The Moth - The Moth Radio Hour: You Are Here

Episode Date: August 1, 2023

In this hour, stories of journeys—from far-flung to just down the street. Rediscovered roots, recess field trips, and birthday outings. This episode is hosted by Moth Director and Producer, Chloe Salmon. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by The Moth and Jay Allison of Atlantic Public Media. Storytellers: Gina Granter has a fateful encounter on an Amtrak train. Teacher James Hamilton finds a way around his school's no recess policy. Helen Cooper spends a special birthday at Coney Island. A friend from her cancer support group makes a lasting impression on Emma Gordon. Mary Blair travels to the Arctic tundra to reconnect with her heritage.

From Giorax, this is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm your host, Chloe Sammon. When I was younger, I imagined that future Chloe's biggest moments would stem from grand excursions. Maybe I'd climb Mount Everest or trek through a rainforest. As I got older, I found that I covered a lot less ground than I would have expected. The 20 minutes it took to get to the movie theater for my first date. The two-hour drive to my college town, my freshman year. The plane ride to New York when I moved here to start working at the moth. I haven't made it to Mount Everest, but I've grown a deep appreciation for smaller journeys and the unexpected and wonderful places they can take us.

So in this episode, tales of journeys great and small from across the world to around the corner. Our first story is from Gina Granter who told it at a story slam in New York City where WNYC is a media partner of the month. Here's Gina. It was 8 a.m. on New Year's Day and I was sitting on Amtrak's train in Penn Station, bound for Montreal. Twenty hours earlier, I had flown into Newark from Montreal with a plan to spend one afternoon in New York, vintage clothes shopping, to bring in the New Year laughing at the comedy seller, to stay up all night because I save on a hotel and then get on the 8 o'clock

am track and go to sleep for the 11 hour ride home. And I had a seat for two and I was stretching out and I was just about to fall asleep. And we hadn't left the station yet. And I hear a voice say, is this seat next to you taken? And I begrudgingly said no, because I really wanted to sleep. And the guy who was talking to me was pretty handsome guy around my age, dark hair and a little bit of a graying beard.

And he had a novel in his hand, and he didn't smell like cigarettes, so it could be worse. But I wasn't going to follow sleep and start snoring and like drooling after being awake for like 20, the 30 something hours, you know, in front of this strange man. So I started reading my book and we read next to each other for about an hour.

And then I got up to go to the cafe car and I said probably the most Canadian thing I've ever said in my life. I pointed out the window and I was like, would you like my window seat? There's a beaver lodge out there. You never know what you'll see looking out the window. So into the cafe car and I got a coffee and I read and I came back and I sat next to

him and he asked me about beaver lodges, about which I know a lot actually. And then I asked him what he was reading, and we started moving from there. And he was a New Yorker who was just going to Montreal for a week and he had no plans. And I was like, well, I'm going to a comedy show in Montreal because I do that all the time. And so I have a two for one pass tomorrow night. Do you want to come?

So he's like, cool. And then we talk for several hours. And then the whole week he's there every night we see each other. I take him to a house party, take him over smoke meat, I take him to micro-brew pubs. We have a great time. And the night before he left, there was a freezing rain and it froze all the sidewalks.

And I almost slipped and fell. And he caught my arm and he held my hand and then we kissed and I was like this could be a good reason to visit New York again. So a few weeks after that I was still in Montreal it was February it was freezing cold and I had a really bad chest cold and I went to sleep at like 8 p.m and I always turn my phone off when I sleep because I value my sleep. But that night, with the prospect of a man in New York, maybe writing me a text, I thought, okay, I'll leave it on. And so around 10.30, I get woken up by my cell phone,

and it's him, and he wants to know if he can call. And I text him back, oh, sorry, I'm really congested and feeling sick, I just got to sleep. And then as I'm falling back to sleep, I smell this burning smell. And I get up reluctantly and I look all around my house and there's no source of a smell, but I'm awake now so I call him and I go,

yeah, sorry, I'm awake. I just, I smell something burning, but there's nothing. He was like, maybe I'm being a neurotic New Yorker, but like, call 911. And then call me back. So then I did the second most Canadian thing I've ever done, which is like, call 911 and apologize for inconveniencing them.

I was like, I'm sorry. There's probably nothing, but there's like a burning smell in my house, and they were like, get out of the house immediately. And so it was minus 40, which is by the way, where Celsius and Fahrenheit collide. And I put on a parka, and I got out on the sidewalk, and as soon as I got out, the fire engine pulls up,

and they go immediately to the next door neighbor, which is the duplex, I share with them. And they're like bang the door down, and this pillar of smoke comes up, the width of the door, and just stains the whole front of of the building and my knees come out from and under me and several hours later the firemen let me back in my house and They told me that my neighbor had been taken out alive. She had fallen asleep cooking And she was in critical condition and that if I had called just five minutes later. She would be dead

um, and so I called the New Yorker back. And he drove up that weekend to see me, and it was Valentine's Day weekend. He brought chocolates. I brought, they were Jacques Torres chocolates. I had to keep all the windows open to get the smoke smell out of the house, and it was so cold, but he came up and he was so lovely and he kept me warm. And I never, when I was set on the train in Amtrak, I really thought like my New York trip was complete.

And I never thought that a thwarted nap by a handsome stranger would have changed my life so. And like in the second time he interrupted my sleep, he would have changed my life so. And in the second time, he interrupted my sleep. He very potentially saved my life. And so that was pretty great. And I take Amtrak a lot now. And last week, I actually came here from Montreal and the border guard said, what is the purpose of your trip? And I said, I'm visiting my partner.

And they said, how long have you been together? I said, I'm visiting my partner. And they said, how long have you been together? I said, three and a half years. And they said, how did you meet? I was like, on this M-track train. And we're having a baby in October. Oh! Oh! Oh!

Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! That was Gina Grandterm. She still lives in Montreal, where she teaches English at Dawson College.

Her one-woman show, Mapping Grief, debuted at the Montreal Fringe Festival in 2017. Gina and the New Yorker are still together. His name is Zach, by the way. Though for now, they live on opposite sides of the Canadian border. They weathered two long-term closures during COVID. And when they were finally able to see each other again after months apart, Zach proposed. They planned to get married later this year and start the immigration process soon. To see some photos of Gina, Zach, and their daughter, who is starting kindergarten this fall, head over to themoth.org.

Not all journeys cover hundreds of miles. Sometimes a few hundred feet will do. Our next story takes us on an expedition to the promised land of recess. James Hamilton told this in New York, again with WNYC, this time at a grand slam at Music Hall of Williamsburg. Here's James live at the mall. When I was 23, I was going into my second year of teaching and I was obsessed with being an excellent teacher.

Like I had a chip on my shoulder about it and had a chip on my shoulder about it because my first year of teaching had not gone that well. And the general vibe with the veteran teachers was that I couldn't cut it. Like, at some point in the last year, they maybe concluded that I didn't have my stuff together. I don't know if it's because I was so young, or because I was so inexperienced,

or maybe because I clearly didn't own an iron, and all my shirts were very wrinkled. Um, so going into year two, every day walking into my fourth grade classroom was a chance for me to like show a new group of kids and prove to all these other teachers that I had my stuff together. Like, you know, every time we had to walk out on the hall, my lines were the straightest. My lesson plans were the most thorough. And while I didn't buy an iron,

I did find a type of shirt that doesn't even get wrinkled. Every detail accounted for. And my school was very rigid, like strict curriculum, long school days, and no recess. So it was like a kid's nightmare. And the other teachers would complain about this no recess policy, but I took it on myself to find a solution. And the solution that I came up with is that on Fridays I would take my class to the

park and will let them play for a while. And it was about eight blocks from our school, which meant that technically it was a field trip, not a recess. So still within the rules. And if you'd asked any of the kids, they'd say that despite the fact that like eight blocks is a very long way for fourth graders to walk. They thought this was the best idea ever, and they're now favorite teacher,

Mr. Hamilton came up with it. And the school was surprisingly okay with this. They, on two conditions. One, the kids had to walk in and out of the building in straight and silent lines, and two, no one could get hurt. And I was like, we are that you put straight lines before no one getting hurt.

But also, I don't know if you've noticed, but my lines are very straight. So one day we go to the park. It's like perfect weather. Everyone's in a particularly good mood, and I always make a point of playing with every group of kids. So I did it all. I did the swings.

I did the slide. You know, I did the jungle gym, and there was one kid, and all he wanted was for me to chase him. And so like, he would run into the field, and I'd follow him, and then he'd run around the swings, and I'd follow him, and then he went under the jungle gym and I followed him. And he is a fourth grader, which is the perfect height

to run full speed under a jungle gym that is mostly made of sheets of metal and sharp edges. And I am two full feet taller than him, which is not the perfect height to run under a jungle gem at full speed. So when I stood up even a little bit, I just put my head going full speed right into one of these sharp metal edges. And I like stumbled out, I was holding my head, and I don't know if you remember being 10 years old, but it's very funny when your teacher gets hurt. It's like the funniest thing in the world.

So there was this kid Thomas who just pointed and laughed. And as he's laughing, we lock eyes just as blood starts going down my face. So his laugh was kind of like, oh no, no! And I just hold my head and very calmly go, you know, we're going to go back early today. Um, so y'all can just line up right over there. And while they're lining up, I go behind a car and take off my dress shirt and take off my undershirt and wrap my undershirt around my now very bloody head. And wrap my, and button my dress shirt back all the way up, which by the way, still not wrinkled. And I call the school and I say,

hey, good news and bad news. Bad news, someone got hurt. Good news, not a student. You'll see what I mean when I get back. Assuming I get back. And we begin this eight block track back to the school. Which again, a long distance for 10-year-olds under normal circumstances, particularly long when your teacher has an active head wound.

And I'm just trying to keep it cool, you know? I'm just having conversations and saying things like, you know, this is why I tell you to sit up so straight in class. A lot of blood flowing up there. A lot of blood. And every couple of blocks, one of the kids just goes quietly, does it hurt? And I go, no, no.

Which it didn't, but internally, I was like, this doesn't hurt, because that's how shock works. And I get all the way back to the school, and they're waiting for me, and even in the chaos, I'm like aware that my seemingly brilliant plan has ended with egg on my face, and by egg, I mean my own blood. And they take me to the urgent care, and I get nine pretty painful staples in my head. And then I do what seems reasonable. And I go back to work.

And the school's like, no. You can't teach. And I'm pretty sure I know why. I'm like, this is because you don't think I know what I'm doing. You think that I'm bad at my job. And the reason they gave me was that you're wearing an urgent care shirt, your hair is caked with blood,

and you probably have a concussion. And there was lots of things that my 23-year-old self should have learned. I should have learned to not care what other people were thinking. I should have learned that you're inevitably going to bleed in front of the people that you least want to see you bleed. But those aren't like lessons that you can just teach one day

and learn. Those are things you have to learn painfully over and over and over and over again. But the one thing I did learn is that you can't control everything. And I learned that because no matter how good my lesson plans were or how straight my line was, I was just always going to be the teacher who cracked his head open. That's just it.

Thank you so much. That was James Hamilton. He made it through the rest of that school year without incident and went on to teach for another seven years. His main note to his younger self, slow down. He was in such a hurry to be, or at least appear to be, great. But all of these years later, the things that have stuck with him are the moments of joy and vulnerability, and the gift of being able to have been a part of his students' lives for

even one year. And hey, he spent so many years telling students that they could become whatever they dreamed of, that he felt he had to do the same. Now, he's an Emmy award-winning writer and comedian, living in Brooklyn, and he just recorded his debut stand-up album. In a moment, a birthday at Coney Island in 1959 and a trip to a cancer support group. When the Moth radio hour continues. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and presented by PRX. This is the Moth Radio Hour from PRX.

I'm Chloe Salmon. In this episode, stories of all kinds of journeys. When I was a kid, even tiny trips could feel far-flong and cloaked in anticipation. When you're that young, the ordinary can feel magical. Our next storyteller takes us to her favorite place in the world in 1959 when she was 13 years old, Coney Island.

We met Helen Cooper through a mock community workshop at the Family Center in Brooklyn, New York. Here's Helen. I'm one of seven children. The third, which was very hard being the third. We got along pretty good, we did a lot of fighting, that was fun. Usually on our birthdays, a mother gave us a choice of what type of cake did you want. We didn't have regular birthday party, so choosing your cake was really nice.

My sister's in bravo is always wanting something plain, chocolate, vanilla, coconut, but not me. I always wanted something exciting, something different. I wanted purple and rainbow, something with M&M's on it but something wonderful happened around the time of my 12th birthday. My mother asked me what do you want to do for your birthday? Not what kind of cake you want. She said what did you want to do? I couldn't believe my ears. She was asking me, Helen, what did I want to do for my birthday? I quickly said, I want to go to Coney Island and play ski ball.

And to my surprise, she said, yes. Coney Island was a beautiful place back then. 1959, they had so many attractions. They had the fun house. They had the lady, you guess how much she weighed? They had the petting zoo for the children. They had that two-headed snake and the three-legged chicken. Oh, it was wonderful. They had the Steeple Chase Park. You thought you were winning the race, but they were mechanical horses.

They had the roller coasters. The Thunderbolt was was the best it whipped around the corners faster than just the plain old I forgot the name The cyclone Then they had the games you played. I only loved ski ball. It was a bowling type game. You had three circles. You had to get these balls into to win points. The points amount to so much.

You got tickets for it. You could buy a gift. That was the best game in the whole park, you could have your rides I wanted to play ski ball. So my mother said yes I could go, so then I really took a chance. I closed my eyes and put my hand behind my back and crossed my fingers. I said can I go alone? I opened one eye because she was taking a long time.

She said, yes, you could have knocked me over with a feather. You mean I really can go by myself? Yes. I couldn't wait by myself? Yes. I couldn't wait to tell the others. You could imagine the uproar. How come she can't go by herself? It's her birthday and we're starting something new. When your birthday comes, you can choose where you wanna go.

So the week went on and I'm all excited, a birthday fell on the Sunday, which was my father's day off. My father was a care driver, and he did the evening shift. So we never really got time to really talk to him or be around him. Because when he was asleep, we were in school.

When he was up, we were asleep. So when Sunday came, I found out my father was taking me. This is extra icing on the cake. My father's taking me to Coney Island. He had brought his cab home the night before. So I'm not only going to get to go with my father, I'm going to ride in the cab. I don't have to take the train.

It's time to go. I sit in the back seat, like I'm a passenger. Pay it. As we go along, my father tried to talk to me like any other father would do. How school? Oh, it's okay. I didn't tell you about the things I had gotten trouble with. But before we knew it, we were at Coney Island. I'm saying to myself, the most I could really hope for is two, three dollars to play this game. My father hands me a bill.

I said, God, give me a dollar. And then I looked down. It was a $10 bill. I said, how much of this can I spend? All of it is yours. Oh, thank you. And I rushed off to get a change before he comes to his senses. So here I am. And I'm playing the ski ball. I'm just playing it. And finally I'm getting all these tickets. I'm really excited.

Here comes my father. It's time to eat now. Okay. Gather up my tickets and we go off to Nathan's to have that famous hot dog. I gobble it down as fast as I can and I'm on my way back and my father says, why'd that mustard off your face? I didn't know I had mustard on my face. This is taking up time.

Wipe it off, brush back. To my horror, somebody was playing my machine. I stood there a minute and I said, well maybe they'll get tired. And they'll go away and I can use this machine. I had done so well on it, it was mine. I waited a while and they were just doing so well on it too. So I chose another machine.

And lo and behold, I did better on that machine than I did on the other one. Okay. Finally my father came again and he said, we've got to go. But daddy, I got all these diamonds. Okay, finished up the diamonds, and then we have to go.

I finished up the diamonds, I got so many tickets. Here I go, I'm going to the counter, I'm gonna choose my gift. The first thing I saw was a big white cup with Coney Island on it, and a pitch of the Ferris wheel. That's mine and nobody's drinking out of it but me. Then I saw a cutie doll. Oh that's mine too.

It had a puffer blonde hair and big rosy cheeks and it was on a stick. Nobody's touching this with me. And then it hit me. My sisters and brothers, I don't have to buy them something so they won't touch my stuff. I get everybody something, luckily I had enough tickets to get everybody something. Luckily, I had enough tickets to get everybody something. My stuff was safe. So we started home. My father asked me, how did I like my day out by myself? Oh, it was wonderful, Daddy. I never had a day like this. This is like heaven. I

Set there looking at him as he drove the way home. I sat in the front going home. I Just looked at it. Did you know I'm not just any kid I'm his daughter and it's my birthday. That was Helen Cooper. She was raised in Brooklyn and Jamaica, Queens and lives in Far Rock away. Next up, Emma Gordon undertakes a different kind of voyage, one of looking for help and finding a steady hand to hold. She told this at a story slim in New York City. Here's Anna.

I'm at Margie at a Wednesday night cancer support group. And I walk in and she's sitting on this wicker-like chair. She was a 50-something Upper West Side Jewish lady and fabulous shoes and a suit and a wig. And I was a 20-something Australian actor who was wearing the shirt that she'd slept in. And I was there because even though I was then in remission, I had started to drink a lot by myself, and I'd gotten drunk and fallen off my loft bed twice. And that night I told my story, and I started to cry, and Margie moves seats from her throne to sit next to me, and she put her hand on my hand, and she said,

this is my age, I'm 28, I'm not 58, I don't know when that happened. And I liked her immediately. And at first it was just group on Wednesdays and then it was cocktails after group and then it was lunches and she took me shopping to buy proper heels and she would tell shopping to buy proper heels.

And she would tell me about old lovers and New York in the 70s, because she didn't have any kids of her own, and I certainly didn't have a Jewish American mother. So we were perfect. In 18 months after that meeting, that first meeting, she had a big surgery. It was like a make-it-all-break-it surgery. They opened her up and they found that her organs were, the cancer had covered her organs like a web. There was nothing to do, so they just sewed her back up and she had about a month. And when Margin I talked

about dying she said, you know it's so weird because I can't imagine the world going on after I'm gone, that the summer rise and the traffic will keep moving and the news will come on at six and I couldn't have agreed more. And that last month, in the beginning, it was like a sleepover party. We would be in the bedroom, just me and a few of her best friends, and she'd be diving out her wardrobe, and in the kitchen her husband was keeping busy and cooking, and the door would open, and she would smell these smells, but she couldn't eat anymore, and she starving and it made her angry and when I would call I

would ask her is there anything I can bring or ask her husband that in the background I could hear in the background say nips and I would I would quickly learn that nips are these little sucking candies that come in different flavors. And she loved them and it helped with the nausea. I just couldn't find them anywhere. And I would bring her peppermints and worthers and taffy. And every time I did she would just have this look of disappointment, would just come over her face because they weren't her beloved nibs.

Then one day I called and I said, what can I bring and her husband said, just bring yourself. But come soon. And I was sitting, I was standing in the heels that she had bought me, and I had a haircut that she, that we got together. And I was a different person because of the love that she had given me, and I had to find those bloody candies. So I tried one more place that I hadn't been to, and it was the food imporium.

And it was a bloody imporium. I could, it had to be there. So I ran in and there were two cashews and there were deeply chatting. And I just said, hi, ladies, nips. The little sucking candies. I have to come in different flavours. And they weren't listening.

So I just said nips. And then one of the girls said, what did you call me? And the other one said, I'll fall. And I ran and they weren't there. And so I bought roses, just deli cut pink roses because I had to bring something. And when I got there, she was in and out, but she was awake and she heard me come in

and she said in this very soft voice, what did you bring me? And I said, oh, just roses. And she groaned, she said, oh, and I thought she was disappointed. And then I looked over and I saw that she was smiling. And so I picked up a rose and I brought it up to her nose and she did that groan again. And I took the rose and I painted her face with it, her cheeks and her forehead and her nose and her chin. hwchich i'n hwchwch i'n hwchwch i'n hwchwch i'n hwchwch i'n hwchwch i'n hwchwch i'n hwchwch i'n hwchwch i'n hwchwch i'n hwchwch i'n hwchwch i'n hwchwch i'n hwchwch i'n hwchwch i'n hwchwch i'n hwchwch i'n hwchwch i'n hwchwch i'n hwchwch i'n hwchwch i'n hwchwch i'n hwchwch i'n hwchwch i'n hwchwch i'n hwchwch i'n hwchwch i'n hwchwch i'n hwchwch i'n hwchwch i'n hwchwch i'n hwchwch i'n hwchwch i'n hwchwch i'n hwchwch i'n hwchwch i'n hwchwch i'n hwchwch i'n hwchwch i'n hwchwch i'n hwchwch i'n hwchwch i'n hwchwch i'n hwchwch i'n hwchwch i'n hwchwch i'n hwchwchwch i'n hwchwchwch i'n hwchwchwchwch i'n hwchwchwchwchwchwchwchwchwchwchwchwchwchwchwchwchwchwchwchwchwchwch And she was right because the sun rose and the traffic kept going and the news came on at six and life inexplicably to me kept going.

And I knew that I would never could never forget Margie, but she in her own Jewish American motherway had found a way for me never to forget her either because from the day she died until today all I seem to see are nips. They're everywhere. Thanks. Thanks. Emma Gordon lives with her family in Ridgewood Queens. She spends most of her time thinking of stories to translate big science concepts for little kids for her company Science Baby. When I asked if she had any other Margie moment she'd like to share, a trip to the shoe store stood out. Margie had taken issue with Emma's ever-present dirty converse and insisted on getting her new shoes from a fancy store.

When Emma balked at Triangon and sending back multiple pairs, Margie pulled her aside and said, try on as many shoes as you need, with no guilt. Likewise, try on as many men as you need, with no guilt. But if the foot is too wide for the shoe, do not push. And if the woman is too wise for the man, also do not push. Jirly words to live by. Emma still sees nips wherever she goes. When she does, she smiles and nods at them, knowing that Margie is smiling and nodding back.

In a moment, a woman heads to the Arctic tundra for a family reunion and some reindeer. 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. This is the Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Chloe Semen. In this episode, we've been listening to stories about journeys. Our final tale comes to us from Mary Blair, who told it in Troy, New York, where we partnered with Troy Savings Bank Music Hall. Here's Mary, live at the mom.

It was 2008. And I had just gotten back from field work for my PhD in Ecology Evolution and Environmental Biology. And my dad called me up up and he asked me, do you want to go to Norway? And it was kind of out of the blue, but I knew I had to say yes. My life until that point had been like a straight line trajectory towards a PhD in science. And I always excelled in math and science classes. There were these answers there in black and white, and that really worked for me.

Whereas with the arts and the humanities, there would be these big gray areas, and they kind of went over my head, and I tried to avoid them, basically. So there I was, and the predicted PhD in science, and now there's this trip to Norway. We had always known that my great grandparents had come to the US from Norway,

but we didn't know much more than that. My grandmother, her mom, died when she was quite young, and she went to live with other family. And so we had these big gaps about her early life. But my dad had found out that in fact her parents were not Norwegian at all. They were Sami. The Sami are the indigenous people of Arctic Scandinavia.

They were from a town called Kauta Cano, 200 miles north of the Arctic Circle, and they heard it reindeer for a living. Wow. Right? And you know what explains so much? Like the words that my grandmother remembered from her parents, they sounded nothing like Norwegian. They were actually speaking a dialect

of northern Sami language that is no longer spoken anywhere today. This was amazing. I didn't know there were indigenous reindeer herders, and now I'm related to them. And now they're inviting us to visit them in Kauta-Keno for the 110th anniversary of the Manitoba expedition, which was the US government project that brought Sami Renderhurters to Alaska

to establish a reindeer herd there. So we have to go, of course. My grandmother couldn't go, unfortunately, at that time she was already declining rapidly from Alzheimer's, but my mom, Dad and I went. And after three very long flights, we arrived. And we were greeted by our cousin, Olim Mathis, who had the biggest grin on his face, and he was so excited to be welcoming us to his hometown.

And I was so excited to meet him for the first time, and I just felt this strong connection to him. We hopped in his car and drove into town, and just looking out the window, it was so beautiful, there was snow, like three feet high everywhere, even though it was April. And we arrived at the community center for a welcome dinner for all the families. And it was this huge room full of long tables. Each one with about a dozen Sami ranger herders and their long lost American family. And we got to our table.

And I was amazed at these faces looking back at me. They looked just like my grandmother. It was just incredible. The wheat continued, it was jam-packed full of events, like a crash course in Sami culture. I was gifted a gokti to wear for the wheat. Gokti is traditional Sami clothing. For women, this is a long wool dress with deep pleats in the skirt, vibrant colors, and intricate

trim that represents your specific family's hometown. My cousin helped me put it on and I looked in the mirror and was so surprised at how comfortable I looked in the mirror and was so surprised at how comfortable I looked and felt. And together that night we went to this big concert of traditional Sami song called Yoyk. And we were about 100 young Sami folks in the audience swaying to the music drinking finish beer. And everyone wearing gockety that represented their family's hometown.

And I really felt like I was in the right place at that time. At every one of these events, there was delicious food, there would be reindeer steak, reindeer stew, reindeer pizza. There's a theme. In fact, in honor of the animal, we really eat every part of the animal. If we don't eat it, we use it in handicrafts or in our gochty or in accessories like this belt, for example. When we were having the reindeer pizza, which was at a pub, I was sitting across the table from another cousin who was telling me more about this,

about how close the relationship is between the herders and the reindeer and also the Tundra landscape. So for example, there are more than 300 words in the Sami language describing every possible different kind of snow. And the Sami believe that reindeer can smell thin ice. And because of that, they follow the reindeer instead of the other way around. And I am really leaning in across the table

listening to my cousin, because this is blowing my mind. In my graduate science courses, when we're talking about people hurting animals, we're usually talking about how they're harming the landscape. But here my cousin is telling me that our ancestors, for thousands of years, have heard it ranger in a way that sustains the landscape. And stewards, the Tundra ecosystem. This is a huge gray area for me, but I'm attracted to it. I'm so drawn into it. We wake up the next morning, super early,

go to another cousin's house, Per Bar, and hop on some snowmobiles, because we are going out into the tundra to see a reindeer herd. And I am thrilled to see the reindeer and also to be driving a snowmobile for the first time by myself. It is awesome. I am flying over the hills, I'm getting the butterflies, and I see people starting to slow down in front of me. So reluctantly I also have to slow down and I stop and I hop off and I walk over to where

Pear is kneeling in the snow with his hurting dog and I see they're both looking in the same direction and I turn my head to where they're looking and I see the most beautiful tundra landscape, but it pales in comparison to the reindeer. There are hundreds and hundreds of them, and they're just right in front of me, and they have these huge furry antlers, and beautiful fuzzy silver gray fur. And I see the breath, like their hot breath coming out of their wet noses, is their grunting and digging down into the snow to get to what they eat, which is lichen. And I'm just in awe of them. And I remember

that Perr told me that these animals are the descendants of my great-great-grandfather's herd. If my great-grandparents had stayed, these animals might have been my responsibility. And this landscape might have been my responsibility to care for. And that's where my mind was, is I was looking at this beautiful group of animals. And then I realized that all of my fingers and all of my toes had gone numb. It's very cold out there. So we hop on the snowmobiles to go back and then we stop at a cabin. Per has a one room wooden cabin on the tundra.

And his wife is there. She opens the door. She welcomes us in to sit by the stove, thankfully. And she brings us hot coffee and reindeer jerky, which is delicious. And we start chatting and parasitting across from me. And he starts talking about what this life is like day to day. And how hard it has been in the last decade. The snow is melting earlier than it should and then it re-freezes and it makes these layers

of ice that the reindeer cannot dig through and they're starving to death more often. Avalanchees are happening more often. The river ice is melting more often and unpredictably. And he's lost a lot of reindeer this way. And we've lost family members this way, family that I'll never have the chance to meet and get to know. And I'm just getting to know them. And I can hear the pain in his voice. And I'm devastated because this beautiful

landscape and the reindeer and these people that I'm just getting to know could all be gone in a few decades if we don't do anything about climate change. We get home really late that night, after saying our goodbyes, exchanging gifts and contact information, and on the flight home the next day, I'm very sad to believe, believing, but I know that we'll keep in touch. And I realize that something is changing for me. And I realized that something is changing for me. My family holds important knowledge about how to live sustainably on this earth. And in my field of work, we weren't really considering that kind of knowledge,

alongside knowledge from biology, and I hadn't been thinking about it at all in my PhD research. Now, I'm happy to say that in my field, it is more common to include that knowledge. And in my own work, I co-produce projects in equitable partnerships with indigenous scientists and local communities, and in doing so have only improved my work and its importance for people.

By leaving Norway and coming to the U.S., my great grandparents made a decision that meant I lost a continuous connection to Somaland and livelihood, but I realize now that I've remade that connection in it in my own way. And because I don't avoid gray areas anymore, not at all. I dive right into them and I have made my home there. Thank you very much. That was Mary Blair. She's a conservation biologist at the American Museum of Natural History and lives in Manhattan with her husband and four year old son. Mary is still in touch with her newfound family. They visit her in New York often, and she took her son and husband on a trip back out to Norway last summer for calf marking season.

She tried to introduce her son to reindeer pizza while they were there, but no dice. Turns out reindeer spaghetti bolonyeis is more his thing. To see photos of Mary on that first trip to Norway, reindeer included, and to learn more about her work concerning endangered species and climate change, visit themoth.org. That's it for this episode of The Moth Radio Hour. Whether your next journey takes you down the block or across the world, I hope you find some stories there.

Thank you to our storytellers for sharing with us and to you for listening. I hope you'll join us next time. This episode of The Moth Radio Hour was produced by me, Jay Allison, Katherine Burns and Chloe Sammon, who also hosted and directed a story in the show, additional Grand Slam coaching by Jennifer Hickson. Co-producer is Vicki Merrick, associate producer Emily Couch. The rest of the most leadership team includes Sarah Haberman, Sarah Austin-Jones, Meg Bulls, Kate Tellers, Marina Cluche, Leanne Gully, Suzanne Rust,

Brandon Grant, Sarah Jane Johnson, and Aldi Caza. Most stories are true, as remembered and affirmed by the storytellers. Our theme music is by the drift. Other music in this hour from swing-roars, Mark Orton, Fruitful, David Tattersall, and Cisal Morgan-Galore. We receive funding from the National Endowment for the Arts. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and presented by BRX. For more about our podcast, for information on pitching us your own story,

and everything else, go to our website, TheMoth.org. you