The Moth - The Moth Radio Hour: Where We Belong

Episode Date: January 11, 2022

In this hour, stories about looking for home. A homeless child lives under a tree; a woman finds her birth mother; an activist fights against home foreclosures; a science project goes haywire; and finding peace at a silent retreat. Hosted by The Moth's Senior Director, Jenifer Hixson. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by The Moth and Jay Allison of Atlantic Public Media.  Hosted by: Jenifer Hixson Storytellers: Lauren Weedman, Vin Shambry, Flora Diaz, Jon Jay Read, Michelle Oberholzter

Attention Houston! You have listened to our podcast and our radio hour, but did you know the Moth has live storytelling events at Wearhouse Live? The Moth has opened Mike's storytelling competitions called Story Slams that are open to anyone with a five-minute story to share on the night's theme. Upcoming themes include love hurts, stakes, clean, and pride. GoodLamoth.org forward slash Houston to experience a live show near you. That's from PRX. This is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm Jennifer Hickson. In this hour, we'll hear stories of looking for home. The setting for these homes, a repossessed house, a middle school science class, a concert, a silent retreat.

Our first story takes place in Portland, where we partner with Oregon Public Broadcasting. For people of a certain age who grew up in Portland going to public schools, sixth grade outdoor camp will be familiar. The storyteller is Vin Shambri. Here he is, live at the moth. When I was a kid, I never cried. I never had time to. I was always put in adult situations, like the time when I was 12.

My mother abruptly woke us up in the middle of the night. Tears streaming down her face, her mouth filled with blood from being punched repeatedly. We knew that it was time to flee from him. And from that day on, we were homeless and on the streets. But I was the man in charge. My four-year-old sister and I would wait down the street in a park while my mother would scope out the shelters. But those places always had social workers

and police at those places, which meant we might get taken away from her. So most of the time, we'd sleep under a tree and a park. Living under trees was only hard for the first couple of weeks. I mean, it was early fall, so it wasn't too cold yet. And at that time of year, all we really needed was a layer of cardboard underneath us, a blanket we all shared, and plastic on top of it. And we had a routine all worked out. Showers at the local swimming pool, free breakfast at school, then we'd walk around with the shopping cart until dark.

And we knew exactly when the police would patrol the parks and when they were done with their rounds, we could safely crawl into the tree without being seen. It was all right until we found the tree. This beautiful 50-foot pine tree. Once you settle yourself in near the trunk, you are immediately hidden by its branches.

The tree itself becomes a wonderland of a home. The dirt is smoothed over by all the Portland rain. It felt good. Good enough to relax a little and sometimes sleep. I lay back and look up through the branches of this tree that I call home. I look at my mom and sister amazed at how peaceful they can sleep here. Not a care in the world when their eyes are closed. I admired it, imagining how wonderful their dreams must be.

But me, I had to protect them no matter what, as the only man in the tree is my duty. So I never dreamed. But tonight, when I watch over them, I think about with mixed emotions when I'm about to embark on next week with all of the six, the Portland Public School Six Graders, outdoor school. A five day environmental school at a sleep away camp in the forest.

We've been hearing about it since Kenny Garden. No classrooms, just outdoor learning around fires and s'mores for a whole week. But best of all, I get to have my own bed with clean sheets and a pillow. The day I leave for outdoor school is hard on me. I tell my mom, now look, if you're gonna walk me to the bus, you have got to leave our shopping cart with all of our stuff behind the market,

so nobody sees us. She agreed, and my little sisters hold my backpack, which is as big as she is. She's always trying to help. I give my mom and sister a big hug, and I hop on the bus. The conversation on the bus with the other six graders is around who will be the first to

cry of homesickness and they say that at the end everybody cries because you're so sad that it's over. Cry? What for? This is an opportunity of a lifetime, a bed for a week, clean sheets, hot food at every meal, nothing to cry about here. We get there and we are bombarded by cool 16 year old counselors who actually wanted to hang out with us.

They had been waiting here. They gave us a necklace made out of a slice of a tree trunk with our names on it. And we all had the opportunity to run and jump in the river if we wanted to. What? I mean, I really wanted to. All the kids just ran and did it without even worrying about their clothes. I only had two pairs of pants and two pairs of underwear and no quarters for the laundry mat. Matter of fact, I don't even know if they had a laundry mat. So I went to the counselor and I asked him. He told me that they would wash and dry my clothes for me

and I didn't have to worry about it. And it was okay to run and jump in the river. I felt taken care of. At outdoor school, I didn't have a care in the world. As the week goes on, I forgot about my family and the struggles we face. I forgot about the struggles they're probably facing right now, I like not thinking about how hard everything is.

For the first moment in my life, I felt like a kid. The high point of outdoor school was the competitive game of tug-of-war. Now, ten of us would represent our school to push as hard as we can against the other rival middle schools. I knew that this was my opportunity. The teacher came up to us and said, our kids, raise your hand. If you want to go on the front line and push as hard as you can, nobody raised their hand. So I did. She came up to me and she said, go ahead, you can push as hard as you can.

I approached the tape to get ready to walk in and take my position. I looked down at my shoes. These my only pair of shoes. And they're actually Nike's, which gives me just enough credibility at school so the kids don't know I'm homeless. And now they're going to get really dirty and I'm going to have to wear them home like that. No, no, no, you don't get it. They're patent leather, white and red, de-onsander night keys, that I got as a gift from a girl

at school whose dad worked for night key. And I know that next week the kids are going to see my dirty shoes and know that my family has no money. But this opportunity is too great for me to worry about adult things, like trying to find a place to wash and dry my shoes. I don't hesitate for long. I grabbed that rope in my hands.

My feet began to sink in the mud, giving me the proper leverage I need to pull for my team. Before the whistle blows, I look in the eyes of the rival school and they're taunting me, saying that I'm not strong enough and blowing kisses at me. I tilt my head up to the sky and I think whoever gave me this gift to just be a kid. The whistle blows, I pull with all my might from my team.

I hear grunting and screaming and suddenly it's over and we won. All the kids are running towards me, picking me up in the air, telling me that I was strong, that I belonged, that I was strong. The last night of outdoor school, we sat around listening to counselors tell stories like they do. And one story I will never forget is a story long ago about how all the animals seek shelter from the worst of the storm. Some of them went

into the cliffs and some of them went into the caves, but in the end the mice were left with nowhere to go. So what they did is they seek shelter in the mighty pine trees. Until this day, if you look at a pine cone, you can still see what looks like their tails sticking out from the bottom. Hearing that story, I started to cry. At this point, I can tell that all the kids have noticed that I'm crying and they're all whispering,

but in that moment, I do not care. I am too overwhelmed with emotion to be embarrassed. I look around at this wonderful place and my new friends, but I can't help think that I've deserted my family in archery. I deserted them this whole time and I just realized it. My tears were coming from a place of gratitude from this awesome week, but from the realization that my family needs me.

And I'm the man in charge. I'm supposed to push the shopping cart with all our stuff. I'm supposed to find the cardboard for us to sleep stuff. I'm supposed to find the cardboard for us to sleep on. I'm supposed to protect my mom and sister. There's a storm coming and I wasn't there to stay awake. But for five whole days, I got to be a kid. They said at the end of outdoor school, everybody cries. And in the end, I did too.

Thank you. still stands in Grant Park in downtown Portland. To see a picture of Vin posing with the tree and his two daughters, visit themoth.org. Vin, his mom and sister, eventually found a home with a roof and four walls, and Vin went on to get a degree in musical theater. He's appeared on Broadway and in several national tours. And when he's not on stage himself, he writes and directs plays and choreographs.

He's also the director for a nonprofit called Brother to Brother, which helps men of color stay in college no matter what. To this day, Vin still loves the smell of pine cones. The Mothradio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and presented by PRX. This is the Mothradio Hour from-X. This is the Mothradio Hour from P-R-X. I'm Jennifer Hickson. We're sharing stories of home and family. Our next story is by Lauren Weedman.

For many years, Lauren was one of the hosts of the Los Angeles Moth Story Slam. Here's Lauren, live in Anaheim, California. The theme was Between Worlds. So I'm adopted and I met my birth mother. When I was 19 years old and my adopted mother was the one who did the search. And she did the search purely based on the fact that I just, I was, it wasn't a big drama around. And I just was always curious like,

I just wanna know maybe what my birth mother looked like and maybe can I get a picture. And then my adopted mother was, I didn't call her adopted, it was like adopted mama, do you think, no, my adopted mother was really into murder, she wrote and obsessed with this, it's a detective show. And so she went undercover or pretended to, anyway, so she found, and she found my birth mother, and Diane was her name. And so, where And so it was happening. We're going to have a reunion. And it was the two of us, my mother,

and I were on this plane flying to go visit Diane for the first time. And on the plane there, I was, I mean, I was, obviously, I was nervous and I was excited, and it takes her high. I got that. But my main concern was that there was going to be some big dramatic scene at the airport. My whole life of being adopted, all I did was

just do a bunch of stick around being adopted. It was always like my, when I was in third grade, when we come back from summer break and the teacher would be like, what'd you do over the summer break? I'd be like, I'm adopted. Ha, ha. It was for no reason. And then the idea that there's going to be something super dramatic or some kind of Oprah moment of like, and I'm like, if she ends up being of Diane, is she, if there's any sobbing or sort of, you know,

like, I made a stuffed animal look like you, I held it every night, like, I don't want any of that weird or I don't, you know't call me baby or something. Oh, just none of that. And two over the top. And also, I didn't have any, I had a good family. I liked my doctor family just fine. I wasn't looking to trade them in so much.

So I get off the plane and I see her. And my God, it couldn't be any better. She was exactly, she was better than I could have hoped for. Because I, first hurt, her and my mom had their little, they do have a little moment of, like my mother's like, thank you for our baby. And I'm like, she's never been that grateful. I swear anyway.

So they have a little moment with each other and they're crying and hugging each other. And then Diane looks at me. And I can tell that she just sensed that I couldn't, I want, that'll roll like that. I don't roll with all that hug hug. I wasn't, I didn't want that. And she saw me and then she just goes, she's like,

that's okay, she goes, we got a lot of time to catch up. And she's like, and I knew we'd find each other. Let's go get a burrito, you know what, and that was it. She gave me like squeeze and I was like, ah, my people, that's perfect. I don't have to deal with everything. And I couldn't have, I'm telling you,

I didn't really, I didn really think I wanted or needed anything from what I would meet in a birth mother. But Diane was fantastic. She was everybody liked her. Over the years, and I went to go see her a lot. I tried to spend as much time with her as I could after I met her. And at one point, I even tried to live in the same city

as her. And she's a probation officer. She's everybody loves her. And she loves her murderers, and they love her. And's a probation officer. She's everybody loves her. And she loves her murderers and they love her. And she told great stories. She always had one of, I loved her in her stories. And I loved how she just treated humanity. Diane could talk to anybody and it was never awkward or overly sort of, I was

from the Midwest and I was used to people just sort of, hello, not really actually connecting so much. You could roll up a headless torso on a gurney and Diane could have like a heart to heart and really get connecting so much. You could roll up like a headless torso on a gurney and Diane could have like a heart to heart and really get to know them. Like she just, the messiness of humanity didn't scare her, which I love that. The two of us were constantly wanting to tell the story

of our reunion to, you know, we were always like, you told the guy at the gas station, I get to do the guy at the right aid, okay? I get to do it this time. And when she would tell the story to people, she was never overly precious about it and she would tell them about how she's like, well listen, so I put the baby in the garbage can

and God dang it, she got that lid off and then she found me. And I was like, oh, it's fantastic. And people were mortified. That was even better. I loved all of that. So I, 20 years later, or this is fast forward 20 years, and I have a baby of my own.

Anyway, I'm so happy. So I have a baby. And I wanted one of my moms, one of my moms, to come help me afterwards at home for the first week. And I asked my adopted mama, but she couldn't do it. She heard her name. And so then I asked Diane to do it. And Diane said she could.

She's the perfect person for me. We know what I'm trying to handle, like a newborn. And she doesn't have all that stuff around the birth, which was amazing, as well. She had told me this story many times about how, when I was born, that it actually was, it was fairly positive. The whole thing is those things go because her family was really supportive and she was

at this unwed mother's home and she liked unwed mother's home and all the other birth mothers are really cool and they crochet things and they, she liked, she had a teacher at her high school because she was 15. She had a teacher who would bring her homework so she could keep up with the rest of her class and she got to graduate on time. at her high school because she was 15. She had a teacher who would bring her homework so she could keep up with the rest of her class and she got to graduate on time. And then when Diane would talk about the actual birth of what I was born, and she was like, you know what,

I don't really remember it. I was really drugged up. And I just remember that I was pretty much out dancing a week later. I mean, she's like, I'm telling you, I had haircuts and I'm more stressful. It was really not that big of a thing. And which, so I'm not really concerned about her,

having some like, you know, whoah, bellatown, when she sees Leo. Leo's just a baby. So I get home after from the hospital and Diane arrives. My husband picks her up from the airport. And she walks in. And the first thing she says is, first of all,

she walks right over to Leo and feels like screams in his face, like full, like, from the diaphragm, screams in his face. She's like, I'm Bob's, I'm Bob's, I'm your Bob's, okay. Nice to meet you, I'm Bob's. And I was like, Jesus, when did she just allowed? And she decided on the airplane that her grandma name was gonna be Bob's off the wire, because her favorite character for the

wire. And then she wanted to call that. And for some reason, it made me a, I got a theory which surprised me. Because I was upset because I wanted her to have just a tiny moment, I guess, of just sort of like, oh, wow, a baby. Or, you know, like, oh, there he is.

Or just do something. I mean, then I was embarrassed that I wanted that. And I thought, well, it's, a baby. Or, you know, like, oh, there he is. Or just do something. I mean, I, and then I was embarrassed that I wanted that. And I thought, well, it's a hormonal. I'm sure it's hormonal, because that's, you know, everyone's sort of like, oh, get ready. And you're going to sob when you open a can of Coke, you know, whatever. So, then right after that, she puts her stuff down,

and she immediately takes off because she's wants to know where the nearest coffee shop is, because she wants to to bake good and she'll be back in like a half hour. But she comes back a couple hours later and it's like 6.30 pm and she goes to bed because the time change and the next couple days were like that. She wasn't around that much and I was like, where are you going? She was just like her big thing she would do was just give you a thumbs up, you're doing great. You got this thing down and then she's offered to get a baked good, then she's a nap, and then she's, you know,

to bed. And which was bothering me a bit. And then I thought, well, I don't know what she's doing. She's trying to like, I'm just building my confidence, I guess, that she's just telling me I'm doing good, that's all I need. Anyway, the third night that she was there, I'm up in the middle of the night, and I'm feeding Leo, or trying to feed him. And out of nowhere pretty much, I have this awful feeling. I guess

it's an anxiety attack, or something, where I suddenly was like, oh my God, what have I done? I've brought this baby into the cycle of suffering. I remember thinking that sentence, which is not something I normally, that's not a, okay, I'm like, where did that come from? And I was like, I've done it though. I brought him to the cycle of suffering, and he's got, gonna have to face my death, and his death, and, and, and, oh my God, I've done it though. I brought him to the cycle of suffering and he's gonna have to face my death and his death and oh my God, you know, JFK Jr. died. Everybody playing crashes, oh, and I live, oh, I was like, well, and it felt awful.

It felt, and I couldn't shake the feeling. And normally I can have dark thoughts, but then I can be like, oh, let's get a donut, like, you know, like, Dan, and I'm fine, but I couldn't shake it. And the next morning, I was still kind of shook up, and I didn't want anybody to be worried about me, and worried that I wouldn't be a good mother or something,

if I was just like, I'm seeing planes crashing and blood coming out of the walls. So, okay. I wanted to tell Diane about it, because I knew that I could tell Diane anything. I mean, we are definitely super close, we had been. And so I tell her about what happened

the night before and I ask her if she's ever had anything. She said she remembered after the birth of her children. She had three other kids. She's like, I'm like, do you remember having that feeling ever? And she was like, no, I don't think so. I don't remember anything like that. But, you know, I'm not as deep as you. But I think your sister had it.

You guys are kind of deep. I don't think like that. And I thought that was so not at all how I had ever seen her. I mean, not deep is not how I would describe her at all. Then I felt, oh my god, she's going to leave me alone in this feeling. She's not going to help like, you know, throw me a line.

Like, nothing. I just have to stay here. And on the way to the airport, I see her in the back seat. She's in the back with the baby. And she's eating pringles and drinking a wine cooler, like a wine cooler that she had left over, she bought the night before, and then she starts complaining, she feels car sick on the way to the airport. And so I'm like, my God, what is wrong with this woman? I'm like, dear God, she's a mess, and how did I, it was the first time ever, but at this

way, it was the first time ever that I was happy to say goodbye to her, and that had never happened. I could never get enough of Diane. I mean, oh my god, I was, I was, she was my favorite person in the world to be around. So she leaves, and I'm, I, a year later, I was supposed to go, I had plans to go back to Indiana where she was where all my families were for Christmas. And I, I hadn't had that much contact with Diane,

but I felt like that maybe I had just so wanted her to be this person in my mind and my desire of her to be somebody. I was blind who she really was, I guess. Is what I summed it up as. I go back for Christmas, and I'm supposed to go visit Diane and all of her other kids and stuff. And we go to see a Paul Simon concert that was already

on the roster before I got there. And I'm sitting next to Diane at the concert. And the kids at all, all of her other kids, about tickets, I'm they bought tickets in different places. But Diane's tickets, she had two tickets. They were at the very, very, very back row row of the theater and so I sit next to her And I'm not really wanting to sit next to her and I'm after a year of being a mother I've just as I said I've gotten to a point where I'm like wow, it's a little bit more you have to actually be there

It's feeling so I'm sitting next to her and the concert is she's going crazy and it's and she. And every single song is up like dancing and like, woo, woo, woo. And nobody else. And for some reason, it's a very somber audience. Nobody's dancing. It was even moving. And she's losing her mind. And I'm embarrassed.

And I'm like, damn, like, sit down, sit down. She's like, I don't think the wall of mine's asking. He's fine. And she's loving it. And then when Kota Probe comes on, she's still. I actually got up and I danced for that one, because that's something that I'm, one, I dare you to sit down. So I'm dancing with her.

And the middle of Coda Crome, she leans over to me and she's like, man, I wish I were abroad today. I wish I were done it. She had them like, oh, gross. She's like, oh, it's then Paul plays Paul. I call him. Paul plays Mother and Child Reunion, which is a song I have heard so many times, but I've never heard it sitting next to my birth mother.

And I, the lyrics were brutal, and I, on this, this, it's a mother and child, it's only emotion away, on this very sad and lonely day, Like all these, oh, the awful, the heart run through. And Diane grabs my hand. And I do it for a second. Just, you know, I'm not a dick. I was like, you know, like that. And then I, but I took it away. And we're both getting emotional listening to the lyrics

and it's very intense. And then she grabs my hand again. And I'm like, oh, God, I want to pull it away. But she's gripping onto it. I'm oh finally I calm down and it's so nice, it feels so nice. So after the concert we don't talk in the way home we're very quiet and I couldn't think of anything to, I couldn't think of a joke to say and I know Diane felt the same way. I had this, I was fear of thinking like oh no are we going to end up of anything, I couldn't think of a joke to say, and I know Diane felt the same way. I had this fear of thinking like, oh no, are we going to end up being like, I mean, it was nice that moment of like, oh, like, and hearing that, but now are we like the hand holding, you know, whatever.

All right, sorry. So the next day, we're going to a coffee, we're going to get coffee. And then the car, Diane says to me, I want to tell you something, Lauren, that I think maybe you needed to hear. And I think maybe you needed to know that you were a hard baby to give up. And I never wanted to tell you that because I didn't want you to worry about me. I didn't want you to think it was something awful. I wanted you to know that your birth was this good thing.

But I'm wondering if maybe I didn't do any favors by not letting you know that it was the most heartbreaking thing that ever happened to me was losing you. And she was maybe you needed to know that. And I could have never told, never, ever, ever said that that was something I needed to hear. If it would have asked me, I would have been like, no, it got too much. It was so profound. And I, well, it did change my life after that.

I was so moved by that. But then I also got worried, I, well, it did change my life after that. I was so moved by that, but then I also got worried, like, oh, no. Are we to become these, like, oh, like, earnest, sort of, like, here you are again. Diane, let me tell you my feelings. But thankfully, the last time I saw her, I was picking her up at the baggage claim, and she comes out to the car and she goes, she's like, okay, I've got to go to my baggage. She'll be right back. Oh, and this time, I mean it. I, ha, ha, I'm like, oh, thank God.

Thank you. Thank you. Woo! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!

That was Lauren Grewdman. She's a writer and actor who lives in Los Angeles. Every time Lauren heads back to Indiana for a visit, she sees both of her families, sometimes altogether, like at her mother's upcoming 80th birthday. Diane will be there too. Now Lauren sent a copy of the story you just heard to Diane to make sure she was okay with it being aired.

I want to read a bit of Diane's response. Sweetie, I think it's beautiful. I'm thrilled that somebody has that much to say about me. I must admit that I didn't know at the time how useless I was when Leo was born. I don't think I knew how much to interject myself into your new life. I thought I should stay back and watch clothes and keep in the background. Oh well, we're good now, huh? I think it's great. Thank you so much for being so considerate of my feelings. Love you so much. Lauren is the author of Two Books, a woman trapped in a woman's body and misfortune.

Fresh perspectives on having it all from someone who is not okay. To see a picture of Lauren with her son and grandma Bubs, visit theMoth.org. This next story is by Michelle Overholzer. She told it in 2015 at our Detroit Story Slime, where we partner with Public Radio Station, WDUT. Here's Michelle. When I moved to Detroit, I decided to turn myself into a writer. And the beautiful thing about being a writer is that all you have to do is to write, and then you are it.

Which is great for me because I studied engineering, and that's like the best way to get through college without writing a word. So I was trying to turn myself into a writer, and it wasn't going so well in financial sense. So of this past fall, I took a job working for a company that was going to have me doing property surveys of properties in Detroit that were going into tax foreclosure. And for me, it was like a great way to see the city, to see the front lines of this interesting issue. And I knew I'm'm gonna make some money and I'm gonna have something to write about.

And the deal with tax foreclosure in Detroit is, if you get behind in your taxes, the city will foreclose, and then you can buy it back for $500. That's what I knew. And we had a little tablet, like an iPad, and they would send us out and on the thing is a map, and it's filled with red squares, and all the red ones are the ones that I need to survey and there are a lot of them because there's a lot of foreclosures in Detroit.

So there I am on my bike up and down the streets taking a picture and marking down the information about the building or not a building. Actually, a lot of them had nothing on them. Their vacant land grown over, hardly a whisper of the house that had been there before, except for maybe some concrete that's grown over. And then you know, oh, there maybe was a sidewalk or a driveway here. And those were kind of strange, but nothing too heavy. And then there were the abandoned houses, quite a few of those actually that had broken windows. And signs of lives that had been lived there once, maybe not so long ago. Often they had signs of fire damage and there would be tires dumped there. And those were pretty sad.

So it was really nice to see all the beautiful homes. And I was proud as a Detroiter that we have still so many beautiful neighborhoods. You hear so much bad stuff about Detroit in the news and no, there's so much going on here and I just love to see the gardens and the way they painted their houses and the little kids toys out on the front yard and I would take my pictures of those and answer the questions. And the thing about those houses though is that people live in them and when they see a white girl with a piece of technology, entering information, they're like, what's going on?

So they would talk to me. And I was glad that they did because I started to learn there. What they knew, and they knew what I knew, they would ask me, are you buying my house? No, no, no, I'm just doing this because your properties are in foreclosure. And time after time, I'm just doing this because your property is in foreclosure. And time after time, I mean, they would just regard me with shock. I'm literally delivering this news to many people for the first time. And I'm a girl on a bike.

I don't have the tools to help you through this. And I would answer the questions as best I could, which was not very well. And it was really weighing down on me. So I'd go home at night and look it up online and try to find the inevitable questions that I'd have to answer the next day. And I would learn a little bit more. And it got to the point, now I'm giving them

my phone number and email address and the website. And I'm like, trying to do something about it. But it got to a point where I just, I knew it wasn't enough. And of course, I couldn't make a difference for most of these people, but I thought maybe I can make a difference for some. And there was one day, I was biking away from this last home that something about it just was the straw that broke my back. And there was a word echoing in my head,

and it was radicalized. And I didn't choose the word, but that's the one that was echoing in my head. And it doesn't mean like I'm going to join Che Guevara and the trenches or anything, but what it meant was, I can no longer just talk about this. I can no longer just write about this. I'm going to have to do something.

And I didn't know what I was going to do, but I started a fundraiser and was able to raise enough money to give $500 to 11 different families, the starting bid on their houses. Yeah, it was pretty great. And the way that I chose the families that would receive the money was based on one criteria, which is that they had a tricycle in the front yard.

Because those were the homes that, to me, I thought, if we can save these homes that are not just houses, but homes and not just homes, but the homes of young children, then maybe this community will have a chance. And the auction came. It happens all online. A lot of the people I was working with don't have internet access. So I was off on the one delivering the news. And it was horribly nerve-wracking and exciting. And I was calling people up and telling grown men,

you own that house that you paid a 20-year mortgage on. It's yours again, and they cry. And I told someone else, you got this house. They had been renting it. Now they're first-time homeowners, and they cried, and they called me an angel. And I felt like I have done something bigger than anything I had ever done in my life, and it wasn't the hardest thing.

But it didn't work every time. Two, three of the houses actually got outbid. And that's something that we always knew as a threat. Like maybe there's someone sitting on a pile of money in New York or China and they're like, hey, I hear Detroit's coming back. Click, click, click. And not knowing that they're changing the future forever for the people who live in those houses. And one of the women who lost her house was Miss Ruth. And I had to wait till I stopped crying to call Ruth. I was so afraid to tell her. And she picked up the phone.

She said, tell me some good news. And I said, I can't. We lost your house. And she paused. And she said, well, I guess that means I won't be needing that money. Is there another family that could use that $500? And I said, yes, of course.

Of course, there's so many more people. And basically, in the moment that she found out that she was losing her home, she also became one of the biggest donors. And it was so moving her grace in handling that situation. And it is proof to me that just like those blighted buildings can bring down the whole block, so too can one strong person bring up the whole community. And it's why I want to be working on this issue and I want to be more like Ms. Ruth

and it's why in addition to being a writer, I'm also now an activist because all you have to do to be an activist is to take action. That was Michelle Overholzer and Detroit, Michigan. Michelle is a housing advocate for United Community Housing Coalition where she leads the Tax Fork Lozure Prevention Project. The nonprofit, the Tricycle Collective, is still going strong. After three years of operation, it's raised and donated over $50,000. The money helps Detroit families with young children's save or buy the houses they already live in. Michelle is also a writer and singer. To see some photos from the Tricycle Collective visit themoth.org.

When we return, we'll visit one of the timeless dilemmas of domestic life, kids who desperately desperately want pets. Also, a story of letting go and bonding during a 30-day silent retreat when the Moth Radio Hour continues. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and presented by the Public Radio exchange, PRX.org. You're listening to the Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Jennifer Hickson. We're hearing stories about homes, fitting in, belonging, and this next story about a different sort

of family. This is from a slam in New York City. Here is Flora Diaz. Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!

Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!

Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Like, maybe I would be buried in an, you know, avalanche, in the Himalayas, and a dog would rescue me, and it would be traumatic, but bonding, and we would be inseparable after that,

or maybe there would be like an orca who found my voice, really trustworthy, and it would get in some trouble, and I'd be called upon by the scientist to come help coax it out of trouble with my voice, or, you know, a bunch of birds that lost their sense of direction and needed me to guide them south. There's something like that, and I just knew that I was special and that I would have

that connection I just didn't know which was my soulmate animal until I was in sixth grade when I finally discovered that it was Drosophila, melanogaster, the common fruit fly. I discovered this in science class. We were doing a unit on Mendelian genetics, and we each got a jar of fruit flies that we got to breed for several weeks. And we had to come into class and count how many of them had red eyes and white eyes or no eyes or crooked wings

or straight wings and keep it all in this little chart. And I was so excited about this. I felt like I got, you know, my very own set of pets at school and I got so into it and I took it so seriously. And at the end of the unit, our teacher, Mr. Benson, told us all to take our jars outside and that it was so cold that the fruit flies would die instantly and then we could move on to astronomy next week.

And I was like, what? I couldn't believe I just felt like this was, I knew them, I knew their parents, I knew their grandparents, I knew, you know, their dominant traits, their recessive, I just felt like we were really intimate at that point. I could not imagine killing them. And nobody else in the class seemed to have any problem with this. They were just getting their jars and heading out to lunch. And I just felt like there was no time to think I had to stop this atrocity and I ran

around telling the other kids that I would take their jars for them not to worry. And you know, if save themselves the trip, I'll do it for you. So I ended up with six jars of fruit flies. And I didn't know what the hell to do with them, but I knew I had to save them. And this was my calling. And I asked Mr. Benson for some plastic bags and I lied and told him I was going to take them outside. He gave me plastic bags.

And I went down the stairs, like the central stairwell of the high school, and the middle school, sorry. And I didn't know what to do, but I saw that underneath the stairs, there was this little sort of triangle of space. It was dark and there was like a thick layer of dust on the floor and like an old detergent bottle left there by a janitor or something so I ducked in there with all the jars. And I set them up in this sort of half circle in front of me and I opened all the lids

and I told them that they were free. And I took a piece of a pair out of my paper bag lunch, and I sliced a piece and left it there for them. And I told them I'd come back for them tomorrow. And the next day, I just could barely even sit through my classes. I was so excited for the lunch bell to ring. And I'd come down and check on my little buddies downstairs.

And I did, and sure enough, there they were still like kind of hovering around their jars. And nobody had seen them. And nobody had noticed. And I gave them a piece of banana and the next day a piece of kiwi. And then it was the weekend and I went home and the whole weekend I was just was fantasizing about my future with these guys. Like I was thinking next week I'm going to step it up.

I'm going to teach them some tricks. I'm going to give them some names. And soon enough people are going to know that I'm like the cool fruit fly whisperer of Chicago, and then we were going to be on like talk shows, and by that point they'd be really well trained, and they'd be like sitting neatly in a row on my shoulder. And like Letterman would ask us a question, and I would like say it to them in the language that only we understood, and then we'd have a little laugh just between us, and then I would translate it for Letterman just so that he wouldn't feel left we understood and then we'd have a little laugh just between us and then I would translate for Letterman just so he wouldn't feel left out and then everybody

would know and I would just be amazing. So I went to school on Monday just so excited to see them and see what would become of them. And I had actually packed an extra clementine in my lunch because I thought they should have their own and not have to share the fruit with me at that point. And I got to school and there was a tall man wearing an orange hazmat suit greeting me at the door who ushered me into the school with all the other students and there was like a whole team of men in orange hazmat suits with like gas tanks strapped their back and they told us that there had been a mass infestation of fruit flies in the school cafeteria and the cafeteria was shut down for several days.

I thought I was going to jail. I was so terrified. I had never done anything bad in my life. I had never even had a detention before and here I was causing havoc. They sent a letter home to all the parents telling us we had to bring packed lunches because there was no cafeteria for several days. I was like, oh my god, I'm going to jail. And I thought all the teachers knew.

I thought they were all looking at me with those knowing looks and the other students. Oh, okay. And so after a few days, nobody said anything to me. And I realized nobody knows it was me. Nobody suspects me, and as the fear subsided it was replaced with this deep sense of betrayal that these little fuckers did this to me. I couldn't believe it! Like all they had to do was stay put.

I was giving them a life of luxury, we had big plans, and they had to go and get themselves fumigated and get me in, you know, potentially really big big trouble. In fact I didn't get in trouble at all. Mr. Benson got in trouble and they shut down the fruit fly program after that at my school. They never dated again. I went home and the one thing I would love to say that I learned some big moral about you know owning up to my mistakes and I didn't. I never told a soul. I went home and I wrote in my diary. Honest to God, this is my diary, entry from that week. February 18th, 1991. Remember, underline. Fruit flies, colon, not to be trusted.

That was Flora Diaz, the great food fly debacle took place in Chicago. And in case her science teacher, Mr. Benson, is listening, Flora would like to issue unofficial apology. Until maybe right now, nobody ever knew that Flora's big heart was the culprit. As for finding the perfect pet, a few years ago, Flora got a bearded dragon lizard. She named him Mr. Circles. She found pet love at last.

Our final story is from John J. Reed. He told many, many stories at our New York City Stories lands and was always a crowd favorite. Here's John at a New York City Grand Slam at the Music Hall of Williamsburg. at a New York City Grand Slam at the music hall of Williamsburg. Oh, holy cow. I have a sitting cross-legged on a royal blue cushion with my gaze, Lord's Lightly, so I'm looking to spot on the hardward floor about three feet ahead of me. I'm surrounded by 40 other people all doing the same because we have five days into a 30-day silent meditation retreat.

That means 30 days, no talking computer cell phone television, nothing, just us in our minds. And we're in a retreat center and very northern Vermont, a hundred feet to mile south of Montreal. And we are practicing the Shambhala tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. Now what I love about Shambhala is that their primary tenant holds that at the foundation of all humanity is this basic goodness. And I just think it's beautiful, you know, and it's really very simple, although it doesn't quite make sense to me because so much of life really does suck, you know,

really does suck, but it's beautiful. And so from seven in the morning until nine at night, I am sitting meditating on basic goodness. And I gotta tell you, sitting with my mind for that, it's like, for that period of time. And I need a break. So I'll raise my gaze, look around at my fellow retreatants about whom I know nothing because we can't talk.

But I do know that one guy came down from Montreal because we had a sign-in sheet. And he must be cut at qual because he has an impossibly French name, something like Jean Michel Saint-Roulot, something Crimberlée. It's like really crazy. You know, so when Mike, I can't take my mind for one more second. I play, let's find Frenchie, which is when I look around for the person who has like the slightly, you know, French Canadian fashion.

And I'm doing this on the fifth day when somebody walks up to me, leans over and hands me a note that says, call Jim with a number on it. I don't recognize. And I said on my question for two minutes, I mean, seriously, maybe three, trying to think of one person really close to me, named Jim, and there just isn't one. There isn't, there isn't. So I get up, I walk out of this shrine room,

I'm heading to the office thinking, how do I pantomime? I don't know, wrong retreating, somebody else. When it occurs to me, my brother, Jimmy. So, I make the call. And the first words I say in five days, first words I said to any of my three older brothers in over 15 years are these, did mom die? And she had. So I meditate on the plane from Vermont back home to California where Eddie, my tent revival preaching evangelical brother, leads the service which he begins like this verbatim.

Jean Reed was two things. She was a Christian and she was a Republican in that order. And it's like, oh, and then he goes on. He goes on to admonish and chastise us for 10 minutes, and that's a sum total of my mom's funeral. Although he makes a moment to look directly at me, and he goes, where do you think mom is? Nearvana?

And it's like, geez, you know? But before I head to the airport, and I've been on the ground a total of 13 hours, my three brothers form this semi-circle around around me and I feel myself regressing to my baby brother toe head at state. You know, it's like this dense wall of meat is looming over me or a wall of dense meat would be more accurate. And Richie says, Johnny, if you don't change your ways, you're never going to see mom

again. And that's what I know they plan this. They want me to be absolutely certain that I understand that our mother has gone to heaven. And if I don't stop being a fag, I won't. Now, I'm so startled and taken back that I can't think of anything to say. But when I get on the plane, I'm just overcome with rage. I'm so angry that they think it's okay to say this to me at my mother's funeral. And I'm angry at myself for thinking that just because that's my mother's funeral, they might treat me like a normal human being like they would treat any other human being on the planet.

But then I think she was my last tie to them. I can leave that garbage 3,000 miles away in California and nobody ever gets to talk to me like that again. So I get back to Vermont, sit on my cushion and lower my gaze and for 23 more days I sit in absolute silence. And although nobody knows what's going on because we can't talk, I feel this great comfort and being surrounded by these people. Now on the 30th day we're allowed to start talking again.

And so we make these ad hoc circles in the shrine room. And I'm sitting with six other people and this woman across from me says, hey, what happened to you? You're like disappeared. And I said, yeah, my mom to you? You're like disappeared. And I said, yeah, my mom passed away, and I flew to California for a funeral, right? Silence. Right?

Until the guy on my immediate left leans in, makes eye contact with me, and he says, congratulations. Now, the temperature and the room drops, and I am making eye contact with him so I can see that he's starting to panic. He knows something, something just went wrong but he doesn't know what. And that's when I get it. I found Frenchy. And I know like that, he meant to say condolences. You know? No, but I have got to tell you that this guy who absolutely has no command of the English

language, wrist, saying something at that intense moment, it just went right to my heart. I mean, it was so touching. But when I turned from him to the other people in the circle, they are horrified. They're horrified. And they're horrified for me. They're concerned for me.

They're wondering, how am I going to take this absurd thing? This man just said to me, their reaction is it's in such Start contrast to my brothers. I just can't help it. I burst out laughing, you know in appropriate in a wrong for the shrine room You don't do that in the shrine room But I can't help it. I can't get under control. It keeps coming and coming and coming and then tears start flowing And then they're not so much horrified. It's just like really really confused And then they're not so much horrified. It's just like really, really confused. You know, because they have no idea why this is so funny to me.

But one by one, they start laughing. And then we're all laughing. You know, these, and then everybody, but Frenchy, who has no idea what the hell is going on, you know. And then I look in his eyes and I see he's frightened. And then I realize he thinks we're laughing at him. And I don't want him to feel that And I don't want him to feel that. I don't want him to feel that.

But I can't talk because I'm laughing too loud. And I don't fucking speak French and his English sucks. So I can't do anything. So I push him off his cushion. And I don't know why. I don't know why. But he's lying there. He's lying there on the floor.

And he starts laughing. And so I hoist him back up onto his cushion, and then there are seven of us all laughing. We're all in on the joke. Seven complete strangers who are just like ridiculously intimate after these 30 days, and we're laughing, and laughing, and laughing, and I think, oh my God, I get it. I totally get it.

I understand on a level I never thought I would, that the foundation of all humanity is basic goodness That was John J. Reed. He was indeed a great believer in common goodness The storytelling community in New York City was heartbroken when we learned that he passed away from heart failure at just 53 years of age. For 20 years, John was the director of client services at Friends Indeed, the Crisis Center for Life Threatening

Illness, a job that suited his incredibly generous and open-hearted way of being and of listening. He often told heartbreaking stories and his emotions were always close to the surface. On the other side, he had a gorgeous baritone laugh and he was not afraid to use it. He was greatly loved in this world by me and so many others and will be missed. That's it for this episode of The Moth Radio Hour. We hope you'll join us next time, and that's the story from The Moth.

Your host this hour was Jennifer Hickson. Jennifer also directed the stories in the show. The rest of the most directorial staff includes Catherine Burns, Sarah Haberman, Sarah Austin Geness and Meg Bowles, production support from Timothy Luley. Malfe stories are true, is remembered and affirmed by the storytellers, or theme music is by the drift, other music in this hour from Ben Harper, Paul Simon, D. II, Poke LaForge, and Tom McDermott. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by me, Jay Allison, with Vicki Merrick at Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

This hour was produced with funds from the National Endowment for the Arts. The Moth Radio Hour is presented by PRX for more about our podcast for information on pitching your own story and everything else go to our website TheMoth.org.