oh how i love the Moth
Before we close the door on 2022, I wanted to mention something that was on my list of goals for the year that I was able to accomplish in December. As a writer, and, more specifically, as a writer who writes pretty much exclusively about stories from my life, I’ve long been a fan of The Moth. There are few things I enjoy more than hearing real people tell real stories from their real lives. It’s so much more satisfying than fiction could ever be. It’s why I love reading memoirs, and it’s why I’ve read all The Moth’s story collection books and listen religiously to their weekly podcast. I, quite simply, love stories.
And so I set a goal to attend one of their live events in 2022, the closest location in which they have them being Los Angeles. But who actually wants to drive to LA? Who wants to find parking and schlep to a nightclub and then either schlep back to their car and drive home late at night or pay more money than they should have to for a hotel? And so (thanks to airline points), it was actually cheaper for me to fly to Portland and attend an event there. Which is how I came to be in downtown Portland at The Old Church concert hall on a freezing Monday night with a full house of mostly flannel-wearing story enthusiasts.
I say story enthusiasts, because what else would make you leave your warm house on a Monday night in sub-freezing temperatures? We were all there for the stories, and what amazed me more than almost anything else was that most people weren’t there for the chance of telling a story themselves (audience members can choose to put their name in a hat, and 10 people are chosen to come up on stage and tell a story), but rather were there just to listen to the stories of others, the stories of strangers brought together for a couple of hours to feel the collective weight, humor, and wonder that is life on this planet.
As for me? I absolutely wanted to tell a story on stage. So badly, in fact, that the idea of my name not being pulled from the hat made me desperately sad. I’d come all that way! I’d gotten on a plane! Perhaps it was just meant to be, which is what I thought as I laughed and shook my head and took off my coat and walked toward the stage when my name was the FIRST ONE pulled out of the hat. I’m not exaggerating when I say that I loved everything about telling that story. I loved hearing the audience react, I loved the fact that I’d prepared (just in case) and knew the story I wanted to tell, and I loved that I was ultimately waxing sentimental over a very real and relatable thing that hopefully everyone in that audience could relate to on some level or another.
That’s the power of stories, after all. We may not share the same experiences, but we feel the same collection of emotions. We’re all given the same gamut of feelings as we make our ways through life. And we can all put ourselves in the shoes of someone who honestly and vulnerably shows us one small glimpse into their own. Here’s to stories, then, to us as we prepare to begin a new year creating what will become our stories of the future, and to The Moth who continues to help us share them. (The only thing left to do is get some events going down here in San Diego! Seriously, no one wants to drive to LA.)