Host: Dan Kennedy
Dan: [00:00:00] Welcome to The Moth Podcast. I'm your host, Dan Kennedy. It's 2019, and it's undeniable just how attached we are to technology and how integral it is to our lives. Oh, actually, literally making sure my phone is turned off, so we can record this and you can listen to it on your phone.
There are definitely times we take those little breaks, those sort of digital detox periods from social media, or we put away messages on our email, so that we can go off and be one with nature. But even then, we use Google Maps to get to our campground or we download a meditation app to unwind while we're on that trip. But this week, we're talking about the times when technology really isn't the answer.
Our two stories this week are actually from the same StorySLAM here in New York City, fittingly themed Technology. Up first, Jill Bergman. Here's Jill, live at The Moth.
[cheers and applause]
Jill: [00:01:08] This story takes place in 1999. At the time, I had just turned 30, and for my 30th birthday, I decided to venture into the world of music. My past experience with music was lessons for piano when I was about seven, and I read the music backwards for a week. And the second venture into music was in middle school. I took a clarinet back and forth to school for about a month, too afraid to tell my parents. I didn't know where band practice was. So, at 30, I really had no experience with music, and I thought I'd go for something real easy and went with an instrument that would make me happy. And the one thing that I thought always made me happy was the banjo.
So, I thought, boy, easy instrument to learn. [chuckles] Not the best choice for someone who has no rhythm at all. And so, I got the banjo, I'm getting lessons and the instructor has me buy a metronome technology, metronome. And so, I don't buy-- [audience laughter] I don't buy the little [imitates sound], because I really need technology. I buy the one with all the bells and whistles. It's got the little rhythm, it goes beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. It has all the different things. But for me, being very new into the music world, I had it set very low and it's got the big red flashy light. So, it's, beep, beep, beep. I'm trying to strum along with it. I'm working really hard at this, and counting to four has never been so hard in my entire Life.
I have a business trip paired with a business conference, and I'm going to be gone for about three weeks and I decide that I'm going to take my banjo with me. Banjo and I have a talk, we say, “Let's go on the trip together.” We get on the airplane, we go, I practice very quietly in my hotel room. I have a pretty good trip. I have a pretty good conference. I'm very pleased with myself for sticking with music. And now, I'm traveling home. I get on the plane, and it is the big jumbo jet that seats 252 first class upstairs. I'm way in the back, and there's no room to put the banjo. And so, a flight attendant asks if she can put it up in first class.
I'm torn, and I finally give her my banjo, and it goes up into first class and it disappears. Now, at this point in the story, what you need to know is my banjo case is soft. It's very thin nylon. My metronome is in the case and my metronome still has batteries in it. [audience laughter] What you also need to know is that after flight attendant number one, put banjo in said closet, flight attendant number two, put something else in said closet and flight attendant number three, open said closet to the metronome, going, beep, beep, beep. [audience laughter]
So, as this big jumbo plane is nearly loaded with, remember, first class, upstairs, downstairs, huge plane, they start making announcements. Everybody has to get off the plane. [audience laughter] And the flight attendants are coming from the back in this military army yelling at everybody, “Off the plane, off the plane, off the plane. Leave your bag, leave your bag.” They're not letting anybody. They're pulling bags out of people's hands. Everybody gets off the plane and they're all kind of mumbling. And finally, they start seeing. Police cars show up with lights. [audience laughter]
And nobody knows what's going on. We're by the big glass window. They're telling us, “Please stand back from the windows.” [audience laughter] And then, the police cars go away, and they come and they say, “We're all getting back on the plane. It was a metronome in a musical instrument case.” And my heart just sank. [audience laughter] They have to reticket everybody, and it takes a long time. So, when I get back on, I don't know if I'm supposed to tell anybody, starting to sweat profusely.
The flight attendant who remembered me and remembered the banjo, of course, pulled me aside into the little galley, and she says, “Don't tell anyone.” [audience laughter] She says, “People are going to get real upset. Just sit down, it's going to be okay.” So, I sit in my seat and I'm on the edge-- I'm sitting next to a family of five, like mom and dad. I got like the babies and everything. They're looking at me, they're like, “We were so scared.” And I'm like, “You don't know how scared I am.” [audience laughter]
And we take off. We're going back to where we're going. I'm flying thinking they're going to arrest me on the other end. I just know it. Or, they're going to find me. I'm so in debt because of banjo lessons and I just have no money left. And I'm like, “Maybe I can sell a kidney. Maybe I could donate my eggs.” I'm thinking all the different ways I could raise money to pay when they're going to arrest me on the other end. But we land and nothing happens. Everyone gets off the plane and nothing happens. I let everybody go off the plane. I still have to go get my banjo, which is up in first class.
So, I go to get it, and all the pilots and flight attendants are waiting with a banjo sitting in the seat. [audience laughter] I start crying and crying, “I'm sorry, I'm sorry.” I apologize to everybody and I get my banjo. But that's not quite the end of the story, because now I got to go get my luggage along with the 500 other people who know a musical instrument that's now on my back has delayed them hours.
So, I see my luggage going around and around and around from a couple of aisles away. I swoop in at the last minute, I get it and I am sitting and waiting for my taxi or the van shuttle ride to come up. A man sits next to me, he was like, “Were you on the flight to Denver? We had a delay with a musical instrument.” And I said, “Oh, no, no, I just flew in from Hawaii.” [audience laughter] Thank you very much.
[cheers and applause]
Dan: [00:07:02] Jill Bergman is an architect and storyteller. She believes that short well run meetings are a thing of beauty. She has a tiny magic door cut into her home. That is probably the best sentence I've ever read in a Moth storyteller bio. She also wants you to know that she won third place at this StorySLAM. Thanks for sharing your story with us, Jill.
Up next, we have Aylie Baker from the same Moth StorySLAM that night in New York. And just a quick clarification before we jump in. Aylie Baker was working as a baker before this story took place, which you'll hear becomes a crucial part of her story. So, here's Aylie, live at The Moth.
[cheers and applause]
Aylie: [00:07:51] It's 5 o' clock in the morning, and the sun is just coming over the horizon and I'm sailing a sailing canoe in the middle of the Pacific, 100 miles from land. Three years ago, I was doing fieldwork in the Micronesia when I met Cesario, one of the last traditional navigators in all of the Pacific.
Cesario doesn't use a GPS, he doesn't use compass, he doesn't use maps. He only uses the stars, and the rising sun, and the wind and the birds. Young boys on his island are placed in tide pools at a young age, so that they can begin to feel the patterns of water and wind on their bodies. Some people say that they have the power to call whales to their boat, to guide them to their destination. And when it's a moonless night, they can actually call the thunder and lightning so that they can see the sea.
So, Cesario invites me on this trip. There's this one night when the sky is completely covered in fog and he's steering the boat, only he's not actually facing forward, he's facing backward and sailing with only a handful of stars in the sky into the mist. Two days later, after 12 days at sea, we arrive at an island the size of this building. And being on a sailing canoe is like being on a raft and camping in the middle of the open ocean. Every person has a bunk and every person has a hammock. You're six hours on and six hours off, but there's absolutely no shielding you from the elements.
When it's rainy, you're soaked and you're freezing. When it's hot, you're completely burning. And for me, most of the time, I was also ready to throw up. [chuckles] But Cesario is teaching us so much. In the morning, he teaches us how to read the clouds, so that we can tell the weather. And at night, he's showing us the storm clouds. One afternoon, he tells us that the reason that the waves are so high at this time of year is so that they can rise up and clean the beach, so that the turtles can go up and lay eggs.
When there's a storm, he's out there blowing the conch shell, so that he can break up the thunderclouds. There's this one night that we're out and it's raining and we actually have the sails down, because it's so windy. We're just trying to keep under this tarp to stay warm. We're putting coconut oil on ourselves. I turn to my friend and we realize that we both worked at bakeries at one point in our life. [audience laughter]
And at this point, that is the most exciting thing. We think when we finally get to land, we are going to bake bread. [audience chuckles] We decide we're going to make bread, but we need to look up our recipe on the internet, because we don't know it by heart. And Cesario overhears us and he gets so angry. He says, “Why are you so lazy? What happens if you lose that recipe? What happens if your computer dies? Can you bake bread then? You have to learn it to know it.”
And suddenly, I am blown open. I feel utterly helpless. I realize that the main difference between me and Cesario, it's that Cesario holds all of his information within him and I hold it outside of myself. There is absolutely nothing between Cesario and the stars and the wind and the waves. He holds it within him. Whereas with me, if I'm without my journal or my iPhone, I am utterly lost. Cesario will never be lost. I realize if I'm facing encounter of ingredients, even me who worked three summers in a bakery making 95 loaves of bread a day, I will never be able to bake something resembling bread.
And so, finally, the night comes when I'm going to tell Cesario my star points. I'm feeling really jazzed. I've got the paddle and I'm moving forward. All of a sudden, I look down and water is rushing into the bunk and I realize our boat is about to sink. It all happens so quickly. It's so surreal. The sails are down, people are starting to bail frantically using anything they can get. The boat is filling with water and we're tipping and all of a sudden, the left side of the boat is underwater and things are floating away. Our oven, our pots and pans, my sleeping bag, everything is just drifting away.
I'm scrambling to find life jackets to give to people. I fall and my leg is bleeding. And all of a sudden, I freeze, because all I can think about is the satellite phone that's in the captain's box. I know that it's cheating, and I know that it's going against everything Cesario has taught me. And I know that as soon as I call that phone, I'm bringing my world of technology rushing into this wonderful world that we've created. But I can't stop myself.
“Cesario, are you going to call someone?” He stops bailing, and he looks up to me on the high side of the canoe and he doesn't say anything. And I feel horrible. I know that this has been my test and I just failed. The sun is rising, and he climbs up to the top of the canoe. And for the very first time in my life, he gives me a hug. I don't know at first whether it's a hug that he wants to give for a child or someone out of pity, but he turns to me and he says, “Aylie, everything is going to be okay. Keep an open mind and a clear head and everything will be fine.”
And in that moment, I don't know that we're going to be picked up in six hours by cargo ship, and I don't know that by midnight we're going to be back on dry land. But I do know Cesario does not judge me. In fact, I think he knows as well as I do that I will never be able to sail a boat in the middle of the fog and find my way. But I think he also knows that when I get back to New York, I am going to keep an open mind and I will try as hard as I can to walk down a busy street and know which way is north to be able to bake bread, and for God's sake, to look up from my iPhone and know that the stars are more than just points of light. Thank you.
[cheers and applause]
Dan: [00:13:18] That was Aylie Baker, and it seems Aylie is living out her promise to be less reliant on technology. When we reached out to her to follow up on the story, our email bounced back because of a full inbox. And then, we tried to contact Aylie through Facebook and we found a public status saying that she was taking a break from social media, but sent her love to friends and family.
When we did finally get in touch with Aylie through a mutual friend in The Moth family, Aylie told us that after the shipwreck, the community and Micronesia rebuilt the canoe and they've been sailing ever since. She said that in 2020, Master Navigator Cesario will attempt the long journey across the Pacific Ocean once more. To learn more about that upcoming journey, just check out our website, themoth.org.
So, I feel like there's always a lesson to be learned from Moth storytellers. And I'm not necessarily saying that we should all go fully AWOL, but maybe we can all follow Aylie’s lead, just taking a little break from technology every once in a while.
That's it for us this week here at The Moth Podcast. Until next time, from all of us here at The Moth, have a story-worthy week.
Julia: [00:14:35] Dan Kennedy is the author of Loser Goes First, Rock On and American Spirit. He's also a regular host and performer with The Moth.
Dan: [00:14:43] Podcast production by Julia Purcell. The Moth Podcast is presented by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange, helping make public radio more public at prx.org.