The Moth - Liberating Yourself with Busy Phillips: The Moth Podcast

Episode Date: May 29, 2026

On this very special episode of the Moth Podcast we feature stories of women and their liberation. This episode is hosted by actress, author and mega-fan of the Tony-nominated play Liberation, Busy Philipps, and features a conversation with its Pulitzer-Prize-winning playwright Bess Wohl and Obie-winning director Whitney White. The three stories will take us from the middle of the ocean, to a nude spa in Santa Fe, to a rest stop in Texas… but all of them are about breaking free. About discovering yourself. Storytellers: Rescue swimmer Amanda Burrill is left by her ship during a drill, staying deep in the ocean unsure of when her crew would return. Jennifer Kohnhorst vacations at a fancy clothes-optional spa. On a road trip home, Victoria Nguyen is thrust into a dangerous situation. Podcast # 980 To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi there, and welcome to The Moth. I'm Busy Phillips. I'm an actress, author, and podcast host. I'm obsessed with storytelling in all forms, which is why I am so excited to be here hosting The Moth. I recently became very obsessed with the Tony Award-nominated play Liberation, which weaves together the stories of seven women in the year 1970, searching for their own individual liberation while debating how to affect real change in the collective.

It also asks the question, as women living now 56 years in the future, how did we get back here? Fighting for our rights and equality again? On this episode, we've got three stories that will take us from the middle of the ocean to a nude spa in Santa Fe to a rest stop in Texas. But all of them are about breaking free, about finding yourself, about liberation. Plus, I'll have a chat with the playwright and director of liberation, the Pulitzer Prize winning Best Wall, and the OBB winning Whitney White. Our first story is from Amanda Burrell, who told this at a new Bedford, Massachusetts main stage where the theme of the night was lost and found.

Here's Amanda Burle, live at the mark. So as a child, it was as though I was always searching for something, whether it was scouring the woods, for quartz, which was the currency of my youth, or rowing this boat from shore to shore on the lake looking for artifacts. Every summer, I wanted to find a bigger artifact. Or in first grade, every day I'd get home from school and I'd go run two miles and I had like the first edition of the Timex watch and I timed myself and that went on for like six years. And what it looked like to everyone else was this kid who was never satisfied and what it felt like to me. me was Nintendo. This was the late 80s and it was like every day it was just a chance to level up.

I suppose it was this seeking what's next behavior that led me to take a Navy ROTC scholarship to college, figuring, you know, the military might unlock some adventure. And my plan was to be a jet pilot. And I got to train for it here and there throughout school in my senior year. I failed my final flight physical. My eyesight had changed. So I couldn't be a jet pilot, and I ended up on a ship. It wasn't as big as an aircraft carrier, but it was a huge 600-foot ship. But I found a way to maybe make it interesting.

I saw these rescue swimmers doing their thing, and I asked my command if I could go. Now, at the time, rescue swimming was not a job for women, and to this day, it is not a job for officers. but I asked if I could go, and they said no. So I asked five more times, and I even wrote a memo, and finally, they didn't say, you know, go get them, girl. It was this begrudged, don't make us look stupid.

So 56 of us started rescue swimmer school shortly thereafter, and five weeks later, five grueling weeks, I'm not going to sell myself short, weeks later, eight of us graduated. So I was one of these Navy rescue swimmers and a lot of times I'd spoken to a lot of rescue swimmers who hadn't even done like a rescue yet. But my first one came in short order. A guy was drowning and I swam up to him and it gave him the spiel. There's actually a spiel. You say, I'm a rescue swimmer. I am here to help you. And so I said it. And I saw his eyes like get big and warm. and I saw his panic increased twofold, and I knew what was happening.

This guy is fighting for his life. He thinks he's going to die. And who's there to help him, but some skinny woman? And in his panic, he starts flailing, and, you know, people who are drowning try to climb on top of things, and he's pushing me underwater. And the good news is I'm trained for this. So I'm able to break myself free and get a hold of him and say, look, this is protocol. I am allowed to knock you out if I have to to drag you to safety.

We can do this the easy way and you can just relax. And he hears me through all of this madness. And he relents. He relaxes and I'm able to get my arm around him and drag him to safety. And later that day, I was thinking, I'm a rescue swimmer. I was trained to rescue people. I rescued a guy. He's alive because of me.

But it was more like, okay, I did the thing. What's next? And maybe nothing was going to be next because rescue swimmers spend most of their time just doing drills. In one time, about halfway between Hawaii and Australia, we had an admiral embarked with his staff, and they were there for our yearly evaluation to quite literally make sure we are running a tight ship. And the stakes were really high, and everyone's belt buckles are a little more shiny and brassy. and it's a perfect opportunity to showcase this rare entity my command has stationed on board, me, the woman rescue swimmer.

And so we're going to do this man overboard drill and make it a real spectacle. And so we start the drill, and I run out onto the foxtel of the ship. That's the very front of the ship. And the way it is, is there are these decks that look down on the forecastle, and it's basically a stage performance, and I know this. And I run out onto the folks when the drill starts, and I'm wearing this shorty wet suit, and, you know, it's not even, like, zipped up all the way.

Ponytail, like, swinging in the wind, and I get up to the very front, the bow, and they help me into this harness, which has a couple fancy knives and, like, a strobe light attached, and the whole thing is just, like, really Laura Croft. And the next step is for me to get hooked up to two lines. one lowers me down to the surface of the water 70 feet below, and the other line keeps me tethered to the ship. And the purpose of it is just in case the worst thing happens while I do a rescue. Let's say I drown.

They have a way to haul my body back for the ship. So I get hooked up to these two lines, and I get lowered down to the surface of the water, and at the bottom I'm able to clip out of the chain that lowered me. But I find that this line that's supposed to have all this slack in it tight and so I think really fast because I remember don't make us look stupid I grabbed the knife and I look up to my boss and I don't ask I tell him I'm cutting the line and I cut it I've just saved the day because otherwise I'm like

stuck next to the ship and so the ship keeps going and I do everything is normal at this point I've done this drill many times before and I pretend to rescue somebody because remember it's a drill there's nobody in the water with me and what the ship does is it goes and it makes this wide turn and it just comes back and picks me up. Well, typically it would be me with whoever I'm rescuing, but this is a drill. So they're going to turn and come back and get me.

Except for the ship doesn't turn. It just keeps going and going, and it disappears over the horizon. I'm being on a ship is my job, so I know that horizon is three miles away. And I've been in the water hundreds of times in my life, dozens of times doing this very drill, but I have never been out of eye shot of either land or a boat or a helicopter or another human being,

and I am just 100% alone. I thought, what just happened? It could be a mistake. It could be a conspiracy. They could have forgot about me. Or maybe, like, am I imagining this? Did I go crazy? and I looked around and the sky was so incredibly blue

but the water was black. I know from outer space the ocean looks like it's blue, but it is black. And there are these thousands of fathoms between me and the bottom of the Marianas trench, but I can hardly see down to my own fins like going, treading below me. And every molecule that touches me is suddenly a shark.

And I think, like, jumping to the, conclusion of sharks is pretty normal, but I go straight biblical, and I start thinking about the enormity of whales, and how Pinocchio ends up just like chilling inside of a whale's belly, and how Kramer inside felt he hit the golf ball and ends up in the whales blowhole. And then my thoughts go like real dark. Like, I'm little. I could probably fit in a whales blowhole. How long could I survive in there? blows me out. And how long could I survive here in this water? And how long before my body would decompose? The rescue swimmer needs a rescue. Where is the ship? What can I do? So I tread a 360

and I scan the entire horizon and there is nothing and it forces me to be present. The ocean is inconceivably fast. And what I saw, it wasn't little white crashing waves. It was these football field-sized rolling waves. And the water was comfortable. The sun actually warms that top layer. And the sound around me, it was like this amniotic hum. It was like I was safe in the world's womb.

And this feeling rose in my chest. It was like some divine cord was just pulling me through time and space. And this calm that washed over me left me wanting for nothing. The vastness of the ocean of nature had taken the pressure off. there was no more go, go, go because there was nowhere to go. And it allowed me to let go. It unlocked this feeling that I didn't know I had been looking for. Peace.

And there's no leveling up from that. So I floated there in my own personal float tank, enjoying my bliss, my newfound freedom, when I see something. In the horizon. Oh, it's the ship. I'd forgotten about the ship. I don't know how long it took for it to pick me up

because, like, time wasn't a thing yet. But when the ship got to me, it didn't haul me up the front that the folks so like it usually would. And I get it. I had just been left in the water. There was a very good chance I was going to make a public display of dissatisfaction.

So they kind of, like, rude, bounce me down the side of the ship and pull me in a hatch and I'm sitting there soaking wet on this steel deck and nobody is making eye contact with me and I'm like what the hell just happened

and it had been a mistake the guy who is supposed to make the turn clammed up but my commanding officer could pretend there was no mistake at all because one I had cut the line and two I had said you know I'm okay

and I thought I had been out there for like four to six hours. It had actually been closer to one. Just one, yeah. Everyone was really apologetic about this incident, but I couldn't be mad. I had just been given this incredible gift. What I learned that day out there in what we like to call the drink was that thing that I'd been looking for,

not even knowing I was looking for it since I was a little girl, peace. It wasn't something I had to go out and find. It was right here inside me, and it was something I could call upon anytime. Thank you. That was Amanda Burrell. Amanda is a military veteran, classically trained chef, travel journalist, adventure and endurance athlete, injury connoisseur, occasional cover model, explorer of inner world. and meditation instructor.

Yet, when asked what she does, she just says when. When I think about the times in my life when I've felt liberated, I immediately think back to talking about my own abortion on my late night talk show busy tonight in May of 2019. That was right when the very first of the extreme abortion bans started being passed in a few states' legislatures. And I remember feeling like, well, if there's one reason, I have this platform in this moment in time, maybe it's actually for this reason.

I was terrified, but I knew that it was the right moment and the right way for me to use my own story to help other people, especially women, understand the importance of sharing their own stories. And to see how these bans were the consequence of years of shame and silence surrounding abortion and women's reproductive health care, and that shame and silence had been perpetrated on us. My talking about it led to thousands of women sharing their own abortion stories online and me testifying before Congress in June of 2019. But more than anything, for me, I think it really drove home that liberation is not holding a shame that doesn't belong to you.

Our next story is a favorite from the archive. It's from Jennifer Conehurst, who told this at a Story Slam in St. Paul. Here's Jennifer, live at the mall. So, about two years ago, I took a little mini vacation to Santa Fe, New Mexico. And everybody that I told that I was going there had one piece of advice, and that was, you've got to go to this place, 10,000 waves. It's this beautiful spa. It's Japanese spa.

And it's lovely, and you'll love it. So after my first day of sightseeing, it's a beautiful place, you know, Adobe buildings, blue skies, I thought I'll go there. So I go back to my room, and I go. look up on the internet because I'm like, I don't know what to bring to a spot because I'm not a spa person because I'm staying at a hostel that costs 20 bucks a night if that gives you an idea. And it's like, you know, everything you need is provided, towels, you know, robes, slippers, and clothing is optional. And I'm like, it's an option. It's an option to not wear clothes.

It's not an option that I'd considered. And so I considered it. And I considered it all the way there. And while I was checking in, I'm like, I don't know, it's kind of weird, it's naked. and I decided, you know, in the locker room, leave the bathing suit in the locker and I'll do this. Because like, why not? I'm never going to see these people again. It's a, you know, it's the chance to try something new. So I, you know, put on my little robe and slippers,

and I go up and it's a little dark pathway lit by Japanese lanterns. It is, you know, to its credit, very beautiful place. And I get to the area where the hot tub and sauna are, and it's a, you pay like a day rate to go there. And it's evening, and it's dark. And I get to the area, and I'm like, why was I worried? I can hardly see my feet. And I sort of, like, feel my way to the hot tub and slip in.

And there's, like, three 60-year-old guys in the hot tub, and I'm like, I don't care about you, and I don't think you care about me. So this is no big deal. And I look up, and the Milky Way is just, like, stretched out in a clearing in the trees. And I'm like, why would you even look at anything else but that? It's gorgeous. So I sit in the hot tub. I go in the cold plunge.

I go in the sauna. I take a cold shower, and I just, I'm blissed out. I just love it. I fall in love with the experience so much that I want to go back the next day. But I want to go back during the daytime because I want to spend more time. And I'm going to go to the all-women's area because I'm naked and it's daytime. And so I just really kind of want to be around women. So I go through the whole ritual, you know, robes, slippers,

and I walk up this winding path to the area. And I go through the gate. And when I walk through, I remember thinking, I need to sear this image into my brain. so that I can tell my straight male friends about it for master rotory material. Because there are like 12 nude and semi-nude women, and they are like the goddesses of Santa Fe.

They are long and lithe and tan and muscular, and they have the kind of body that requires like decades of good genes and millions of dollars. And this is probably a good time for me to talk a little bit about my body, by contrast. I'm a corn-fed Midwestern girl. I'm five feet tall. and I'm 41, and I've had two children,

and there has not been a lot of course correction throughout the last decades. So, you know, I'm fat, and I'm fat, not like dove, beauty ad fat. I'm fat like rolls and dimples and, you know, things. And these women, I'm sure, are like, they think back fat as a myth. But I'm, you know, here I am. So, but I'm not easily daunted. So I'm like, you know, robe off, I go into the hot tub.

And I settle into the experience. And this really beautiful woman comes out. She's fair-skinned, red hair. And she walks out, and she's really tentative and really shy. And I look at her, and I recognize something, because I know it in myself. She hates her body. And I'm looking at her, and I have no idea why, because she is beautiful.

And, but I know, I'm like, there's something she's ashamed of. She hates, and it makes me really sad. So I get up and I go into the sauna, and I lay down on the wood slats. And if you've ever taken a sauna, you know, you kind of release tension by degrees, by degrees, and you can kind of feel it coming out of your body. And with every breath, I just started to think about all of the things that my body had done for me over the years.

I had built two beautiful children in my body. I had birthed two children without drugs, one of them 10.4 pounds. Thank you very much. Yeah. Yeah, that's that. That's my body. And, you know, I had, you know, I had eaten all this delicious food with my body. I'd walked in foreign countries with my body.

I had had really exceptional sexual experiences with my body, and I had gotten a lot of pleasure from my body. I had also treated my body not with the most respect. I had really pushed the envelope and drug and alcohol abuse. I smoke cigarettes. I don't exercise. And in return, my body continues to perform with some regularity. And that's pretty amazing to me. And in return for that kindness, I hate my body.

I just loathe it. And I loathe it because the way that I feel on the inside is such a vast, difference from the way I look on the outside, and I don't know how to bridge that difference. And so I sit, and with every breath, I just try to release this feeling. And I get up, and I walk out to the deck area, and it's like 40 degrees, it's December. So I'm hot, and the steam, like, rising off my body, which is cool. And the wind is blowing, and blowing through my pubic hair, which is a thing. Really? It happens. And I'm, like, out there, naked in the world, in nature.

And I have this thought. It's like, I don't have a body. I am a body. And when I hate my body, I hate all of the things that make me who I am. And I goddess of Santa Fe, doesn't have time for that. Thank you. That was Jennifer Conehurst. Jennifer is a rider-dye resident of St. Paul, Minnesota,

a writer and founder of Kickball Collective, a scrappy little marketing agency. She still likes to sauna, but usually wears a bikini. You know, the story called to mind when I became a mom. I have two daughters. They're almost 13 and almost 18 now, if you can believe it. I kind of can't. We lived in L.A. when they were younger, and when my older daughter started swim lessons,

I noticed a trend with a lot of the other moms. Some were refusing to wear bikinis, but even worse, some of them were refusing to wear swimsuits at all and wouldn't get in the pool. And I realized that while my post-baby body was far, from where I would have liked it to be, to my little girl, I was perfect. And more than that, I didn't want her to grow up ever thinking that her body was something she should hide.

So I made a decision and a very concerted effort to first off, never talk about my body, whatever shape it happened to be in, or however I felt about it. But more than that, to always get in the pool when my girls wanted to swim with me. After the break, a story about a rescue, Plus a conversation with Bess Wall and Whitney White.

Back in a moment. Welcome back. Before I share our final story, I wanted to have a chat with the playwright and director of liberation, Bess Wall and Whitney White, respectively, because I know that they have got a lot to say about storytelling and women's voices and just how nerve-wracking it can be to get up on stage.

Whitney, Bess, hi. Welcome. Hello. All right. Well, I wanted to start off by talking about Jennifer Cohnhurst's story about going to the nude spa and embracing her body. Because I feel like it really directly ties to thematically what we get to see in liberation on stage in the flesh. Yes. You know, liberation has about a 15 or 20 minute naked scene.

scene in the play where you see six women, different ages, all different walks of life naked on stage talking about their bodies. And so when I heard that story, of course, it really resonated. Just in particular, the difference between being a subject and being an object, you know, because what I was really trying to represent in the play was what it feels like as a woman to be naked and to remain the subject of the story. And I feel like so often when we see women represented naked, they're being objectified. And I love the line where she says in her story, I don't have a body, I am a body.

That resonated with me so deeply that your body is you. So if you hate your body, you hate yourself. And in my play, women are really contending with what they love and what they hate about their bodies and trying to reclaim ownership of their bodies. And also leaning into the idea that your body works. It functions for you. It's not just an object of desire or an object of beauty. It's a functional thing that breathes and your heart beats and it keeps you going.

And that that's a really important part of having a body that I think as women often gets prioritized below how we look or how we are perceived by others. It's really beautiful. I am what moved me most about that story was just when she talked about being there with women who were older than her or more aged than her and I remember the first time I went to like a bathhouse and when I went and I was nude

I actually went at the time where there were only women 60 and up there and she marks that you know and realizing that the continuum of womanhood it's a journey we're on for life that really resonated with me. And I remember the first time the actors in liberation disroged, we have a multi-generational cast. And I myself grew up in a home where we are nude quite often.

I'm a nude household. Very often, all the way through my grandmother. I can remember the folds of her body. And it gives me pride to remember that. And I think it will allow me to walk into my more seasoned years with some pride and dignity. So there's something about that in the story and something that I tried to bring to life

and liberation and directing it that really resonates with me. Like, we need to honor our womanhood and that path, you know. There's a really lovely quote in the play. A woman speaking uninterrupted is a radical act. For both of you who work in the live theater space, what does it mean?

to you for women to be able to share their stories on stage and also just among one another? I think the greatest sign of love and respect that anyone can show a woman is giving her space and trust and time to tell her story without editing it, without trying to manipulate it, without trying to change it, and letting her tell the story that she has in the way she wants to. And so that line, it means a lot to me. I think it's such a sign of bestest brilliance, but there's so many times I've experienced in my own life someone telling me how I should tell my own story, how I should be in the world,

how I should walk in the world, how I should dress, how I should look, how I should sound, the way my very voice should sound. And then being a director is very funny because, one, there's not many of me. Out there, and so I'll be in spaces a lot of times where like, I'm supposed to be in charge. I'm supposed to have this mandate.

And then someone is literally just literally into, I can't even get out a sentence. So playing with that, especially in some of our first scenes in the play, it was so fulfilling and fun, you know what I mean? Because, of course, you can take something that's painful and turn it into something that's hilarious, so more people can access it. So, yeah, that line, I think it's something we all need to hear.

And Bess has kind of channeled that in the play. so well, how radical is it for a woman to tell her story and to tell it without being interrupted, you know. When the characters stand up, it's funny, like, each time in that first scene, basically in the first scene in the play, you meet each woman and you hear a little bit about their lives, how they came to be there. And each little kind of happening is like a little baby moth story. You know what I mean? Because each woman is like, hi, I'm so-and-so, and they start trying to introduce themselves to the group. but of course their inner pathos and deeper need opens up

and then something that they don't expect comes out of them, which is kind of why I love the Moth stories. I feel like they always take me on a journey like that, and so does Bess's writing inside these characters. I also think just to say sometimes as women we interrupt ourselves, right? Like it's not just about other people interrupting us. It's about the courage to speak uninterrupted. You know, I've felt before like,

oh, am I speaking too long? Oh, I should stop. Oh, you know, it's a thing that we do as women. So the idea of a woman speaking uninterrupted to me is also about do you give yourself that permission? My God, isn't that the truth? That's deep. It's deep. It's real. You know, I wanted to just chat a little bit about the link between consciousness raising, because that's something that's very much talked about and depicted in the play. and the importance of sharing our stories within that and how that is the thing that we need to continue to do in order to continue to raise the consciousness. I mean, when you really break down that phrase consciousness raising, it's kind of just like a tectonic huge thing because think about the things you accept to be true and possible for yourself in your life. And what if you could look above those assumptions, those things you've been taught, to find a new level of understanding of possibility?

That's what that means. And that just when you start there, that we all might need to raise our understanding of what's possible, I love that. I love that provocation. It's such an impossible thing, right, to change your very vision, you know, your very understanding of your own life and what's possible for you and others. I just love it. It feels like an impossible provocation that we all have to strive for. Yeah, and I think the idea of consciousness raising that Whitney just described so beautifully is really the project of art, right? Can you, can we, me and my beautiful collaborator, Whitney White, and all of our beautiful collaborators on this piece, can we create something that raises your consciousness so that when you walk out of that theater, you are changed. And I think that's also what a great story can do. I mean, there are stories that,

and I'm sure we've all had this experience, you're a different person at the end of it, of hearing it, receiving it, than you are at the beginning. And I think it happens for the person who's telling and it happens for the person who's listening. And I think liberation and the moth share this real commitment to the idea of conversation telling and receiving and that there's a real act of generosity in both, and that worlds can change when we have the courage to speak our truth and when we have the patience to really listen without interrupting and receive what's being offered. Oh, my gosh.

Yeah. And storytelling opens up the possibility to raise someone's conscience. And when you listen to a Moth story, it's like you fall down a well of existence. You get to walk with that story. tell her into their life and see life in a different way. And I think that's what we're also trying to do in the theater. You know, can you shift your understanding by falling into a well of someone else's life? I think that's so beautiful. And it does feel very timely. It feels like this is what we need more than ever. Bestwell, Whitney Waite. Thank you so much for being here.

congratulations on the huge success of liberation, my favorite play, my 13-year-old daughter's favorite play, and I think such an important piece that I hope lives on for years and years to come. Thank you so much for having us. Thank you, busy. It's such a pleasure to be here. I know. I love you guys. Love you, Busy.

That was Best Wall and Whitney White. Our final story is from Victoria Wynn, who told it at a main stage in Tulsa, O'Nough. Oklahoma. Here's Victoria, live at the mall. So it's fall of 2022, and I have found myself on this unexpected mission driving halfway across the country with my brother's dog in the backseat. Herschel was my brother's huge, beautiful golden husky, who unfortunately needed to be rehomed. And out of everyone I reached out to for help, my friend Milo was the only person who was able to take them in. The only catch was we were in California.

She was in Oklahoma, and it was up to me to get us there. At the time, I decided to make this trip happen. I was going through a pretty confusing period in my life. I was 25 living in my parents' garage, and I was working this dead-end office job that was eating away at all of my time. And to top it all off, I had just gone through one of the most painful breakups of my life that left me questioning everything. But it wasn't until then that I had this uncomfortable realization about myself,

which was that for far too long, I had been letting my life just pass me by. I never really knew what it felt like to be able to trust myself, like trust myself in making the right decisions, and taking risks, and doing anything new or anything remotely scary. but suddenly time just felt short. And so when this opportunity came up to not only help my brother,

but do something completely unlike myself, I, for the first time in my life, felt like I knew what I needed to do. And so a few days later, despite my friends and my family telling me not to go, I was slowly and surely making my way across those state borders. and by the time Herschel and I made it to our first stop in Flagstaff, I was riding this high off of life, and we were about an hour away from the Grand Canyon. And so the next morning, I woke up at 5 a.m.

I put Herschel in the car, and I drove us through these dark snowy roads into the canyon to catch a glimpse of the sunrise. And it was so cold that it even hurt to breathe a little. But when the sun came up and the canyon slowly began to fill with this beautiful mosaic of blues and oranges, it all was just worth it. It was so surreal to me how much beauty there was in this world that I had been missing out on, how it was all right within my reach, just right outside of my comfort zone all along. Two days later, Herschel and I made it to Oklahoma, and the mission was a success. I came back home really inspired and excited to make some changes in my life.

I quit my job, I packed up my entire life in a car, and I said goodbye to friends and family and moved to Texas. And I was just trying to develop this newfound sense of agency over my life. But nearly a year later, it's August of 2023, and I'm on the road again. This time alone and without Herschel, I was driving back to Texas after spending a really amazing and healing summer back in my hometown in California, and I was feeling as confused and stuck as ever. I kept questioning whether or not I had made the right decision to move away from everything

that I had known and loved the year before, but I continued to drive on. And about six hours into that drive, my gas was running low. So I stopped into a nearby station, and I grabbed some snacks. I brought it to the counter, and I asked the cashier if he could put $60 on my pump. I didn't really think much of it until I walked outside, and it dawned on me that I was not in California anymore. I definitely overpaid for this gas, but I pumped my tank full, and sure, enough, I had extra to spare. And so I looked around to see who I could offer this gas to.

Maybe I could help somebody out that day. There was a woman who was standing outside of her van alone, and she sort of caught my eye. And so I followed my feet, and I walked up to her, and I offered her what was left on my pump. And at first, she looked at me like I was crazy, and me being an overthinker, I immediately felt embarrassed. for even asking such a thing. But she finally looks down at the ground and she softly goes, sure, that would be great. And so I said, great.

I'll move my car out of the way and I walk back to my car and I sit down and I watch her walk over to a man that she apparently was with and she says something to him and then gestures over to me and then walks back to her van and our eyes met. I gave her a little thumbs up to signal that I was ready to go,

and I looked down for a moment to reset my GPS. While I'm doing so, I noticed she's walking towards me now, and so I roll my window down, and before I could even say anything, she shoves something through it and goes, please take this and quickly walks away. I'm confused because in my hand is this folded sticky note. And I open it and in this frantic scribbled writing, I read the words, please help.

Call 911 going to woods. I felt my heart freeze and just drop into my stomach right away. And the first thought that came to mind was, is she serious right now? And before I could even have a second thought, I rolled up my window. and I called 911. While I was on the phone with a dispatcher, the man that she was with, came up to my window and he knocked on it

and he flashed me to a sinister-ass smile that I will never forget. And he pointed at the pump screen and I freaked out. I just nodded my head and I gave him a thumbs up and I was trying to calm myself down and tell myself, pretend you're on the phone with a friend, he doesn't know anything, you're okay.

And I took that as my cue to get out of there. I drove off of the lot and there was a truck stop next door and I found this little spot by two semi-trucks where I hid and I had this view of them. I gave every detail I could to the dispatcher and I was trying to take these photos of them but they were so far away. My fingers were shaking, trying to zoom in. And in that moment I knew I didn't really have much time left until they would leave. And so I asked the dispatcher if help was coming yet, and there was just silence. And in that moment, they got into their car, and they left, and I panicked. I asked her, hello, is anybody coming? And there was just silence, faint typing, and she finally goes,

what direction are they headed? And in that moment, I had no sense of direction. I had no idea where I was. my first instinct was to tell her, it's okay, I'll follow them. Which I know probably wasn't the best idea, especially because she was like, please don't do that. But I didn't know what else to do in that moment. In some ways, that woman trusted me to get her help, and so I felt like I needed to trust that I could. And so I followed them at a distance, a reasonable distance. until I was able to tell that they hopped on the I-40 West, and I followed them for a few miles until I got word from state troopers

that help was on the way and to turn around now. And I was like, heard, say less. I'm turning around now. And I'm driving down the opposite highway, and I see these flashing lights zooming past me, and I take the deepest breath I've taken all day. And I look in the mirror, and I'm watching these lights just for,

fade off into the distance, and I catch a glimpse of myself. And I envisioned the me a year ago, driving on the same road with Herschel in the backseat, never imagining where this road could have taken me. I continued my way to New New Mexico, my next pit stop, feeling like this was entirely a dream until I got a call around midnight from the police department in Arizona. They asked me what I had done with a sticky note, and I told them, I said, I was a little bit. I said, I still had it. I sent over all the pictures that I took, and they had me drop it off at the local police department the next day.

I dropped it off, and I tried to ask questions, but, of course, they couldn't really tell me anything, and so I let it go, and I continued my way home. After a few days had passed, I still couldn't get that woman off of my mind. I wanted to know who she was. I wanted to know what happened to her if she was okay. and that was when I had the bright idea.

Why don't I look it up online? Maybe I could find something. And so I searched up crimes in that county. And to my surprise, the first link that popped up was this news article, and it had a thumbnail photo of the sticky note she had given me. I clicked the link, and I skimmed through it, and I learned that that woman was actually kidnapped the night before, and that evening she was able to save herself by passing a note to a gas station customer.

She was fine, she was with her family now, and she was safe, and the man that she was with was arrested. He was booked on multiple charges, including for having weapons in his car, and when I read that, I felt chills run down my spine because I thought about how badly that could have gone if he had known I was trying to help her. And I also thought about how right the dispatcher was in telling me not to follow them. But most importantly, I was relieved that somehow it all worked out anyway and she was okay, that I was okay. And since then, I haven't been able to get off my mind how misguided I've been my entire life, not realizing how divinely orchestrated things seem to be,

how one small action could have this rippled effect in distant ways we may not understand until we're just meant to. And that even when life feels uncertain or confusing or terrifying, maybe I can just trust that I'm exactly where I'm meant to be. Thank you. That was Victoria Wynn, an avid lover of open roads and of the occasional unexpected detour, Victoria admittedly still feels lost sometimes.

Ultimately, she is content with where she is in Denton, Texas, with her bunny and two cats who always remind her that with them, she's exactly where she needs to be. That brings us to the end of our episode. Thank you so much for joining us. From all of us here at The Moth, we hope that you're able to speak with your own voice and hear the stories of the people that came before you.

And we hope that you find your own liberation in that. Busy Phillips is an actress, author, and podcast host known for her work in Freaks and Geeks, Dawson's Creek, Cougartown, Girls Five Eva, and the upcoming Cupertino. Bess Wohl is the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright of Liberation, Grand Horizons, and Small Mouth Sounds. Whitney White is the Obie-winning director of Liberation, Jaja's African Hair Braiding,

and the upcoming, the Quaritan. Queen's Gambit. Amanda Burl and Victoria Wynn's stories were directed by Michelle Jolowski. This episode of the Moth podcast was produced by Sarah Austin Janice, Sarah Jane Johnson, and me, Mark Salinger. The rest of the Maw's leadership team includes Gina Duncan, Christina Coulogne, Jennifer Hickson, Jordanale, Caledonia Cairns, Kate Tellers, Suzanne Rust, and Patricia Orenia. The Moth podcast is presented by Odyssey. Special thanks to their executive producer Leah Reese Dennis. All Moth stories are true, as remembered by their storytellers.

For more about our podcast, information on pitching your own story, and everything else, go to our website, the moth.org.