ring. But it takes a bit of a while for the phone to ring again. I'm thinking, well, it doesn't have to be away. It could be past wind. [audience laughter] It could be past muster in a series of difficult physical tests. [audience laughter] It could be past caring. The phone rings again, and it's my wife. She says, “What happened?” I said, I don't know. The line went dead. She said, “Well, your dad passed away this morning,” Okay. So, it's a strange thing when your eyes absolutely fill with tears in an instant, but that's what happened. I listened to the rest of the story, and I heard the fact that my mum was with him and she read a beautiful poem to him as he passed away by W.B. Yeats, and I thought, that's good. That's a good way to go.

I went out into the lounge in our apartment in Houston, and I felt, in a strange way, as close to my dad as I ever felt and easily as far away from my family as I'd ever felt. I looked out the window. Before I could do that, Stu, one of my colleagues came out of his room and said, “All right, mate.” And I said, he's gone. And held me and let me cry a lot more, which I did a lot, very hard for about 30 seconds and then stopped. And then, I looked out this window. And by the window, that's overlooking a busy Houston street, there is a telegraph wire. 

As I look out the window, a bird comes out the sky and lands on the telegraph wire, and it's a pigeon. [audience laughter] I look at the pigeon and the pigeon looks at me. He's quite a jaunty little chap. Looks at me as if to say, “All right, mate.” I look at him and I say, no, no. I'm sorry. If you think you are going to be the punctuation mark at the end of the story of my father's life and my relationship to him, if you think you are going to be the point where it comes full circle, if you think you are going to supply some congruency to the narrative arc of my life with my dad, then you are sadly mistaken, sir, because you are a pigeon [audience laughter] and my dad was an eagle. My dad was an owl. My dad was an eagle owl. [audience laughter] 

So, the pigeon looks at me and somewhat apologetically lifts off and flies away. And I watch it go. And so, I'm still waiting for the punctuation mark. That was about two years ago. Hasn't arrived yet. All I'm left with is a sense of absence that something's not there. But every so often, I get a sense that he is still around. The last time it happened was about a year ago, I was in a Cornish woodland in a clearing, sunshine dappling through the leaves, and this little wood was full of song, and wing, and my father was in every note and in every feather. Thank you. 

[cheers and applause]

Meg Bowles: [00:31:36] That was the actor, writer and improv comedian, Niall Ashdown. Niall still feels his father when birds are about. In an email he told me, “My mom was on her own during the COVID lockdowns, and the birds and the feeders in the garden probably kept her going more than anything else. And in that, I'd like to think that dad is keeping her going.” 

When I asked Niall about his thoughts on love, he said, “Love has its flip side, loss. Once you lose a treasured loved one, it sharpens the love for those left behind and the fear of losing them. I deeply love what I'm grateful for, and I'm grateful for what and who I love.” 

As Niall mentioned in his story, he thinks of his father as owlish. He almost got a tattoo of an owl after his father died, but thought he'd probably think that was stupid. And he added, “I'm not very good with paint, so I resisted.” 

You can find out more about Niall, and see pictures of him and his father on their bird adventures on our website, themoth.org.

[whimsical music 

Something I love about working at The Moth is listening to stories that come in on our pitch line. People call in and leave a two-minute pitch. The stories are sometimes funny or heartbreaking, small moments and big moments that left a lasting impression. If you have a story, we'd love to hear it. Just visit our website, and look for tell a story and you can find all the info for how to pitch us. Or, you can call us at 877-799-MOTH. That's 877-799-6684. Pitches are developed for shows all around the world. 

Coming up, the magic of a great love when The Moth Radio Hour continues. 

[whimsical music]

Jay: [00:34:11] The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. And presented by PRX. 

Meg Bowles: [00:34:24] This is The Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Meg Bowles. 

And our final story in this hour comes from Esther McManus. She shared in an evening we produced in Somerville, Massachusetts in partnership with local public radio station WBUR. Live from the Somerville Theater, here's Esther McManus. 

[cheers and applause]

Esther McManus: [00:34:48] Good evening. I am so proud to be here. [audience cheers and applause] 

And I thank you for being here. So, my story is, some 35 years ago, I was asked to open a restaurant called LeBus in the University of Pennsylvania campus in Philadelphia. It was called LeBus, because it started as a school bus. [audience laughter] We made things that at the time seemed and were really very unusual, and nobody made them. French baguette, crusty bread, brioche, even the tricky croissant. [audience laughter] We were so popular that we had to open a real bakery to be ready for the demand. So, my boss and I, David, went all over the world, France, Germany, New York, Seattle, begging bakers to teach us their trade. Soon, we had bread in almost every table in the restaurant of Philadelphia. [audience applause] 

We were a hit. Then, one day, out of the blue, in 1998, I received a call from a woman who was scouting to find bakers to be guests at The Julia Child TV show. She asked me to send my croissants to her to try them. I couldn't believe my ears. For me, you understand, it's a real dream. I was born in Marrakech, Morocco, in 1936. The 13th child of my family and the last one. My saint mother cooked and baked every day, except Shabbat. My father was a rabbi and a farmer. 

Every morning when I would wake up, I see my mother and her maid blowing on a small charcoal burner to make a fire in order to heat water to make the daily bread. We did not have electricity. I was mesmerized to look at my maid, stooped on a small, low table with this huge mass of dough, kneading it while her whole body is rocking to make it crackle and beautiful, while my mother encouraged her to do it a little longer, please, until this dough became silky and bubbly. 

Then, they made round loaves, left them to rise until they were ready to go to the public oven to be baked. It was my job as a little girl coming from school to bring the golden loaves home. They smelled so good. I felt that that was the time my passion for the magic of flour and water was planted in me and never left. And here I was, receiving a call from Julia Child. [audience laughter] I better be ready. 

So, every day I made batch after batch of croissants. Imagine how happy my neighbors were. [audience laughter] When the day came to send the croissants to Julia, I wrapped every one individually, froze it, packed it lovingly and wrote her a letter in French, “Cher Julia, partir, c'est mourir un peu,” which means to leave is to die a little. Same for my croissants, they left me, so they died a little. [audience laughter] But here is a way to revive them and bring them back to life. In a 300-degree oven, Fahrenheit, please, bake them for 10 minutes and enjoy. I then tied the bag into my bicycle and went to FedEx. They assured me the croissants will arrive the next morning to Cambridge, Massachusetts. Write your home. [audience applause]

Then, it all hit me. I just sent croissant to Julia Child. Me, this little girl, who sewed the most basic bread made in the most primitive way by women who did not know how to read and write. And now, I'm sending chic, elegant croissants to this divinity called Julia Child. [audience laughter] But I was worried. Will she like them? How many bakers sent her their croissants? I did not sleep that night, because I went through despair to hope. In the morning at 10:30, the phone rang. “Esther, I love your buttery croissant. [audience laughter] Would you be on my show?” [audience laughter] I lost my voice. I couldn't talk. I think I said, [foreign word], Julia. 

A month later, I went to Boston for the show. I carted a suitcase with croissants, fresh frozen pain au chocolat, almond croissants and those that were frozen in different stages of the making of a croissant, just in case I would need them in the show. When I arrived to Julia’s home, which was also the studio, I was in another world. Cameras everywhere. Screens. People running around. No one even noticed I was there. Then, Julia arrived. Bigger than life. She graciously introduced me to the guest audience, and then she became the student and I, the teacher. 

But the air conditioning did not work. [audience laughter] The heat was intense, humid. The dough was melting in my hands. I couldn't do anything. I was nervous, but determined. Thank, God, I had those doughs. I took one of them, filled it with the butter, wrapped it in the butter, gave the regular turns, the classical turns for puff pastry, and went through every step of every move that you make for the croissants. You have to understand, croissants are capricious, and they don't forgive much. [audience laughter] 

But when they went to the oven, a miracle happened. All those layers [foreign word] all rose harmoniously at the same time and produced the best croissants. [audience laughter] It was a triumph. [audience applause] 

Julia, in her face, with the biggest joy I ever saw her showing, she took a piece of hot croissant, a huge one in her mouth. And while chewing on it, she showed this beautiful inside of the croissant to the audience and said to me, “Even in France, they don't make croissants like these anymore.” Then she added, “Keep the tradition alive. Here's this little girl from Marrakech spending her life pursuing her passion for what flour magic can do in multitude ways.” Yes, Julia, I am keeping the tradition alive. Thank you. 

[cheers and applause]

Meg Bowles: [00:47:26] That was Esther McManus. Over the years, she and Julia developed a friendship, and Esther told me about a night when Julia came to Philadelphia and Esther invited her for dinner. At first, it was meant to be a small affair, but the guest list quickly grew to include all the chefs in Philadelphia, so she put them to work. The menu, she said, was a simple Moroccan home meal with couscous, grilled racks of lamb, miniature Bastillas, which is a Moroccan pigeon pie, and a French dessert, mille-feuille. The evening was a success. Julia loved the meal and they all apparently enjoyed the wine a little too much. 

Esther says, for her, “Baking is like a disease with no cure, but a good disease.” Her advice is to be patient when you bake, and do it over and over again until your fingers learn to recognize when the dough is right. She says that baking is hard, boring at times and unforgiving. But for her, the reward is always making someone happy. 

You can find a recipe for Esther’s amazing croissants in Julia Child's book, Baking with Julia, and on our website, themoth.org. Esther also shared some wonderful pictures spanning her career in the kitchen. 

That's it for this episode of The Moth Radio Hour. We hope you'll join us again next time. And until then, here's wishing you happiness and joy in all the things and people you love. 

[overture music]

Jay: [00:49:42] This episode of The Moth Radio Hour was produced by me, Jay Allison, Catherine Burns, and Meg Bowles, who also hosted and directed the stories in the show. Coproducer is Vicki Merrick. Associate producer, Emily Couch. 

The rest of The Moth's leadership team includes Sarah Haberman, Sarah Austin Jenness Jenifer Hixson, Kate Tellers, Jennifer Birmingham, Marina Klutse, 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 Adrian Legg, Wolfpack, Georg Brandl Egloff and Stephane Wrembel. We received funding from the National Endowment for the Arts. 

The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. And presented by PRX. For more about our podcast, for information on pitching us your own story and everything else, go to our website, themoth.org.