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1:37

This

1:37

is the Moth Radio Hour from PRX,

1:40

and I'm Katherine Burns. This week,

1:42

we have four stories about the push and

1:44

the pull, life's tension and

1:46

pressures, and creative ways people

1:48

find to manage them. From a mishap

1:50

at a funeral, to trouble on a marathon

1:53

course, to handling

1:54

anger. But first,

1:57

there's nothing quite like a toddler melting down

1:59

to push someone's buttons. Recorded

2:01

at a live performance at Alice Tully

2:03

Holletley Consider for the Performing Arts in

2:05

New York City, here's the poet R.A.

2:09

Polonueva.

2:14

In principle, sharing

2:17

the world with a daughter, raising

2:20

a daughter that is strong-willed,

2:23

headstrong, it

2:26

should be a gift. And

2:28

so when my wife and I found out that

2:30

we were going to have a daughter, we immediately started

2:32

making lists of names

2:35

that would be fitting. Names that would usher

2:37

into this world of being some

2:39

kind of groundbreaking, trail-brazing

2:42

catalyst. Someone who would change

2:45

things. And so we ended

2:47

up in antiquity. And

2:49

we started laughing and thinking

2:51

about an epic poem by

2:54

Homer. And in this epic

2:56

poem, the title character

2:57

is named Odysseus. He's

3:00

the one who fights the monsters. He's out for all

3:02

this time. But as we started

3:05

thinking and talking and laughing, we realized that actually

3:08

that the heart of the story is his wife.

3:10

His wife's name is Penelope. She has

3:14

ingenuity and creativity.

3:16

And she owns her role and lives

3:19

it in her own terms, staving off

3:21

everyone who comes to take what rightfully

3:24

belongs to her. And she does it with creativity.

3:26

And

3:27

so my wife and I said, Penelope.

3:32

And all that sounds great. The

3:35

idea that someone could represent

3:38

all of these amazing things. And

3:40

when I look at my daughter and listen to her,

3:43

consistently say no to me,

3:52

I got what we wanted. The

3:55

issue is that she's two.

3:58

And so when we dreamed

3:59

of this fully formed

4:02

person who would rise

4:04

and bring down the patriarchy.

4:07

We could not have imagined a little

4:10

volcano of a person who

4:14

refuses us at every

4:16

instant. Penelope,

4:18

do you want the mac and cheese you asked us

4:20

to make for you? No.

4:24

Penelope, it's the weekend. I think

4:27

you should take a shower now.

4:30

No thank you. Penelope,

4:34

it is now almost midnight. Don't

4:37

you think it's time for bed?

4:40

Nah. We

4:43

have a daughter who has a thousand

4:45

ways of standing up for herself. And

4:49

it's everything we dreamed of. My

4:53

life as a father is reckoning with this.

4:55

How do I make room for this

5:00

force of nature? The

5:02

other day it was my turn to pick her up from

5:04

school. And so I

5:06

went to daycare and at the front of the daycare

5:09

there is a little table where you sign your

5:11

child in and out. And

5:14

when we check her out and sign her out, she

5:17

looks at where all the pens and antibacterial

5:20

wipes are and she takes a couple

5:22

of the pens

5:23

and she takes them home. So when

5:25

we clean up, we discover a dozen

5:29

pens just lying around the apartment. So

5:32

part of our routine is then to come back and

5:34

to return the pens to her school.

5:36

On this particular day, it was my turn

5:39

according to plan. I went outside, I put

5:41

her in her stroller and I started pushing

5:43

her down Atlantic Avenue.

5:46

I looked down just to kind of make

5:48

contact and to say, you are safe,

5:50

I'm with you, I love you. And there she

5:52

was just looking back at me with a grin.

5:56

And I looked at her face and I felt

5:58

it. I scrolled

6:00

down and there in her hands,

6:03

two fistfuls of

6:06

pens. An

6:08

entire bouquet of pens on each

6:10

hand. She had taken all of them, including

6:12

the antibacterial wipes which are spilling out

6:14

of her pockets. And

6:18

for whatever reason, this was the moment that I thought,

6:20

I

6:21

have to push back. She

6:23

cannot be absconding

6:26

with every pen in the entire daycare.

6:29

And so I said, Penelope, those

6:32

are not your pens. You

6:34

have to return them. And she

6:36

looked at me, bemused, and said,

6:39

nope. I

6:43

said, no, Penelope. And then I lowered

6:45

myself to eye level. So she knew I

6:48

was serious this time. And I said, Penelope,

6:51

we have to give the pens

6:53

back. And when she realized that I was pushing

6:56

back on her and challenging her challenge to me,

6:59

all of a sudden things started moving.

7:04

Her face changed, something

7:06

feral activated, and

7:09

she just started wailing.

7:11

These are

7:12

my pens. I need

7:15

these pens. These

7:17

pens belong to me. I

7:19

need them. I don't know what a two year old needs with that many

7:22

pens.

7:22

But she needed

7:25

them. And she just kept yelling

7:27

and screaming, singing this kind

7:29

of primal song, so

7:31

much so that passers-by would walk by

7:33

me and make eye contact and just go, damn.

7:39

Some actually said, I'm sorry, and

7:41

just walked away fast. No

7:44

one could do anything for me. At this point,

7:46

she had slid out of her

7:48

stroller and was now across

7:50

the sidewalk with the pens

7:53

like this. In a kind of Christ-like

7:56

sacrifice to the heavens.

7:59

I didn't know what to do. This

8:04

person was the chosen one. She

8:06

was supposed to be the person who

8:08

brought the entire, she was supposed to rage against

8:10

the machine, not against clicky pens

8:12

and sanitizer.

8:16

And so in that second I

8:20

froze. I didn't know what to do. And

8:22

I have to confess to you that as this is happening,

8:25

sometimes I have these flashes. I have

8:28

these flashes to all the

8:31

brilliant constellation of women

8:34

in my life. All the women

8:36

who are in some way powered

8:40

by fight, who have stood up for things. She

8:43

inherits all of that from them. And

8:46

of all these women, my mom, my

8:48

wife, my aunts, I

8:50

think of the one person that Penelope never

8:53

got a chance to meet, which is my grandmother.

8:55

My grandmother's name was Socorro. And

8:57

she grew up in the Philippines at

8:59

a time where it was expected of her

9:02

to just be a wife. The

9:05

highest place you could hit

9:07

was to have a family, raise that family

9:10

and keep a home.

9:11

And she did all those things with

9:14

grace and with

9:17

passion, but she wanted

9:19

more. And she

9:21

was a shoulder

9:24

to cry on. She was a mediator.

9:27

She was someone who stood up

9:29

for people who

9:31

didn't have a voice. I

9:33

didn't know her in that in that way.

9:36

I knew her as my grandma. And

9:38

near the ending of her life,

9:41

she was a chain smoker her whole life. And near the

9:44

ending of her life, she lived with us. And

9:47

I remember

9:48

that it was

9:51

hard for her to breathe. And the

9:53

doctors and all of a sudden, you have to stop smoking, but

9:55

she did what she wanted. And so

10:00

There were times where she

10:02

would have an oxygen tank and she would call me

10:04

up to help take care

10:06

of it. And she'd point to it and

10:09

she'd gesture

10:11

to me to sort of push it aside. I'd push it aside

10:13

and then she'd tap on the bed because

10:15

she wanted to arm wrestle me. She

10:19

would roll up her sleeve and you would see this bicep,

10:22

just like. And

10:25

her hand would just sort of shroud mine

10:28

and she'd look me in the eyes and then she

10:30

would just go. And

10:33

just take me out every time, just merciless.

10:37

And she would laugh so hard

10:39

that I'd have to wheel the oxygen tank back to

10:42

give her back her oxygen. That's

10:44

the woman that she was. Other times, we had

10:47

to start taking the cigarettes away from her because it

10:49

wasn't healthy anymore. And so we started

10:52

hiding. Her brand was parliaments.

10:54

And so I remember that the little tesserae of

10:57

dark blue on the carton,

10:59

we'd hide them because she would just, but

11:02

no matter what we did, she would end up outside

11:04

just like looking at us like. And

11:07

we had no idea where she got them from. It

11:09

became an arms race. We would hide

11:12

parliaments, then we would find parliaments and

11:14

we weren't sure if the parliaments that we found

11:16

were the ones that we had hidden or she'd hidden herself. And

11:19

it turns out that after church, we'd

11:21

go food shopping for the week

11:24

and she would

11:26

sneak away while we were getting cereal and she'd

11:28

go to the pharmacy and just start pocketing, like

11:31

buying and hiding them.

11:33

It came to the point where we

11:35

just kept being outsmarted

11:37

and tricked and the doctors just said,

11:40

let her go, let her be happy.

11:43

So that's what I'm up against.

11:47

Penelope is part

11:49

of that legacy. And

11:51

I'm thinking about pen, my

11:54

Penelope, I'm thinking of grandma and

11:56

I'm watching Penelope writhe

11:58

and squirm.

11:59

and boil over

12:02

on this sidewalk, and I don't know what

12:04

to do, so I call

12:06

my wife. And

12:10

she picks up in her beautiful musical voice,

12:12

she's like, Hi, how are you? And

12:16

in that second, she hears the background,

12:18

I need these pens!

12:22

I need these or my pens, like

12:24

Gollum or something. And

12:28

so my wife Jennifer just

12:30

says,

12:33

Did you get the bribe chips? I

12:40

don't know what the bribe chips are. I

12:42

said, Jen, I don't know what the bribe chips are. And she

12:44

goes, okay, you see where you are in the corner? She

12:47

knew exactly where I was, this has happened before. She

12:50

looked across the street,

12:51

you will see a bodega. The

12:55

bodega's name is Champions.

12:59

Put

13:00

Ben back in the stroller, go back

13:02

in there, and get the bribe

13:04

chips. Penn will know what to do.

13:08

So I did everything that my wife said. I picked

13:11

Penn up, I put her in the stroller, she was still

13:13

crying, I knelt down beside her and I said, Penelope,

13:18

would you like some chips? And

13:20

her entire face just changed. It was like, yes,

13:30

father, I'd like some chips. She

13:33

said, yes, chips, yes. And

13:36

so I took her over there in the stroller,

13:39

walked in the front door of the bodega. The

13:43

person behind the counter looked at me like, hey,

13:45

this had happened before. She

13:47

got out of her stroller, turned to her left, and

13:49

there to her left was a shelf of

13:52

Pringles. She reached up, got an orange

13:54

tin, cheddar cheese, put that

13:56

in her lap.

13:57

She reached up and then she got

13:59

a... bright purple one, barbecue.

14:02

And she looked at me and she said, for

14:04

my brother. We

14:07

paid for them. And

14:09

we walked out. I

14:13

think I was supposed to give her one

14:15

chip per block. As

14:17

a kind of incentive, right? So that you

14:19

make it, I'll give you one. But

14:22

I decided at that moment just to let her have the whole

14:24

can. And so she had

14:26

in her lap and she looked at me and

14:28

she nodded. And

14:31

I pushed her

14:32

all the way home. And

14:35

I'm thinking now, reflecting

14:37

on it as her dad. And

14:42

for me, it's not a bribe.

14:45

For me, it's not appeasement. For

14:47

me, it's not a compromise. It

14:50

seems like this moment

14:53

that we had

14:54

and that gift

14:57

was an offering. That

14:59

that little small act of defiance,

15:03

rebellion, mutiny, it's

15:06

sort of a way for us

15:09

to understand each other. And

15:12

for me to say, we hear

15:14

your voice. We need to make space

15:16

for you. And

15:18

the hope is that these small moments

15:21

of conversation between us will

15:24

lead us toward the big things in the future.

15:28

So that she knows I'm not gonna shut her down.

15:31

I'm gonna let her rage if she needs to.

15:35

But I'm gonna be there. So

15:37

that when the time comes,

15:41

she has the power and the

15:43

agency and the love

15:45

behind her to change the world that

15:47

she'll inherit from me. Thank

15:50

you. Please culturalize!

16:00

is the author of Rilliquaria, winner

16:02

of the Prairie Schooner Book Prize. His

16:05

new writing has been featured by the Academy

16:07

of American Poets, Plowshares,

16:09

Poetry, and Poetry London. He

16:12

lives in Brooklyn. We met R.A.,

16:15

or Ron as he's called, through our friends at

16:17

the gorgeous podcast Poetry Unbound,

16:19

which I highly recommend checking out. I

16:22

bought Ron's book and was struck by how many

16:24

of his poems tell stories. Here's

16:26

Ron reading the poem about his grandmother to

16:28

inspire this story.

16:57

Two.

17:19

When

17:27

Grandpa woke from dreaming of his wife, dead

17:30

for twelve years by now, he

17:32

made the sign of the cross against his

17:34

chest, sat on the edge of his bed, and

17:36

listened to a fan push air into a corner

17:38

which seemed, that morning,

17:41

sharp with lizards. He

17:44

made no mention of the house duster she wore

17:47

in last night's vision. It

17:49

straps loose at the shoulders, or how his

17:51

wife propped her right elbow up with her left

17:53

fist, ashes in her knuckles,

17:57

and unfiltered cigarette at her lips. At

18:00

breakfast, Grandpa watched the dogs

18:02

gnaw at their leashes, gave

18:04

us only what Grandma sang to him

18:07

all night.

18:08

Na kalimut al mon ako. You

18:11

have already forgotten

18:13

me.

18:17

R.A. Villa Nueva.

18:28

Coming up, a funeral does not

18:30

go as planned. And later, trouble

18:33

on the Philadelphia Marathon course. That's

18:35

when the Moth Radio Hour continues.

19:04

The Moth Radio Hour is produced

19:07

by Atlantic Public Media in Woods

19:09

Hole, Massachusetts and presented

19:11

by PRX.

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This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. It's

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else needs from you and never take a moment

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can leave us feeling stretched thin and burned

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law.

20:11

This is the Moth Read You Hour from PRX.

20:14

I'm Katherine Burns. In this hour,

20:16

we're hearing about tense situations that

20:18

require a little grace and finesse. Just

20:21

like our next story, which was told by Mary

20:23

Ann Ludwig, as an event the moth produced

20:25

in conjunction with Greenwood Cemetery, appropriately

20:28

enough, as you'll understand. So

20:30

if you hear a few airplanes flying overhead or

20:32

woodsy sounds, it's because we're outside.

20:35

Here's Mary Ann Ludwig. So it's February 2001,

20:43

and

20:47

my husband Herb and I are on our way

20:49

to my mother-in-law's Nancy's

20:52

funeral in Queens.

20:54

And it was very sad, of course,

20:56

and underneath that is, on my part,

20:59

some apprehension because it's

21:01

the first time I would have ever gone to a

21:04

Jewish funeral,

21:05

and I'm not quite sure what to expect. In

21:09

addition to that, my husband and his family

21:11

are all super intelligent.

21:13

Their IQs are off the chart. And

21:18

he has, actually Herb has an IQ

21:20

of 167, and

21:22

he's a mathematical genius. But

21:24

on the other hand, growing up, my

21:27

mom would tell me, you know, you

21:29

have potential. You know, just

21:31

buckle down, you'll be okay.

21:33

So one-on-one, we make it work in our

21:35

marriage.

21:36

He helps the kids with their algebra, and

21:39

I remind him in the morning to make sure his shoes match.

21:45

But I'm gonna be in a funeral

21:47

home with aunts, uncles,

21:49

cousins, immediate family, whose

21:52

IQs are just unbelievable, and

21:54

I'm not quite sure if I can

21:56

hold my own. So we

21:58

arrive at the funeral home. And

22:00

it's a little daunting because it's

22:03

huge. It has multiple floors

22:06

and it has multiple chapels on each

22:08

floor, Herb tells me, and there'll be funerals

22:11

going on simultaneously.

22:13

So it does nothing to assuage my anxiety.

22:16

We walk in and there

22:18

is my father-in-law, Hi, in his wheelchair,

22:22

and cousin Joni.

22:24

So we approach Nancy's

22:27

coffin and with

22:29

that, cousin Joni says,

22:31

I don't want to

22:33

say anything,

22:34

but that's not Nancy.

22:39

And we all just freeze

22:41

in place, sort of like this one huge

22:43

mannequin challenge. And

22:46

after a second or so, we

22:48

simultaneously lean forward together

22:50

and take another look. And sure enough, this

22:53

little gray-haired lady is not

22:56

our Nancy. Nancy

22:58

is larger than life.

23:00

She has short hair that she

23:02

wears straight up like Bart Simpson.

23:05

And I mean Bart, not Marge.

23:09

And she dies to match her lipstick and

23:11

her lead press on nails. This

23:13

is not Nancy.

23:15

So within a second or two, the funeral

23:17

director and all the managements over there are talking

23:19

to us saying, don't worry, we're going to figure it out. Just

23:22

give us some time, go sit down, relax. So

23:26

we all sort of huddle together. And

23:29

eventually, my husband, Herb,

23:32

and my brother-in-law, Alan, they hatch a plan.

23:35

And I think,

23:36

oh no, this is not going

23:38

to be good because they're super

23:41

bright, but they have a little bit of a challenge

23:44

getting what's in their heads out

23:46

into any sort of practical application.

23:50

So here's their plan. The plan is

23:52

to get a picture of Nancy and

23:54

go from funeral to funeral and

23:56

just say, have you seen our loved one today?

24:01

And I decide, you know,

24:03

this is a time for the logic

24:05

of a girl who has potential to

24:08

show itself and

24:11

put the kibosh on that, backed up

24:13

by management. So

24:16

a few hours later, you know, we're sitting there and

24:18

the whole family and they're scratching

24:20

their heads and they're trying to figure out what happened,

24:22

how did it happen, and all this circuitous

24:25

thinking and I can't take it anymore.

24:28

So I go over and I

24:29

grab my husband's hand and I said, come on, let's go

24:31

talk to the funeral director. So

24:34

we do. And he says,

24:36

hey,

24:38

we're finding out some information.

24:41

It turns out that Nancy and

24:43

another lady by the name of Mrs. Rosen

24:46

both died on the same day

24:49

at the same hospital. And

24:51

in transporting them here, Nancy

24:55

was tagged as Mrs. Rosen

24:57

and Mrs. Rosen was tagged as Nancy.

25:01

And I think, terrific. You

25:03

know, we're getting to the bottom of this. Let's

25:06

call the Rosens and we'll put

25:08

the issue to rest, so to speak.

25:14

And then the funeral director says, well,

25:16

you know, therein lies the problem because

25:19

Mrs. Rosen's services were earlier

25:21

this morning and Nancy

25:24

was inadvertently buried in Mrs. Rosen's

25:27

grave.

25:31

But I have some good news. He

25:34

said the good news is that

25:36

the cemetery where

25:38

Nancy's going to be interred has agreed

25:41

to stay open no matter how

25:43

late it takes us to get

25:45

the state attorney general involved

25:47

to exhume Nancy, bring

25:49

her back here for services. In

25:52

turn, Mrs. Rosen, it's going to be a long

25:55

day. So

26:00

we all wait hour after

26:02

hour after hour and eventually

26:06

just as night falls they

26:09

bring Nancy back in the hearse and

26:11

we conclude her services

26:14

and go off on to the cemetery to inter

26:16

her.

26:18

Now it had been raining all day long

26:21

and

26:22

it finally just stopped

26:24

as the temperature went up

26:26

and as if on cue a fog

26:29

rolled in.

26:31

We pull into the cemetery the

26:33

hearse ahead of us and the procession behind

26:35

that and all the

26:37

cars they pull alongside the

26:40

graves

26:41

and there's an open grave for Nancy.

26:45

So Herb and his brother they're

26:47

helping his dad out of the car and

26:49

into a wheelchair and

26:51

not surprisingly they put

26:53

it in the mud. And

26:56

I look at that and I said well I'll go over and

26:59

watch as they take Nancy's coffin

27:01

out of the hearse. So

27:05

I said to the rabbi by

27:08

any chance has anybody double checked

27:11

to make sure it's actually Nancy?

27:16

Through the fog I can see him

27:19

shaking his head left to right

27:21

and saying no but you know it's

27:23

too late now because we've already started

27:26

the prayers.

27:29

And I sort of lean into

27:31

it and I say well with all due respect

27:33

rabbi we have to

27:35

check. And

27:38

in that moment

27:40

I feel like oh my god I'm challenging

27:42

a rabbi. And

27:45

I would never challenge a priest because I

27:47

would know for sure the next day

27:49

I would be in church doing penance. And

27:51

I'm not sure how it's going to go down with a rabbi.

27:55

But then something in me changes and all

27:57

of a sudden I feel a

27:58

little self-confidence. And

28:00

I feel like, you know, you're holding your own, Marianne.

28:03

You're doing okay.

28:05

And out of the corner of my eye, I see

28:07

Herb and his brother hoist my father-in-law

28:09

and his wheelchair up on their shoulders,

28:11

and they're carrying him over to the grave.

28:14

And I think neither

28:17

Nancy nor I are going anywhere

28:19

until that coffin is open. And

28:23

sure enough, they do open the coffin.

28:26

And there is our Nancy, not a hair out of

28:28

place, ready to be interred

28:30

in her own grave.

28:33

So eventually we get home

28:35

and it's really super late.

28:38

And just as we enter our apartment, the

28:40

phone rings and it's the rabbi.

28:42

And he says the rosin's called

28:45

and they wanted to convey their condolences.

28:49

And they also wanted to let you know that

28:51

that morning when they inadvertently

28:54

buried Nancy by mistake, through

28:56

no fault of their own, that it was a

28:58

lovely ceremony. Thank

29:06

you. That was Mary Ann Ludwig. When

29:08

I asked her for a bio, she sent me this lovely

29:11

note. My mom said

29:13

the family is Irish and loved telling

29:15

stories. Every year when we got

29:17

together for either a barbecue or funeral, it

29:19

was a large family, so there were many. What

29:22

came the bottle of whiskey and the family lore,

29:25

starting with Uncle Bob serving in the Pacific

29:27

during World War II, or Uncle Harold

29:30

regaling us with tales of riding the rails,

29:32

or my mom and her four sisters sharing one

29:35

date dress during the

29:36

Depression. My degree

29:38

in English from Penn and years studying

29:40

with a writer's studio could never replace

29:42

the beauty and depth of those stories. Try

29:45

as I might.

29:48

To see a picture of Mary Ann's mother-in-law Nancy

29:50

with her lovely red hair, go to TheMoth.org.

29:53

While there, you can pitch us a

29:55

story of your own. Do you have a story

29:57

about a time when things suddenly went sideways? Please

30:00

tell us about it. The

30:03

number to call is 877-799-MOTH, or

30:06

you can pitch us your own story at themoth.org. Now

30:22

we're going to hear a story that was told at one of our

30:24

Open Mic storytelling competitions in Philadelphia.

30:27

Here's Steve Clark, live at The Moth. Thank

30:36

you.

30:43

I'm from Philadelphia,

30:45

but

30:47

I've always wanted to be one of those ancient

30:49

Greek heroes. I've just

30:51

never really had the body for it. What

30:53

my twin brother Mike has,

30:56

like in high school when he made the varsity

30:58

basketball team, I

30:59

was doing varsity Model UN. Little

31:04

league and baseball, he

31:06

batted second or third, I batted

31:09

13th on our dad's

31:11

team. I

31:14

think it was probably even to the point where,

31:17

I mean my brother's always been really helpful and

31:19

generous with his athletic gift. I

31:21

think when we were sperm,

31:23

he

31:25

probably said something like, look, you're not

31:27

going to make it there in time, just

31:30

latch on to one of my buffalo jello and I'll take

31:33

you to

31:33

victory.

31:40

So last June on my birthday, I turned 31

31:43

and I realized my time with this awkward,

31:46

unathletic

31:47

body was running out, so I

31:49

signed up for the Philadelphia Marathon.

31:51

And I posted about it on Facebook, a lot of people

31:54

were like, that's awesome, but people who really knew me are like,

31:56

Steve, are you sure?

31:59

It was great in the summer

32:02

because I'm a teacher and

32:05

I get my summers off so

32:07

I could run whenever I wanted but then the school year came

32:10

and I wanted to sleep and

32:13

I have asthma so November

32:18

came

32:21

and I got up, got dressed for the

32:23

run, went down and I was like I'm going to give this a go and

32:25

I wasn't in the best shape but I was more ready

32:27

than I would ever be

32:29

and I was running with a friend, we were in the last

32:31

pack, the slowest pack and she said you

32:33

need a mantra and she said hers was my mind is strong,

32:35

my heart is strong, my body is strong

32:38

and I'm Catholic so mine was, dear

32:40

God, please let me not die, amen So,

32:45

short run, it's going great for the first little

32:47

bit but then I hit like mile two and

32:54

there's this guy with a sign on his back

32:56

that says two knee replacements

32:58

and he's like flying past me

33:04

but at mile six my brother comes out to join

33:06

me to run with me well,

33:08

I'm running, he's walking and he's

33:12

giving me advice and the way the Philly Marathon works is they

33:14

have the marathon and the half marathon

33:16

on the same day

33:18

so we get to mile 13 and there's

33:20

all these people and everybody's really excited and he's like do

33:23

you want to keep going, you don't have to, you can just get the half medal I'm

33:26

like no, I'm going to keep going and I go like 10 more feet

33:28

and

33:28

there's no one with me like it feels like I'm in

33:30

last place and

33:33

so I start running past the art museum and I get to

33:35

about mile 17 and

33:38

I see this van with blinking lights and

33:41

I ask someone what that is and they say, oh, that's the

33:43

lag bus

33:45

that picks up people

33:46

who are running a pace under a seven

33:49

hour marathon so

33:53

I get to mile 20 and my legs are

33:55

broken down and just about as

33:57

I hit mile 21 and hit the home stretch

34:00

towards the Philly Art Museum, a

34:04

guy in a tricycle pulls up next to me

34:07

and

34:09

he says Steve right you are now officially

34:11

the last person in the marathon.

34:15

I'm like Greek heroes always have a tragic

34:18

flaw. So

34:25

I really want to give up then

34:27

I think like about four or five miles down the road

34:30

you know maybe maybe I'm not a Greek hero

34:33

maybe I'm more like and I'm trying to think

34:35

why we idolize Rocky so much in Philadelphia

34:37

and it's because he's

34:40

dumb and

34:44

he just took

34:45

a lot of a lot of pain and a lot of

34:47

abuse and I am in a lot of pain and

34:49

this feels like the dumbest thing I've ever done but

34:52

I walk up to the guy in the van I'm like I have seven hours

34:54

right and he says yeah technically and

34:56

I'm like all right I'm gonna

34:58

keep going and he's like three feet behind

35:01

me and I'm struggling to move and I get to

35:03

mile 22 and I get to mile 23

35:05

and

35:07

there's a cop there and I asked can you please pull him over

35:10

and at

35:15

mile 24 and a half

35:17

I hit the seven hour mark

35:20

and a van from the cleanup crew pulls

35:23

in front of me

35:25

and the lag bus driver pulls up next to me and

35:29

he says you're fine just keep going I'll get him.

35:35

So I make it to mile 25 and 26 and

35:38

at that point there's point two left and the announcer

35:41

who I thought was kind of a dick about it said

35:43

though he's well over the allotted time

35:45

the

35:50

last person who did not make any

35:53

side routes we checked to

35:58

finish the 2015 Philadelphia

35:59

marathon is Steve Clark and

36:02

the mayor comes up to me and he shakes my hand he's

36:04

like I just wanted to stay till the bitter end and he gets out of there

36:09

Epilogue Philly

36:15

is not experiencing a great

36:18

era in its sports

36:20

teams

36:21

and though I would never be like

36:23

my brother and never be this Greek

36:25

athletic hero and though I had

36:28

just

36:28

lost the marathon to everyone in Philadelphia

36:34

it still felt like a win to me. Thank

36:37

you

36:46

Steve Clark is a writer, storyteller

36:48

and high school English teacher from Pennsylvania.

36:51

He tells us that he works at the best high school in

36:53

Philly with the best kids in Philly

36:56

which makes him super happy. To see

36:58

a photo of Steve at the finish line go to

37:00

TheMoth.org.

37:04

I relate to Steve's story. I took

37:06

up running a few years ago at age 50

37:09

and while I'm proud of myself for doing it I'm a slow

37:11

runner. I ran the New York City Marathon

37:14

a few years ago and it took me over seven hours

37:16

to finish. At around mile 17

37:19

I was running across the Queensborough Bridge and

37:21

was passed by a woman who was walking the

37:23

marathon for charity with her 85 year

37:26

old mother. She offered me a peanut

37:28

butter and jelly sandwich she had in her pocket.

37:30

What that said to me was A, she's

37:33

a very kind person but B, at

37:35

no point did she think her elderly mother would

37:37

need that sandwich more than I did at that moment.

37:42

But my most embarrassing experience happened during

37:44

a half marathon a few months before. As

37:47

I was running the last few miles I heard someone

37:49

behind me on a bicycle talking

37:51

into a walkie-talkie I'm

37:54

behind the last runner.

37:56

No we're not even to the bridge yet.

37:59

last two miles running with this guy riding

38:02

behind me reporting my progress into his

38:04

staff. By the time I made it to the end,

38:06

they had taken down the finish line. But when

38:08

they saw me coming around the bend, the clean

38:10

up crew, God bless their hearts, stopped

38:13

what they were doing and gave me a standing ovation.

38:28

Coming up, a young girl can't seem

38:30

to keep herself out of trouble. That's

38:32

when the Moth Radio Hour continues.

39:03

The Moth Radio Hour is produced

39:06

by Atlantic Public Media in Woods

39:08

Hole, Massachusetts and presented

39:11

by

39:11

PRX.

39:15

This is the Moth Radio Hour from

39:17

PRX. I'm Katherine Burns.

39:19

Our final story, like our first story,

39:22

was recorded at a live performance at Alice

39:24

Tully Hall at Lincoln Center for the Performing

39:27

Arts in New York City. Here's

39:29

Amber Phillips, live at the Moth.

39:31

Thank

39:36

you.

39:41

I have some friends in the audience. So

39:46

this one time, I woke up in

39:48

the middle of the night and my mom was

39:50

praying over me. Just her

39:52

in the dark, sitting there having a little talk with

39:54

Jesus over her badass

39:57

daughter. See? I

40:00

had terrible anger issues. I

40:02

was about seven years

40:03

old one time at a family dinner. I'm

40:06

not sure what my uncle did besides breathe

40:08

too hard in my direction. And

40:10

I responded by calling him a purple bastard.

40:14

See, when kids act like that, people think something's

40:16

wrong at home. But honestly, my

40:19

family was amazing. We

40:21

laughed as much as we cried. We

40:23

loved each other boldly and loudly.

40:26

But

40:27

we were living paycheck to paycheck. And

40:29

I hated it. My

40:32

mom was a visionary, truly. She would

40:34

turn the electric being cut

40:36

off into her paycheck, into

40:39

these candlelit dinners. But

40:42

as time wore and went on, I

40:44

could start to feel how much she worried

40:47

and how hard she worked

40:49

and how we never seemed to quite have

40:51

everything we needed. And it made me

40:53

angry. It made me mad. I

40:55

was acting up at home, at school,

40:58

even at church.

40:59

So my mom decided to take

41:02

me to therapy. Yes,

41:04

my black mother took her black child

41:07

to therapy, okay? And

41:10

that was around the time I was starting to get nervous. 10-year-old

41:12

Amber was nervous at this point because I'm like,

41:14

my mom has voluntarily taken me to white folks

41:16

to talk about my issues. I

41:19

was sure this was the first stop to end up on

41:22

Murray where they'd yell in the kid's face and send them off

41:24

to boot camp. I didn't really want that for

41:26

my life.

41:27

So she takes me to this children's

41:29

hospital and as we're about to go in,

41:31

she looks down at me and she gives her

41:34

speech of, now don't go in

41:36

here and show your ass.

41:37

We walk

41:40

into the building and I sit with

41:42

this perfectly fine white man for

41:44

an hour telling him all about my life

41:47

as this little black girl growing

41:49

up in Columbus, Ohio with my two sisters,

41:52

raised by my mom and all of my family

41:54

members who happened to live in a 10 mile radius

41:57

of our home.

41:58

And after I laid my little bird,

41:59

burdens down to this complete stranger.

42:02

I'm sorry, my therapist. My

42:06

mom came back into the room and he

42:08

gave her an update. And it

42:11

told the perfect

42:11

balance of respecting our

42:14

new patient doctor relationship while

42:16

also giving my mom the information she

42:19

needed. And he says, you

42:21

know, Amber shared

42:23

a lot of feelings of fear and helplessness

42:26

and her hostility seems to be rooted in

42:28

her feeling of lack of control

42:31

because she doesn't have any money.

42:33

So I think that you should consider giving

42:35

Amber an allowance. I

42:42

instantly felt betrayed. How

42:44

did I explain this so wrong? If

42:47

I don't have the money, my mom

42:49

doesn't have the money. We're broke

42:51

together. We're in this together. So

42:55

we leave and she looks at me and she

42:57

says, I will never make you go back there again.

43:02

So at least we were on the same page.

43:05

And I think at this point, my mom was really

43:07

tired of her needs and the needs

43:09

of her children not being met by these medical

43:11

professionals. And I was tired for

43:14

her, but not tired enough to stop

43:16

showing my ass. So

43:19

you should also know that I grew up in a type of family

43:21

that was always at church. See,

43:23

if your grandparents weren't

43:24

on the leadership of the Deaconess and

43:26

Deacon board, you simply don't know

43:28

my pain, baby. We was always at church. And

43:32

around the height of my behavior problems,

43:34

my mom became a secretary

43:36

at our church. But during that time,

43:38

she became really good friends with

43:40

a person I would grow to know and love as Aunt

43:42

Gail. And Aunt Gail

43:45

attended our church and she was amazing.

43:47

She was one of those people who knew

43:50

the Lord personally.

43:53

And her God had seen her through

43:55

a couple of things. Her God was

43:57

like that one auntie who would shake a $20 bill

43:59

and you'd go,

43:59

your hand at the family dinner

44:02

when you were on your last diamond, unsure if your

44:04

gas tank would even make it back home.

44:07

Her God had seen her through some things,

44:09

and she sang one of the things

44:12

I loved about Aunt Gail. She could sing

44:14

the Holy Spirit into any room. She was one

44:16

of those never-shellow, rock-cry-out-in-my-name

44:19

praises. She would bring her own

44:21

instruments to church and would cue

44:23

up her own solos from the pew, even

44:25

while the choir was singing. Full

44:27

choir, full band. But Aunt Gail with the

44:30

tambourine, okay?

44:32

And I loved that about her. I couldn't wait

44:35

to grow up and have that kind of audacity.

44:38

But I was also afraid of Aunt Gail, okay?

44:41

Because Aunt Gail was one of those born-again

44:44

Christians, meaning she was raised

44:46

in the church, dipped out to have her

44:48

little fun for a couple years, and

44:52

then made her return a resubscribed

44:54

Christian, if you will. Okay?

44:57

She was also the type of Christian

44:59

who carried an R Daily Bread devotional

45:02

booklet in her purse next

45:04

to her pack of Newports. And

45:07

that told me that she was a cousin Christian.

45:10

And so was I, but I was 10 and a kid.

45:13

Shouldn't have been a cousin.

45:15

So another time when I got a

45:17

phone call home from school, this time

45:20

for calling my teacher a turtle-looking-ass

45:22

bitch. Creative.

45:29

That's when I woke up to my mom praying over me.

45:32

And it wasn't like she started by turning my mental

45:34

health over to the Lord. She had seriously tried

45:36

other options.

45:38

So she was going to go with prayer and classic

45:41

family shaming. Black

45:43

mothers are known for telling everybody

45:46

your little business, especially

45:48

when you have shown your ass. And

45:52

my mom told the last person on earth

45:54

I wanted to know,

45:55

which was Aunt Gail. Another

45:58

thing you should know about Aunt Gail is when she wasn't

46:01

singing and praising the Lord on Sundays

46:04

and catching the Holy Spirit. On

46:07

Wednesday, she was known for crocheting during

46:09

Bible study. And I loved that about her

46:11

too and wanted to learn.

46:13

So after I had gotten another call home

46:15

from school, I come to church

46:17

on Sunday and I see her across

46:19

the pews. And she looks at me in points

46:22

and gives one of these. Come

46:24

talk to me.

46:25

So I drag my feet over just

46:28

knowing she knew what I did. And

46:30

she says, looks at me and she says,

46:33

I hear you want to learn how to crochet. That

46:36

was what I was expecting. And

46:39

I look at her and I say, yes. And

46:42

she says, yes, what? I

46:44

say, yes, ma'am. The

46:46

classic call and response between adults

46:48

who are not your little friend and

46:51

small black children who are kind of trying their luck.

46:55

So she tells me, tomorrow you're coming over to my house

46:57

and I'm going to teach you how to crochet.

46:59

I was like, OK, good deal. So

47:01

my mom picks me up from school, takes

47:04

me over to Aunt Gail's house. And this

47:06

time she let me hop out of the car without giving

47:08

her,

47:08

now don't go in here and show your ass speech.

47:12

I think we both knew I was no match

47:14

for Aunt Gail.

47:16

So I go into Aunt Gail's house

47:18

and it has that incense

47:20

smell. I like to call it Auntie Core,

47:22

where there's mail

47:24

on the table, plastic on

47:26

certain things that don't need plastic for that

47:28

long.

47:32

And she tells me her real story.

47:35

The story underneath her testimony,

47:38

I don't look like what I've been through.

47:41

The story is when she only carried that pack

47:43

of new ports. And then

47:45

she showed me how to crochet.

47:48

She hands me a needle and ball of yarn

47:50

and she picks up her needle and ball of yarn.

47:53

And I watch everything she does as she

47:55

starts her first row.

47:57

And I copy everything she does. And

48:00

it looks like her hands are in a groove

48:02

of her pattern as she's starting out

48:04

her first knits. And

48:06

I think I'm falling until it becomes clear

48:09

to me that mine looks nothing

48:11

like hers. And

48:13

I say, mine doesn't look like that.

48:16

And she looks at me over her glasses.

48:19

And she says, and getting frustrated isn't gonna

48:21

help it look like that either. Me,

48:24

obviously frustrated. I'm not frustrated.

48:27

I just want it to be right. And this looks a mess.

48:31

So she puts down her needle and yarn.

48:35

And she says, look at your hands.

48:38

I stop right as these tears start

48:40

to come into my eyes because I'm getting angry.

48:43

And I look at my cramping hands.

48:46

My pattern was inflexible

48:48

and rigid, whereas it seemed like she

48:50

was just flowing with her work.

48:53

And she says, the number one rule

48:56

of crocheting is tension.

49:00

Tension determines what your

49:02

pattern will look like. If your tension

49:04

is too loose, your pattern will be

49:06

loose and have holes in it. And if the

49:08

tension is too tight, your pattern will

49:10

be inflexible and rigid.

49:13

She says, you can't make a, without

49:15

controlling and maintaining

49:18

your tension, you can't do

49:20

shit. You

49:22

can't make a potholder, let alone

49:25

a blanket, without controlling

49:27

and maintaining your tension. Do

49:30

you understand? I say

49:32

yes. She says, yes,

49:34

what? Yes

49:37

ma'am, I understand. See,

49:40

in that moment Aunt Gail spoke

49:42

to my anger, where everyone

49:45

up until that moment tried to shrink

49:47

it, even if it meant shrinking me with

49:49

it. She taught me that you

49:51

have to use that anger. You can't just get

49:53

rid of it. And to this

49:56

day I'm grown now. Yeah.

50:02

And I still get very angry. I

50:05

still feel the tension come

50:08

into my body when I think about how this country

50:10

treats poor black people.

50:12

It makes me angry that in life

50:15

George Floyd was assumed to not have $20, but in

50:17

death

50:19

he was able to raise millions.

50:22

It makes me angry that

50:25

it took what felt like a literal crack

50:27

in the universe for people to understand

50:30

that black folks are human beings

50:32

who of course matter.

50:35

So I use tension. I

50:38

use tension. And I get

50:40

to the root of my anger and

50:42

the systematic issues instead

50:45

of letting it control me. And

50:48

yes, I still come into places

50:51

and show my ass. That

51:00

was

51:00

Amber Phillips. She's a storyteller,

51:02

filmmaker, and creative director who

51:04

was devoted to using radical black queer

51:07

imagination to create stories,

51:09

art, culture, and community.

51:12

In 2021, Amber released

51:15

her first short film, Abundance, about

51:17

the limitations and radical possibilities

51:20

of identity.

51:24

Amber told her story on the same night that

51:26

Ron told his story about his little girl

51:28

Penelope. We loved how Amber's

51:30

stories seemed to answer the question posed in

51:32

Ron's story, but why it's so important

51:35

to teach children, especially young

51:37

girls, to fight for what they believe in.

51:43

That's it for this episode. We hope you'll

51:45

join us next time for the Moth Radio

51:47

Hour.

51:54

This episode of the Moth. Moth

52:00

Radio Hour was produced by me, Jay

52:03

Allison, and Catherine Burns, who

52:05

also hosted and directed the stories,

52:07

along with Jodie Powell, co-producer

52:10

Vicki Merrick, associate producer

52:12

Emily Couch. The rest of the Moth

52:14

leadership team includes Sarah Haberman,

52:17

Sarah Austin-Janesse, Jennifer Hixson,

52:19

Meg Bowles, Kate Tellers, Jennifer

52:21

Birmingham, Marina Cluche, Leanne

52:24

Gully, Suzanne Rust, Brendan

52:26

Grant, Sarah Jane Johnson.