Feel Good: The Moth Radio Hour

In this hour, we are leaning into stories that make you feel warm and cozy, that take

“you into moments you wouldn't mind living twice. Moments you want to slow down, that”

remind you, oh this, this is what it felt like. Roll out that blanket with a cup of tea, find that spot on the beach or near a fire, let the smallest things be exactly as big and meaningful as they actually are.

Our first story comes from Ellis Miller. Ellis stole the story at a Detroit Rangslame

in 2019, where we partnered with WDET. Here's Ellis. When I was little, I believed that babies came from God's factory in the sky, and that the day I went down the assembly line, they were missing a few parts. One of the parts

“I'm missing is a tiny piece of bone in my left ear, making me 50% deaf.”

Now growing up, this didn't have a big impact on my life. I had to sit in the front of a class, even though it's more of a back of a class personality. I was terrible at the game telephone. And my mom would take me bird watching, and I thought she had superpowers, because I could barely hear the birds, let alone find them in the trees. Now when I was 30, I started to worry about what would happen as I got older if the hearing

in my right ear gradually faded, so I did some research, and I talked to my doctor, and he told me about a surgery where they would implant a tiny piece of metal in my ear and

“restore all of my hearing. And I was so excited for the possibility to find out what I had”

been missing this whole time, so a month later I had a surgery date. After the surgery, I had to wait several weeks for my ear to heal before we would even know if it was successful. So I waited, and I waited, and I went back to work, and I kept waiting. And one day I was with a coworker, and I was walking across my office, and I got to the door, I turned the door knob, and it creaked. And I turned it again, and I heard

this creaking noise. And I started turning it over and over, because I didn't know that door knobs made sounds when you turned them. My eyes filled with tears, because I had expected

things to get louder, but I didn't know there were entire sounds that I had never heard

before. My coworker is watching me standing there, turning the door knob. And she said, "What was probably a typical voice? Are you okay?" And I didn't know what to say. I was really embarrassed and overwhelmed, so I just rushed out of there, and I could hear my feet as I walked down the hallway. When I got in the car and I shut the door, I jumped because it sounded like it slammed. And the whole drive home was like being in an

action movie, because I could hear these traffic noises coming from every direction. When I got home, I sat in the silence of my living room, and I started crying. Because everything was too loud. Over the next week, I wore an ear plug to help my brain try to process all the new sounds it was hearing. Now, I tried on every single pair of shoes that I owned to hear the different sounds each one made as I clomp through the house. I apologized to my cats for

telling people that they were terrible at purring. They're very good, very loud. And I'd go into my backyard, and I would hear birds, so many different kinds of bird sounds. And each time I heard one, I knew exactly what tree they were sitting in. Unfortunately, this didn't last, as my ear continued to heal the implant shifted, and the world went quiet again. I was

determined to get back hearing, so I had the surgery a second time a year later in the same

thing happened, lots of waiting, tons of new sounds, and then quiet. This time, I was too

going to work. So I forced myself to accept that this was the way it was going to be. Later

“that year, I got sick. I caught a cold, and as I was sniffling and sneezing, I blew my”

nose, and the implant shifted. And for a few hours, I had full sound again until I sneezed. And now, almost every time I get sick, something like this happens. Hearing returns for a few hours, sometimes a few days, and the only person I know who looks forward to catching a cold. Once this happened, and it was a Sunday, so I went to church as usual, and I heard our choir sing a song, and I was able to pick out every single note that they sing, every single

part. And I thought, oh, this is why people get so excited to go to church. They get to hear this

“every week. And I know that it won't last. I know there's always going to be a limit to the number”

of creaky door knobs that I hear, and bird songs that I listen to. I know that there will be countless songs I only have here. But I live in this state of hope, waiting for the next time that something shifts, and wondering what it will be that I hear next. Thank you. Alice Miller is the pastor of a church in Ranby, Connecticut, where they live with their dog Murphy. Alice told us that several years later, the implant no longer shifts into place when they're sick,

but that first sneeze always gives them the thrill of hope. The experience of gaining and losing

“their hearing left them with a lot of empathy that they drawn when working with people in their”

community as they deal with hearing loss due to aging. I asked some of the tellers in this episode if they have a warm and cozy ritual of their own, or go to wait one wind. Alice sent this, where I live there are a lot of hiking trails. Whenever my partner Katenai have big feelings or are overwhelmed by life, we quote, "take it to the woods." We go for a hike and keep walking

until we've talked everything out. It never fails to give perspective, and right size,

whatever it was that felt overwhelmed. Our next story comes from Kormak Stevens. He told it in Burlington where we're partner with Vermont public. Here's Kormak, live at the mouth. When I was six years old, I ate the perfect piece of bread. My parents brought it home and a brown paper bag with a red stripe going down the side. The loaf was oblong with a ridge of crust along the top, and the crust was a caramel golden brown,

shiny with bubbles, and the inside was snow white. I loved that bread, and to me it became the epitome of what bread should be, the platonic ideal, bread with a capital B. When I was 12 years old, I started baking bread. My mother taught me how to make the sandwich loaves that she made two of every week. The recipe was so simple that even a child could follow it, and I did. All the way up until my mother would turn out the dough from the mixing bowl, and with a few deft twists of her hands,

she would turn it into a perfect sphere. I would try the same thing, and the dough would stick to my hands, and it would tear, and all I would get was this big, shaggy mess. I would look at her, and I would ask her what she was doing that I wasn't doing, or what I needed to do to make that work, and all she could really say to me was that I didn't know how to do it yet, and then I just had to keep doing it over and over and over again until I knew how to do it. And so I did, and every week,

until I was 18 years old, I baked bread. When I was 19 years old, I finally got a book on bread,

and not sandwich bread, but nice bread, artisan bread, capitalized bread, and I learned a lot from

of the loaf is called an ear, which you get by scoring it with a lumb. I learned that a shiny

“crust is caused by steam in the oven, and that most commercial bakeries will inject steam into the”

oven, and that it's almost impossible to get that level of steam in a home oven. That last part, I learned while baking my way through that cookbook, and trying to get to my perfect loaf of bread.

I never quite got there. I never got to capital be good, but I got pretty good at baking bread.

Well, I thought I got pretty good at baking bread. Because when I was 22, I was living with my parents after graduating college during what we called the novel coronavirus, and I applied to work at a bakery, and in my application, I presented myself as a fairly accomplished home baker with 10 years of experience. And I read so many books at that point, but my first day came along, and I realized that knowing

“all the names for things is not the same thing as knowing what they are or how they work.”

And my first day I was inundated with new words, with new phrases, with new motions that I needed

to learn. Instead of baking two loaves a week, I was baking 2,000 every single day. And in the light of that, I did not feel like an accomplished home baker. I felt like I was 12 years old looking at my mother's hands again. But I went home that night, and I came back the next day, and the next day, and the next day, and I did it over and over and over again, until I knew, and I learned.

I'm 24 years old now. I know a lot more than I used to.

“I know how to shape the dough into a battard. I know how to score it with alarms that it forms an ear.”

I know how to load it into the oven and inject it with steam. And I know when to take it out when it's a perfect caramel golden brown. I know how to take the bread and load it onto a wire rack and send it into the next room, where the packers will take each loaf, and they will slip it into a brown paper bag with a red stripe on the side. And I don't know where it goes, after that. But in my more sentimental moments, I do like to think that some of it goes to a six-year-old

kid, and it makes them just as happy as it makes me every day. That was Kormak Stevens. Kormak is a baker from Waterbury, Vermont. He currently lives in Philadelphia with his girlfriend Lucy and his cat Pomodoro. Since telling this story, he has learned how to dominate pastry, but his first love continues to be bread. In a moment, we go on a trip across the country in an RV and to a dance party in Antarctica

when the moth radio hour continues. The moth radio hour is produced by Atlantic public media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. This is the moth radio hour, I'm Julie Powell. Our next story was told at a Grandslam in Seattle at the town hall, a reporter with public radio station KUOW. Here's Sylvanaclark live at the moth. I'm in Manhattan, meeting with my literary agent. Now this sounds very hoidi-toidi, but she has just

said to me, I've been an agent for 12 years. I've never had an author with such

dismal book sales as you. Very encouraging. I'd written 10 books. I can write the books. I just can't sell the books. One publisher gave me a two book contract, gave me an advance, and the day I turned in my manuscript was the day he went bankrupt. Another publisher was so excited that my book was going to be a big best seller. He told me to get an accountant to handle all my money. And my royalty check for the first year was $36 and $24.00. JK Rowling had nothing to worry about.

writing career on the back burner. I started applying for real jobs. I tried and tried nobody wanted

to hire me, and I was feeling pretty depressed. But I heard there was a shoot charity looking for some volunteers for one morning to help out at this homeless shelter. So I thought, well, go, even though I'm depressed, I don't want to. So there are 15 volunteers. We help people get new shoes, and then afterwards they invited all the volunteers to go for lunch at this restaurant across the street. We're all city of the table talking, and I see one man over in the corner who's a volunteer,

all by himself, and he looked sad. And I thought I should go over and invite him to come over here. But then part of my brain says, he doesn't want to sit with you. You're a failure. You don't have

“a job. You can't write books. Plus you have to talk to him, and I am not good at small talk.”

But I feel sorry for him. So I go over and I say, "Hi, I'm Savanna, one of the volunteers." He smiles, and I awkwardly say, "Did you have fun volunteering?" And he says, "I'm glad we could give those people shoes." And then, because I'm bad at small talk, I say, "Do you want to come sit with us? You look sad." Then he says to me, "Thanks for the invitation. I'm Wayne, CEO of the

Shoot Charity." Yeah. I have just told the C.E.A. of a multi-million dollar non-profit that he

looks sad. But he came over and sat with us. Now, during the next eight months, my husband and I traveled across country to belling him. I still didn't have a job, and I still felt like a failure.

“I had an idea. I wrote Wayne a three-sentence email and basically it said, "I hope you remember me.”

Why don't you buy my husband and I in RV?" And you pay us to travel around the country giving away your shoes. And I hit send. 10 minutes later, Wayne responds with "Send me a one-page proposal." Now I hadn't thought this through at all. I hadn't even told my husband that we might be having a new job. But I whipped together a proposal and I sent it off. A month goes by. Wayne calls me and says, "I bought you guys in RV. Can you be here in three weeks?"

And I said, "Of course!" And then I went and told my husband, "We had a new job." And because we were empty nesters, he says, "Let's go for it."

“For almost two years, we drove a big bright blue RV to 34 states giving away thousands of new”

shoes. And part of my amazing job was to find underserved charities. And we would go in on the designated

time and literally kneel down and put new shoes on the feet of the people that we met there. We were at one location and a man came in and I said, "Hi, what size should you wear?" He said, "I don't know. I just get hand me downs." So I looked at the faded tongue on his shoe and I said, "It's a size 13." I brought him some 13s. He put him on. He said, "Do you think bigger?" Sure. So I went and I got him 15. He put those on and he said, "Bigger?" Sure. So I went and I got him

a 15. And I could tell he was embarrassed. So I just went and got him a 16. I put him on. He walked around and he said, "It feels so good to be able to walk without crunching my toes." And I had the privilege of going and giving away shoes at the association for abused deaf people. And a week later, we gave away shoes at the society for torture survivors. And you know, I may not have been a best-selling author like JK Rowling, but I was able to make a little impact in the lives

of the people that I met. And I found purpose and giving away shoes. And that was kind of more magical than Hogwarts. And asked for the two books that I wrote after the RV tour. They both flopped. Silvana Clark spent five years traveling across the country for several companies as a brand ambassador. Along with telling over 55 stories at Moth's stories lands, she now tells highly dramatic stories to her three-year-old granddaughter. Since spending 19 months giving away shoes, Silvana got another

six-month drop traveling in an RV. She visited cams for foster kids and entertained them with

Our next story is from Darrell Thorne. He told this at a New York City store Islam where

“WNYC is a media partner of the Moth. Here's Darrell. It's March 19th, 2022. It's 11 o'clock in the”

morning. I'm nine feet tall and covered in 2,000 mirrors. Top to bottom. On my feet, our stillts,

brand new that I've never worn before. On my head is a mirrored globe with the continents and

latitude and longitude lines cut out. I can see through them. On my body is a brand new custom stillts suit with mirrors that I've had designed. In my hands, our silkshaffan fans are about five feet long, a blue and white on-brake. I'm feeling really great and really happy because everything's working well, particularly because it's freezing cold. The stillts are working well. The headpiece is perfectly in place and I'm able to grip my hands tightly with the fans building out behind me.

I'm feeling really secure. I'm having to take really long strides in my stilts because I'm

“trudging through snow. The hardest part of all is this ferocious wind that is blasting into my”

face because I'm walking across the top of a glacier in Antarctica. Four months earlier, I get the call from a client and they say, "Do you want to go on this perform with us on the expedition cruise to Antarctica for ten days?" At this point, I've been working for myself as a performance artist and costume designer for about eight years, but this is definitely the most exciting thing that's happened to date. I'm really thrilled, but also I feel this sinking cessation

in my stomach because I realize this is going to be very difficult for me. I'm someone who has always

been risk-averse and I describe myself as having a very high self-preservation instinct. But really, it just means that there's a lot of fear. You're flying turbulence, like the slightest bump,

“I'm thrown into a panic. I'm my palm start sweating as they are now. I feel light-headed and”

you know, I have other fears as well, strange dogs under cooked chicken, roller coasters, elevators, choking on a bay leaf. There are many things. And basically, anything that makes me feel, there may be a risk I tend to shy away from. So I had certainly shy away from any gigs on a cruise ship, the idea of being on a boat tossed around in the ocean that was not for me. But I thought,

you know, this is amazing. And who knows, maybe the waters aren't so bad down in the south. So

I go to a meeting with this client. First meeting, we're laying out the performances, he's explaining the themes, etc. And I notice there's four days on the calendar where there's nothing scheduled. And he says, I might as well tell you, that's when we're going through the Drake passage. Those are the stormiest waters in the world. 30 to 60 foot waves in at last for 36 hours. So my heart sank. My stomach flipped. My palms immediately began sweating. And I just was filled

with terror instantly. And he saw that in my face apparently. He said, it's okay, you know, other people have canceled because of the Drake passage, so just let us know. So I go home, I'm thinking it over. And I'm just realizing, I have to do this. I can't not do this because of fear. So I'm committed. And basically, I spend the next three months with just this growing pit of dread in my stomach. As I'm designing my six new costumes and laying out performances and gathering

all the things you need for an expedition to Antarctica. So the date comes, fly to Argentina, board the ship. And the captain comes on and says, we're delaying for six hours because apparently there's a horrifying storm in the Drake passage. So I'm like, okay, this is my worst fear in the moment. And I'm stuck here. There's nothing to be done. So I'm trying to just manage myself. The six hours pass. And we're leaving Argentina heading into the Drake. And it just so happens that the people

who put this cruise together brilliantly put a dance party that would coincide with going right into the Drake passage. They happened to throw a party to call daybreaker and their masters of these sorts of things. So I was like dreading this. I heard about the dance party. I'm prepared. And basically, that's exactly what happened. We get into the Drake passage. Indeed, these massive waves start coming. The DJ starts spinning. And we start dancing. And it is like the

most incredible leaping and spinning and twirling. And just like you would jump in the air. And the floor is either leaving you or it's coming to me too. It's totally unpredictable.

and dread that I'd had is just being expressed out of my body. And it was amazing. And

“36 hours in the Drake passage. And indeed, we had 40 not wins. And 20 to 25 foot waves.”

And I was totally fine. I was just like... And even sleeping, you know, the boat is going like this. I thought that I was going to disturb my sleep. I slept like a baby in a cradle. And it woke up the next morning. And it's completely still in silent. And I opened the windows from the cabin. And there's Antarctica in its pristine beauty. We get in the zodiac. I mean, my still suit. I got my stills. We're going to the landing. There's a glacier. So I've got my stills put on. And someone is

holding this end. Someone's holding that end. And my friend Eli, who's the client, is pushing my ass. And I'm climbing up a glacier in Antarctica, wearing 2,000 mirrors in a pair of stilts. And I get to the top. And it's like a brilliant sunny day. I can see far into the distance on my

“stilts. And it's the colors and the penguins and the ice. And it was the most incredible”

work day of my life. Thank you. That was Darrell Thorne. He is a Brooklyn-based artist and performer creating work at the intersection of sculpture, costume and storytelling. Drawing from a childhood in the Alaskan wilderness to the pulse of New York Nightlife, Darrell's work explores transformation and the many ways we find each other. Since wearing his stilts on a glacier in Antarctica, Darrell has

added sand dunes to the mix, performing twice on his stilts in front of the great pyramids in Egypt. Darrell is currently developing a full length theatrical storytelling work, blending autobiographical stories with visual spectacle, co-directed by former Moth Artistic Director, Catherine Burns,

“and theater artists Julie Atlas Muse. Go to the Moth.org for more information.”

And for Darrell's rituals, he said nothing in the world is better than daily meditation, but close seconds would be dancing, sauna, and ice cream. In a moment, a story right before bedtime, and a story right from the beauty shop. That's when the Moth radio hour continues. The Moth radio hour is produced by Atlantic public media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

Hey, it's Michelle Jalaski from the Moth. As a director, I often hear from people who say they want to tell a story, but don't know where to start. But I don't have any stories. It's something we hear a lot over here. But we all have stories. You are a multitude of stories. And one of my favorite ways to showcase that is through a little exercise called "I used to be now I am." So for example, "I used to be scared of dogs, but now I have two of my own."

So what happened to make you change your mind about dogs? Moth story is always hinge on

some arc of change for you as the storyteller. You're different at the end of the story than you were at the beginning, and the story shows us the journey of that change. Not every personal change will elicit a great story, but the practice of thinking on and articulating these changes in ourselves bigger small can help us reflect on our lives and figure out which stories we do have to tell. We believe everyone has a story worth telling. Find your story by ordering my life in stories

at the Moth.org/mylifeinstories. That's the Moth.org/mylifeinstories. This is the Moth radio hour I am Jodi Powell. Our next story was told in New York City where WNYC is a media partner of the Moth. Here's Ron Hart, live at the Moth. So I have a mixed marriage. My wife is a reader, and I am not.

When we were expecting our first child, she tells me that if you read to children, they become readers,

and that sets them up to succeed in life. And then she set me in an article that she knew I wasn't going to read. But we both agreed that when our daughter Annina was born, that we definitely wanted her to be more like my wife than me, so we were going to read to her. And I got assigned the plumb job of the pre-bed story time. Every night, we sit in a rocker and Annina's room, she'd be on my lap. I got a book. She has a city cup full of milk.

When she was 18 months old, Annina fell in love with a book called 10 Minutes to Bedtime. Some fans, all right? It starts with a father shouting over his shoulder.

allowing in 10 hamsters from a traveling hamster circus. Why? Because all children's books are written

“by people tripping on Iowasca or other heavy psychedelics. As the hamsters load in, the little girl”

does her level best to try to get through her nightly rituals before the deadline of bed time. On every page of the book her father is counting it down. 9 Minutes to Bedtime! 8 Minutes to Bedtime! But she gets roped in by these rascally hamsters. 4 Minutes to Bedtime! They draw her into their circus shenanigans. She loses track of time. Before you know what her father shall. It's Bedtime! In a panic she quickly throws on her pajamas and dives in the bed just in time for her father

to kiss her good night. In terms of reading, this book has like maybe 50 words in it. But every page has like all these big pictures with tons of details. So the job of story time became talking about the details. She'd sit in my lap and point and I'd be like, "Yes, the little girl brushes her teeth before bed, just like you!" And I'd mean it with lean and defouring this story.

“But here's the thing. When you're part of a toddler, there's a thin band of time between”

when my kid goes to sleep and when I go to sleep. And unless there's enough time that is the only opportunity I have to see a movie that does not involve an animated princess mermaid or unicorn. So my story time strategy shifted. She would point, I'd say like, "Yes, that's the girl's putting on her sock." The sock is gray. Like the slowly dimming light of Twilight. As a sign gently sets. I became audio ambient. I could bang out 10 minutes the

bedtime in four minutes tops. And most nights her eyes would close before the book did. But then one night, she points and I say, "Oh, that's hamster number seven." Because all of the circus hamsters were

sweaters with numbers on them. Why? Probably ketamine? But I made a critical error of turning back

“one page to show her that number seven had been there as well. And that was when her little”

toddler face melted off of her skull. She dropped her sippy cup and took the book from me and started flipping through pages looking to see where he was and then she closed the book and handed it back to me to start over so she could find this little stalker on every page. So we did that for a couple nights. And then she found hamster number four. And it was like she had like cracked the Nazis in igma code. Before you know, we were finding all 10 hamsters on every single page of this book.

And they all have their little circus agendas going. So I just have to narrate like, "Oh yeah, there's hamster number three again. He's still juggling what a crazy guy!" And her all the little toddler runs in her head were going off. Now this was not putting her to sleep. This had become the most exciting part of her day. Ten minutes at bedtime was taking 40 minutes, 50 minutes, and hour, night after night, the same chair, the same story, the same hamster. I was trapped in my own

personal brownhog day. A movie I would never see again. And then one day I come home and I peeking

in the Nina's room. She has every doll she owns arranged in a semi-circle and she's sitting in our chair holding the book. And as I watch, she points at the pages in her little squeaky toddler voice. She's like, "See, hamster four?" Apparently she's from Boston as a toddler. She's so loved our story time that she was literally acting it out. And I thought, "Damn it, my wife was right." And she was still too young to read. And yet she had become a reader.

And so I snuck up a hinder and I said, "Bad time!" And she started giggling and she jumped up and she thrown her pajamas and she died into bed and I tucked her in and said, "Good, night!" And we laughed and laughed because she was recreating that moment from her favorite book. It was a perfect moment and because she was 18 months old, we then had to redo it seven more times. I don't tuck an even anymore as a matter of fact. Literally today I moved her into her freshman dorm.

You guys got surprised. She's going to Sarah Lawrence, which is an amazing school. It is also

a school I cannot afford. But an even is going there on an academic scholarship because it turns out

Ron Hart and his wife raise their two children in Los Angeles. Ron now hosts storytelling sessions in

“their backyard on summer nights. And Nina is attending Sarah Lawrence and will be off to Germany for”

a year to study art history. Ron is still not a reader, but a Nina very much still is. Ron said that was a very emotional day for him. He had literally just left his baby on their own. During the subway ride he burst into tears three or four times thinking about the weight of the moment. When he looked up he realized everyone in the train car had etched several feet away from him. He wanted us to include an apology to any writers he disturbed that night. So New Yorker's

Ron Hart is sorry for crying on the subway. You can share these stories or others from the

“Moth Archive and by tickets the Moth storytelling events in your area through our website theMoth.org.”

Or final story was told way back in 2006 at a name stage. Here's Phelene Live at the Moth.

Fatty, fatty two by four couldn't get through the bathroom door. When I was in the third grade

I heard that song almost every single day and it just about broke my heart because what I wanted more than anything in the world was to be a beauty queen to be special because I grew up in my mother's beauty shop in Texas. It was this old A-frame house with big mirrors and swivel chairs in the front room and shampoo bowls in the old back bedroom and my mom saw the same ladies week after week after

“week so it was as if I had this constant stream of overly indulgent grandmother's which might actually”

kind of explain the fat thing. Baby you want a moon pie? Okay go look down in the bottom of my purse there's a banana moon pie with your name on it but be careful because my gun is in there and I don't know if the safety zone. No matter how bad the teasing got at school and it got bad

the beauty shop ladies could always make me feel better. Well I like teasing your mom is teasing my

hair right now. In fact if it wasn't for teasing my hair would be just as flat as a pancake. My favorite beauty shop lady was Miss Helen. She would say baby don't you listen to those horrible children they're just jealous you know one bit fat you just the lumpious and you can sing like a little bird can they sing? But they can't sing. Sometimes I would sit under the dryer next to Miss Helen and I would pat her soft arms and need them like dough and we would talk about things we've

mostly talked about food because she loved food the way I loved food and she was like baby all on need in this world is a glass of buttermilk and a warm piece of cornbread. So one day I said Miss Helen how come you're not fat she said oh bless your heart child I am I'm as fat as I can be I said well you don't look fat she said well that's because I know how to camouflage I said camouflage what's camouflage and she said well that's where you hide something so people can't see it

I said wait a minute you can camouflage being fat she said good lord yes child I'm stuffed into this girdle like a pig and a blanket don't you just love pigs and a blanket Miss Helen's girdle got me to thinking so that night I went into my mother's underwear drawer and my mother was tiny she still is so she didn't have any girdles but because she worked on her feet at the beauty shop all day she wore these really tight support stockings that are like a

cross between patty hose and a rubber band and I stole a pair and then I went to the sewing basket and got the pinking shears and cut the legs off of well I had made myself a girdle

that day and the sweat was trickling down my back and into the girdle and at the bottom where my

“little fat legs stuck out my thighs were rubbing together and by the end of the day I could just”

barely walk but the second day was much worse because on the second day Keith Shaffer who was

the cutest boy in our class and as a mean as a rattlesnake lifted my dress on the playground he said oh my god y'all look she's wearing a girdle 10 years old and my life was over but it wasn't because I was really lucky on the inside and I had this really rich creative imagination so sometimes I would sit on the porch of the beauty shop after school and this glittered up burger king crown pretending like I was a beauty queen sitting up in a convertible and a parade and sometimes I would

“practice my beauty queen except in speech oh my gosh thank you so much you know when I was just a”

little fat child y'all made fun of me but I forgive you for in the words of Jesus Christ to who I dedicate this crown y'all knew not what y'all did I just knew I knew in my heart that one day

my life would change so you can imagine my excitement when I heard that Mrs. Gandhi's third grade

spring production would be Peter Rabbit the musical because hello floppy right my fallback position was mobsy but I figured at the very least there was a whole garden full of flowers and I could just see me as a big language droopy iris or a perky little daisy or like a sophisticated crescent the

“moment you know so I stood in shock and horror when it was announced that I had been cast in the”

pivotal role of the green bean the green bean costume consisted of a green lead card with great paper pea pods safety pinned all over it and lime green tights and this two foot tall pea pod hat with a curly thing on top I went to Mrs. Gandhi after school and tears I didn't Mrs. Gandhi I cannot do this I cannot wear this whoever heard of a fat green bean they're gonna make fun of me and Mrs. Gandhi I can sing my talent is wasted on this bean she said we're on defey you listen to

me child in my show there are four bunny rabbits and there are a lot of flowers but there is one green bean and you are it she said now I will write you a solo but I want you to get up there and pour your heart out on that stage and don't you let those children tell you who you are you show them who you are and I decided in that moment to be the best green bean ever to grace the stage but what to do about that hideous costume I laid it out on my sears can it be bed to assess the damage

first of all this horrible leotard I strategically resafety pinned the great paper pea pods to hide

my figure flaws and then I attached my burger king crown to the pea pod hat and then I had a brain storm the be dazzler the be dazzler is like this rhinestone for rather a staple gun like a staple gun for rhinestones so I be dazzled that leotard to in an inch of its life and then just in case my panties showed I be dazzled my panties and I looked in the mirror and I felt so beautiful until opening night when I stepped back stage and I saw Betty Renee Boyd and Michelle Swimford

and their pink fluffy flopsie and mobsie costumes and there was Keith Schaffer in his former McGregor drag looking is menacing as ever and I thought oh my god what have I done I look like a big green disco ball I look like Elton freaking John so I just closed my eyes and I stood there holding my breath and I heard the curtain open and I heard my music cue and I could hear

after a few minutes I peeked into the audience and I saw my mom still in her uniform from the beauty shop

“we can really nervous and there was Miss Helen and all the other beauty shop ladies they were all”

there and they came to see me and you know it was because they loved me no matter what and I just couldn't let them down so I took a deep breath and I started to sing and the song I sang that night is still really close to my heart because it's sort of become a theme for my whole life

I'm a teeny-wainy bean living in the garden green I love to bask in the sun all day

all I do is sleep and play wasn't so bad from my smallest viny Jane to my teeny-wainy plane I am healthy through and through eat me I'll be good for you

“from Dallas clear to avalane and all of Texas in between y'all have surely never seen a”

been so keen and lean and mean I'm a green bean queen the next day at school I felt this subtle shift

nobody called me fatty all day and the seventh grade boy gave me a high five in the hallway he said

"look y'all it's the little green bean" and ever since that night on the stage of Reinhardt Elementary's school auditorium I haven't needed anybody to tell me that I'm okay special event because for a few minutes in the spring of 1975 I was a green bean queen. Thank you that was failing. Faye is an acclaimed keynote speaker and corporate trainer as a solo performer Faye has delighted and provoked audiences worldwide she lives in New York at the Chelsea hotel and is currently the artist and resident and chief inspiration

officer for thanksgiving square in Dallas. When we asked Faye what her cozerituals are, she told us she loves to sit in the lobby of the Chelsea hotel people watching and writing in her journal

“do you have a story to tell us about rituals or moments you would do anything to live again?”

you can pitch us your story by recording it right on our site the best pitches are developed from off shows all around the world there are math events year-round you can find a show near you and come out and tell us story the math can be found on all major social media platforms that's it for this episode we hope you'll join us next time and that's the story from the mall this episode of the mall radio hour was produced by me J. Allison and Jody Powell who also

hosted and directed the stories in the show along with Katherine Burns co-producer is Fiky Merrick associate producer Emily Kouch additional grand slam coaching by Michelle Jolowski the most leadership team includes Gina Duncan Christina Norman Marina Cluchay Sarah Austin Genes Jennifer Hickson Jordan Cardinalay Caledonia Karen Kate Tellers Suzanne Russ Sarah Jane Johnson and Patricia Eurania most stories are true as remembered and affirmed by the story tellers our theme music is by the

drift other music in this hour from Bill Frisell and Epidemic Sound the Moth radio hour is produced by Atlantic public media in Woods Hole Massachusetts special thanks to our friends at Odyssey including executive producer Leah Ries Dennis for more about our podcast for information on pitching this your own story what we hope you'll do and to learn all about the Moth good-or-web site theMoth.org