Host: Jodi Powell
Jodi: [00:00:03] Welcome to The Moth Podcast. I'm Jodi Powell, your host for this week. We're all looking for something in the new year. A better job, a way to spend more time with your family or a place where you can really feel at home. Maybe you don't even know exactly what you're searching for. You just need to find something new.
This week, two stories about people looking for something and what happens when they actually find it. Our first storyteller this week is Jessica Ribera. Jessica told this at a StorySLAM in Seattle, where theme of the night was Mama Rules. Here's Jessica, live at The Moth.
[cheers and applause]
Jessica: [00:00:44] Hi. So, I grew up in Texas, which is like a sea of dead brown grass. And so, when I moved to the Pacific Northwest to Seattle, it was like a magical wonderland of trees and mountains and water. Whales were like a mythological creature to me when I was a kid. But when I figured out, you could actually see them here, it was like, “I'm going to do that. I'm going to see whales.” I mean, the marine mammal, not the country. [audience laughter]
So, I learned everything I could learn about them, and I would make sure I was in the right place at the right time. When the whales got Twitter, I was really, really paying attention to the Orca network and where they were. [audience laughter] But I really didn't want to do a whale watching cruise, because I wanted to have this magical, amazing like, “Oh, my gosh, there's whales” experience. And it took 18 years. [audience laughter] But last spring, I was on a mom's trip with some friends. I have four kids under the age of 10, so mama time away is a big thing. I saw whales with my friends. That part of the story short, [audience laughter] we saw a gray whale, so it's like the size of a school bus. It was like 30 feet away from us in the water. It was the exact magical, super spiritual experience I'd been wanting.
The problem was that my kids weren't there, because they've been with me through this whole thing knowing that I love whales. I came home with this story, and they were like, “Oh, that's so great, mom.” They were so excited, but they weren't there. And my one son, his name is Ivo, I-V-O, he's eight years old. He was particularly happy for me and particularly devastated that he wasn't there. So, we made a plan together that we would rent the same beach house that my friends and I went to, and for this year's spring break, we would go. The problem is it was on a private, residential only island, like no stores, no restaurant. And the only way to get there is like by private boat, which we don't have, or a passenger only ferry that goes like once a day, like three days a week.
But we did it. We rented it. Preparing for something like that with a family of six was insane. [audience laughter] Between all of us here, my husband was like five days out from his vasectomy, [audience laughter] so he was sore and I was carrying the bins down from the car to the dock. [audience laughter] You got to make sure you have everything, because there's literally nothing. There's not even a paved road. So, we had to make sure we had enough bottles of wine for four days, with kids, with no internet and all this stuff. [audience laughter]
So, we get to the marina, we're all so excited, especially Ivo. I'm like, “Ivo, are you ready? We're going to get on this boat.” He immediately had a panic attack, because I think it was so much excitement and so much buildup and so much pressure. He's tremoring and having tummy troubles, the whole thing. So, I'm doing breathing exercises with him. Like, [inhales deeply] you know. He calmed down on the boat over. We finally get to the house with all of our stuff and we walk out into the beautiful beach and my three-year-old fell into a pile of driftwood and got a bad black eye. And he's like, “I want to go home.” Like, “Can we go home?” I was like, “Oh shit.” Like, “I just brought my children to a dangerous place. We can't get off the island until tomorrow.” And like, “What if something happens? And what if I've set them all up to have this amazing experience that I can in no way guarantee [audience laughter] and maybe it'll rain the whole time and we'll see nothing.”
So, I was like, “Well, if there's a whale here, I'm going to find it.” [audience laughter] And so, I was like, “This is beautiful house.” All windows facing the water. I constantly, if there's like any even vague sign there might be a whale, I was like, “Let's go check. Come on, everyone. Woo. Let's go down to the beach.” After 24 hours that got real discouraging to everyone, including me. And then, after the whole next week, we woke up fresh the next morning, and by afternoon, they were like, “Can you please let us watch this old Transformers DVD that we found?” And I was like, “Great, I'm going to go take a bath.”
So, I'm up in the bathroom and I was just about to lower myself down to the water. I looked out the high, little skinny window and I saw a slow-going whaleboat just off the beach. So, I jump out and I'm pulling my clothes on, like, “Go to the beach, go to the beach. There's whales. I promise this time.” And they're like, “Promise?” I'm the mom who cried whales [audience laughter] and they're not sure. But we go down. And so, here's my view. I'm running out to the beach. Ivo is the one in front and then my older son is right behind him and I see my two older sons and I see the spout, [pussshhh], like come out right in front of them. I immediately started to sob. [audience laughter]
My partner and my two little children come in behind me. And then, we saw [poof, poof, poof] There were four whales for my four kids. [audience aww] It was like, I just sobbed and sobbed. My oldest son was like, “Are you even happy?” [audience laughter] “I'm so happy.” My daughter who said-- but she's like, “Hold it in, lady.” [audience laughter] And my three-year old's digging in the dirt while whale heads are coming out of the water. I'm not joking. From me to the back wall, that's how close the whales were.
We spent an hour with them. And as they finally headed out to sea, I said to Ivo, I was like, “Was it worth it?” And he said, “It was so worth it.” Because as a mom, I can't guarantee they're going to love what I love. I can't make experiences happen. I can just be in the right place at the right time. And his birthday, or rather Mother's Day, falls on his birthday on May 12, and we decided we'd had enough magic and we're going to go on a whale watching cruise. [audience laughter] Thank you.
[cheers and applause]
Jodi: [00:07:00] That was Jessica Ribera. Jessica writes, parents and performs in Seattle. Her memoir, The Almost Dancer, is in bookstores now. She's currently working on her first novel, a story of generational relationships and the interplay of her wounds and wisdom. To see some photos of Jessica and her family on the lookout for whales, and to find out more about her writing, head to themoth.org/extras.
Our next storyteller is Dean Rudoy. Dean told this at a StorySLAM in New York City, where theme of the night was Unexpected. Here's Dean, live at The Moth.
[cheers and applause]
Dean [00:07:42] Let me take you back in time to the year. 1984, for those of you who had not yet made your debut, [audience laughter] this was a time before the internet, before we could buy anything, anytime from anywhere, 1984. It was a hot and humid summer day in New York City and I was looking for a book. But first, back in the early 1970s, I had read a novel called A Death in the Family by James Agee. It had won the Pulitzer Prize, and for good reason. A deeply moving story of the impact on a family of the loss of the father. Written from the young son's point of view, much of it from Agee's own experience losing his father.
Sometime later, I read a book called Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, Agee's tribute to the desperately poor sharecroppers in the south during the Great Depression, illustrated by haunting photographs by Walker Evans. The most beautiful thing I had ever read, before or since. I decided I wanted to read and own everything Agee had written. And so, I began my quest. Now, this was a time when there were many small used bookshops like this one, all throughout Manhattan. Many of them in the village and on the upper west side. And so, whenever I was in these neighborhoods, I would stop in these shops and go to the beginning of the shelves where the A's are. And eventually, I was able to collect everything Agee had written. Novels, short stories, poems, film critiques, screenplays.
All but one book, a little novel called the Morning Watch, the story of a boy's quest for an epiphany on Easter Day. It was out of print for many years and impossible to find. 1984, it was a hot and humid summer day in New York City, the kind of day when boundaries blur and anything can happen. [audience laughter] I left my apartment on Charles Street in the village and I headed up north on West 4th Street. And there he was, the man who always stood in front of his apartment building, leaning against the railing, always wearing a raincoat, no matter what the weather, no matter what the season.
So, I picked up my pace and passed him. But not before I heard him mutter, “Books, books.” And so, I stopped and I turned back and I went up to him and I said, “Do you sell books?” And wordlessly, he turned and walked around that railing and down the steps toward a basement apartment. It amazes me today to think that I followed him [audience laughter] into this dark basement apartment, light filtering through dirty windows. And there were thousands of books. Not arranged horizontally on shelves, but stacks. Dozens and dozens of stacks of books all around the room. “I've been looking for a book called the Morning Watch by James Agee. I wonder if you might have ever heard of it. It's been out of print for a long time.”
Without a word, he walks over to the corner of the room, and gets a ladder, and he brings it over to one of the stacks of books, and slowly climbs the steps of the ladder, and reaches up, and plucks the top book off of this stack and hands it down to me, The Morning Watch by James Agee. I was speechless. And then, finally, “How much?” “Two bucks.” [audience laughter] So, I reached into my wallet. I pulled out a couple of singles. I handed them up to him. “You want a bag?” “No thanks.” I walked across the room, and outside and up those stairs back to the hot sunlit sidewalk, my book in my hand and a story to tell. Thank you.
[cheers and applause]
Jodi: [00:12:49] That was Dean Rudoy. Dr. Rudoy is a clinical psychologist who practices, writes and teaches in the New Mexico desert. Devoted to causes, kids’ peace and social justice, he serves on the Board of Trustees of Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights. A collection of his stories will be published in the spring of 2022. To see a photo of the Morning Watch, head to our website, themoth.org/extras.
That's all for this episode. Whatever you're looking for, whether it's a book, some whales or something a little less tangible, we hope you find it. From all of us here at The Moth, have a story worthy start to the new year.
Davy: [00:13:31] Jodi Powell has been at The Moth for more than five years. She is a producer, director and educator, who enjoys listening and seeking stories from beyond the main corridors. Originally from Jamaica, she currently lives in Harlem.
This episode of The Moth Podcast was produced by Sarah Austin Jenness, Sarah Jane Johnson, Marc Sollinger, Julia Purcell and me, Davy Sumner.
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. All Moth stories are true as remembered by storytellers.
For more about our podcast, information on pitching your own story and everything else, visit our website, themoth.org. The Moth Podcast is presented by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange, helping make public radio more public at prx.org.