Host: Michelle Jalowski

Michelle: [00:00:02] Welcome to The Moth Podcast. I'm your host for this week, Michelle Jalowski.

This week, we're talking about one of the most powerful human emotions. Not love, not fear. Shame. Shame can be difficult to understand. Where it comes from, the strange ways it moves us. But we all know it when we feel it. Up first this week is Lizzie Peabody. Lizzie told this story at a D.C. StorySLAM, where theme of the night was Caught. Here's Lizzie, live at The Moth.

[cheers and applause]

Lizzie: [00:00:38] So I'm volunteering for D.C.’s first podcasting festival. I'm brand new to audio production, but I figure that volunteering at this festival is a great way to rub elbows with the muckety mucks in the audio world. The first night of the festival, there's an opening party and there are cake pops. I avoid them for the majority of the party, but the very end of the night finds me in front of the cake pop table, and I eat one. It is just velvety and smooth and chocolatey and fudgy and so, so sweet. I know immediately that I have made a huge mistake. 

See, growing up, my family ate the most austere breakfast cereal out there, Grape-Nuts. [audience laughter] And the only time I was allowed to have honey on my Grape-Nuts was on my birthday. [audience laughter] The closest thing that my brothers and I got to actual fruit snacks or fruit roll ups was those aptly named fruit leathers that you had to chew on for an hour and they got stuck to all the parts of your mouth. And the closest thing we got to soda was juicy juice, 100% juice for 100% kids. [audience laughter] 

As a result of this sort of draconian health food policy, my brothers and I were always on the hunt for our next sugar fix. And in the summers, this meant going door to door to neighbors and eating their popsicles, usually when they weren't home, [audience laughter] because nobody locked their doors in Blue Hill, Maine. One night after a successful raid on the Milliken's freezer, we came home with purple mouths and the gig was up. Only strawberry and cherry popsicles from then on. [audience laughter] 

As an adult, I'd like to say that I have managed to overcome my sugar addiction, but it's not true. I found that abstinence only is really the only way to go. [audience laughter] I find I manage it fairly well. But here I had eaten this cake pop and it's too late. I immediately begin scanning the scene for the next sweet thing I can eat. My eye lands on this jar of balls. They look like malted milk balls, like black and white, dark chocolate, white chocolate. But the lid is on it and no one is making moves to open it. I don't want to be the volunteer who's guzzling all the food. I'm trying to make a good impression. So, I watch the jar.

But by the end of the night, it's put away unopened and I forget about it for two days. It's the final day of the podcasting festival. Exhausted by my efforts to make a good impression with the muckety mucks of the audio world, I slip into an empty conference room for a breather, and I see it silhouetted on a chair, [audience laughter] the balls from Friday night. [audience laughter] I am alone in this dark room. I immediately go over to the balls. I pick them up. And then, turning my back to shield them, I walk to the far corner of the room. [audience laughter] I don't know why I did this. I couldn't have looked more creepy if I tried.

I'm getting this rush, thinking of all the furtive eating I did in closets around my childhood home, usually my little brother's Halloween candy that I would steal. So, I unscrew the lid and I pull out a ball, this dark one. It does occur to me at this moment that what I'm holding might not actually be food. [audience laughter] So, I lick it. The results are inconclusive. [audience laughter] It's sweet and it's hard. Not unlike a candy shell on a malt ball, but also not unlike a marble that is rolled in old apple juice. So, I need more data. 

So, I put it in my mouth and I suck on it, and nothing happens. It doesn't get more flavorful. It doesn't get softer. It just gets slobbery. And holding this ball in my mouth in this dark room all alone, I am presented with a dilemma. [audience laughter] On the one hand, I've come this far. I've risked my reputation as a PodFest volunteer-- And spitting the thing out would be like an overt admission that this has been a bad idea and I'm just not ready to admit that. But on the other hand, I don't have health and I don't have dental insurance. [audience laughter] I had broken a tooth a couple of years before chewing on ice, so I know that the stakes are high. 

But I can just imagine cracking through that exterior and pressing my tongue against that malty matrix and feeling the little crystals start to dissolve. And then, the chocolate enrobing, it would get all velvety, and it's sort of crackly at the same time. I wanted that malt ball so badly. So, I bite through, and my mouth is flooded with this cloyingly sweet, laced with bitter juice. It's the most horrible thing I think I've ever tasted. I realize that it's technically a gumball. It's a decorative gumball, not meant for human consumption [audience laughter] that somebody ordered on Amazon as a table decoration. 

I need to spit it out immediately. I cast a glance around the room. There's no trash can anywhere. And I think, okay, the nearest bathroom is 45 seconds away. I can hold anything in my mouth for 45 seconds. I just got to get to the bathroom. So, I turn, I go. And at the threshold of the door, I just can't do it anymore. I spit out in my hand. I close the fingers. I weave my way through the crowd, like, trying to hide this thing that I have in my hand.

Smiling politely, I get in the bathroom, I close the door and I open up my hand. And inside is this glob of partially masticated black gray goo. I tip it into the trash can. It leaves this gray violet stain on my hand. And then, I look in the mirror. [audience laughter] My lips are black, my teeth are gray, purple and no amount of industrial hand soap and paper towels can get rid of it. 

I have to go home. I have to shirk my last few hours as a PodFest volunteer and leave wearing my shame all over my face. All I can think of is my mom's expression that night, my brothers and I came in with purple lips. And I just know that she would be disappointed. But I also know that the next time I see something that looks delicious that no one else is trying to eat, I will still try to eat it. [audience laughter]

[cheers and applause]

Michelle: [00:07:21] That was Lizzie Peabody. Lizzie lives in Washington, D.C., where she has the incredibly cool job of producing and hosting the Smithsonian's podcast, Side Door. She still has a sweet tooth, but she has not eaten a gumball since that day in 2015 and probably never will again. Lizzie's relationship to sugar hasn't changed, but telling her story has given her a different perspective on it. Here's Lizzie with more.

Lizzie: [00:07:47] You know, I think taking this buried moment when I felt like I was looking at myself from the outside in slow motion, like, [sings] what are you doing now? [chuckles] Like, I can't believe I'm doing this and yet, it feels bigger than you, and you just can't help it. Taking that moment and exposing it to the light and feeling supported by the audience was really liberating. It has inspired me to try to tell more stories that come from a place of real feeling. Because often I think it's the harder emotions, like shame, that feel the truest and really connect us to other people.

Michelle: [00:08:28] That was Lizzie Peabody. To see some photos of Lizzie and her brothers with some rare childhood ice cream treats, head to our website, themoth.org/extras.

Up next this week, Samira Sahebi. Samira told this story at a Moth StorySLAM in Portland, Oregon, where the theme of the night was Cold. Here's Samira, live at The Moth.

[applause]

Samira: [00:09:00] So, when I was 14, I was sent away to the West by myself and my family gave me a parting gift. It was a very fancy gold ring. So, five years later, when I lived in Los Angeles as a pretty well-assimilated Westerner, I lived with two roommates. At that time, the only thing Persian about me was my accent and the ring. So, one night, the roommates wanted to go party and I declined. Laura decided to entice me by holding out her acid-washed brown leather jacket, and she said, “If you come, you get to wear this.” I had this super skimpy tube top that I could never wear on its own. This just became my motivation to go. I was like, “Okay, I'll go.” 

And so, I went to get the jacket and she pulled it back. She's like, "Wait, you need to really take care of this." I'm like, "Oh, sure, of course." And she's like, "No, no, I mean it. [audience laughter] No stains, no forgetting it." And I said, "I give you my word." And so, we all got very 1980s chic and went to 40 miles south to Hermosa Beach to some guy's house and we got really drunk and then we headed to the strip where we would go from bar to bar. While we were dancing, the ring had come off. 

So, as the group got smaller and smaller, people would go back to the house to sleep. There were three people left, and I was desperately looking for the ring. These three people are like, "Yeah, we'll wait for you." And so, I came out the last bar and they could just tell that I had not found the ring. I was on the verge of tears. And this guy with an Eddie Van Halen haircut, he's like, "Don't be sad. It's going to be okay. Jump up. I'm going to give you a piggyback ride." And I was like, "Oh, no." And he's like, "Come on, come on." And then, he backed into me and leaned-- you know, he just assumed the posture for me to mount him. [audience laughter] 

It was [clears throat] so forward that I just felt bad declining, so I jumped up. [audience laughter] He had been drinking. So as soon as, maybe I was heavier than I looked, he just lost his balance. [audience laughter] I had been drinking also, and so I just watched the whole thing unfold as the asphalt got closer to my face and then further and closer and I was like, "Fascinating." [audience laughter] And [clears throat] so, what did happen is that he flipped me over his shoulder onto the cold asphalt. This was winter. I know it was LA, but it was still winter for us. And so, then he lost his own balance and fell and shattered my collarbone. [audience aww] 

There was this exploding glass sound and I passed out. I woke up in the ER and Eddie Van Halen had drunk-driven following the ambulance, which I was grateful for because I didn't know anybody. So, the very first thing they want to do in the ER, like the whole staff has gathered behind me and they're like, "Go get the shears, the extra-large ones from upstairs. We're going to cut the jacket." And I was like, "No, not the jacket." And she's like, "Trust me, sweetie, you want me to cut the jacket." And I was like, "No, please don't cut the jacket." 

So, then Eddie is standing next to me, holding my hand, putting it on his chest, like this devoted husband who's coaching his wife through childbirth. He's like, "You can do this. You can do this." He's almost crying, he feels so guilty. I'm sobbing. There's makeup everywhere. So, they take this thing off and I could not stop shaking. So, they're piling warm blanket after me. There's this hierarchy in ER. First of all, I didn't get any drugs and I didn't know why. So, I'm in pain and they're like, "Yeah, you're low priority. Like people with heart attacks get to cut in front of you." And then, "We also had gunshot wounds tonight, so you just need to be patient."

So, finally, at 04:00 in the morning, I see this shadow of a man emerging from the hallway. He's got an accent. He's like, "I'm going to take your X-ray." He's walking way too fast for that time of day. He just goes down the hallway, gets me to X-ray, closes the door and he's like, "I know someone with your last name," and then he recites the name of my father. And I am mortified. And so, I tell him because I was too honest. And then the mood shifted. He just got very, very quiet. Like, he just went from interested to, "Oh, shit." 

And then he looked at me up and down, and I could see myself through his eyes, through these Muslim eyes, I reeked of vodka. I looked so trashy. And he just said, "What happened, child?" And that cut like a knife. And then, I started shivering again. And so, he took the X-ray without looking at me. He pushed me down the hallway. And this time, he was not so preppy. He was just pushing me very slowly, weighted down by the tragedy that was me. [audience laughter] 

The hallway seemed eternal. And in that eternity, I got to feel the weight of the expectation of what a good girl should do, especially a good Muslim girl. He dropped me in the room. He said goodbye without looking at me and he left. I never saw the X-ray man ever again. But that night, my two fragmented, intentionally separated world collapsed. They just collided. Although I lost a physical representation of my origin, I tapped into a journey of integration where my two polarities started to come together, which has been a journey ever since. And a part of me wants to find that man. I want to thank him for actually genuinely caring. And a part of me wants to kind of look at him and be like, "I turned out okay.” [audience laughter] Thank you.

[cheers and applause] 

Michelle: [00:15:05] That was Samira Sahebi. Samira was born in Iran and immigrated to the US before it became much more difficult to do so. Disenchanted by too much California sun, she now lives with her partner, their dog and one chicken in Portland. Samira says she loves every aspect of living in Oregon, except how often she's asked where she's really from. She is a winner of The Moth GrandSLAM Championship and has appeared on Risk and Pickathon. 

We followed up with Samira, and she told us that despite the ordeal, she would not let the hospital cut the jacket and she managed to hand it back to her roommate in one piece. Samira moved from Iran to Sweden at 14 and eventually to Los Angeles at 19, where her story begins. We were curious how she dealt with such a huge transition at such a young age. Here's Samira.

Samira: [00:15:53] I didn't grow up religious at all. And so, when there was a religious revolution, and hijabs and the covering of our hair for women, and wearing different clothing became mandatory, that was really tough. My first adventure as soon as I left Iran was to rip out the hair cover. I remember feeling air in my hair. It had been years since I'd felt the wind in my hair, and that was a very exquisite feeling. 

When I was assimilating, there were certain behaviors that felt okay to me, but I knew it would not be okay with my father. We had a don't ask, don't tell policy, because I was on my own and I was young, and so I just did what the locals do and didn't talk about it. In fact, we would go months without any contact, my father and I. I became more and more estranged from my roots. I didn't have anyone to practice Persian with and I just spoke English around the clock. I started to think in English and only be able to write in English. It that part of myself, the Iranian part of me became like a distant memory. So, that's where the separation happened. 

On some level, I think different parts of me didn't speak to each other. It was like, I've left the past behind. There's something about the ritual of traveling for 30 hours or [chuckles] however long it takes to get to Iran. You really, geographically and energetically, leave a lot behind.

Michelle: [00:17:31] And it was at that juncture, with her Persian roots at a distance, that Samira found herself in the X-ray room with a doctor.

Samira: [00:17:38] So, unpacking the moment that I realized this guy is not only Persian and sees me through conservative eyes, but also, he knows my father. And my father, who was a very respectable man in the printing industry and publishing in Iran. So, I just felt I brought shame to my father, because I think there's a noble idea of when you send your children to the West to be educated and to become somebody. Like, that's not their idea [chuckles] that their daughter would be drunk and have broken body parts in an ER. 

Seeing myself through those Persian set of eyes brought a lot of shame. Like, “Oh, my God, if my father heard about this, if he saw the shame I brought to him,” which is perhaps an Asian Eastern value, that you may not relate to it in the West very much, but those are some cultural bonds we have that we live by and honor. And so, in that sense, I felt like I failed my father. 

For me, that night was just such a [chuckles] cluster of so many things going wrong. I learned then that you cannot live in a fragmented manner and not have your two parts collide and find out about each other that it really is a small world. You can't run away from who you are. I had internalized racism quite a bit without realizing or having language for it, but I became ashamed of my heritage.

I have, after 40 plus years of being in the West, there's very little left of me that's very Persian. But in essence, the most important parts of me are still Persian. That's where I was born and formed. The aspects of being Persian that's alive and well in me is the food, cooking and feeding people and then the effect and influence of the Persian language. Persian is a language of expression and poetry and depth and beauty and subtlety in communication, and I really love that and embrace that.

Michelle: [00:19:58] After all this talk about shame, we asked Samira, what's something about herself that makes her feel proud.

Samira: [00:20:04] I don't give up. I'm a very resilient person. I find the human spirit to be so resilient that we're almost unbreakable, and I'm very proud of that. I'm proud of not giving up and moving forward.

Michelle: [00:20:24] That was Samira Sahebi. 

That's all for this week. Until next time, from all of us here at The Moth, have a story-worthy week.

Julia: [00:20:35] Michelle Jalowski is a producer and 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 me, Julia Purcell, with Sarah Austin Jenness and Sarah Jane Johnson. 

The rest of The Moth's leadership team includes Catherine Burns, Sarah Haberman, Jenifer Hixson, Meg Bowles, Kate Tellers, Jennifer Birmingham, Marina Klutse, Suzanne Rust, Brandon Grant, Inga Glodowski and Aldi Kaza. 

Moth stories are true, as remembered and affirmed by storytellers. For more about our podcast, information on pitching your own story and everything else, go to our website, themoth.org. The Moth Podcast is presented by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange, helping make public radio more public at prx.org.