The Moth Radio Hour: Brains, Beauty, and Brawn: Stories of Girlhood

May 7, 2019

In this hour, moxie, grit, and growing up. Stories of the strength, both physical and mental, of young women. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by The Moth and Jay Allison of Atlantic Public Media.

Hosted by: Sarah Austin Jenness

Storytellers: Sandra Kimokoti, Wanjiru Kibera, Gabrielle Shelton, Catherine Smyka, Christal Brown

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The Moth is supported by Progressive Progressive has you covered when it comes to car insurance starting with built-in savings like discounts for being a safe driver you can also say when you start your quote online or have multiple vehicles on your policy in fact a survey of drivers who switched and saved in 2018 showed an average annual Savings of six hundred and $99 start a quote online and see all the discounts for yourself visit progressive.com today discounts not available in all states and situations

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from PRX this The Moth Radio Hour I'm Sarah Austin jeunesse we at the moth include stories from everyone but this episode is dedicated to the young women of the world it's about girlhood with five unexpected stories of beauty and Brawn the moths first main stage in Nairobi Kenya featured stories of women and girls the show was held at the Kenya National Theater and packed with people who had braved Nairobi traffic even in the midst of a rainstorm and that theater is where we begin this hour here's the song key Miss among who hosted that inaugural event hello and welcome to the mall before we begin our official program please stand and join us in the national anthem

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after the national anthem Her Excellency the first lady of Kenya mrs. Margaret Kenyatta took the stage she was dressed in a perfectly tailored deep blue suit and on her suit jacket were five pink embroidered moths in a semi-circle

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ladies and gentlemen good evening

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I'm delighted to join you here for the first presentation of the moth in Kenya we are here to celebrate an initiative that provides a platform for girls and women to reach out and share personal stories and personal Reflections we will hear voices from diverse backgrounds spanning multiple Generations

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traditionally Africans have been known to be great communicators we are great word collectors and that explains why so many of us understand the power of Storytelling in the cultural context I cannot think of a better way that allows our girls and women's voices to be Amplified by shedding light on many urgent issues that they face in their daily lives

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we will always require examples to emulate stories to give us hope Stories full of courage and optimism that will inspire and encourage us to promote gender equality and women's empowerment finally I thank the partners here for their unwavering support towards girls and women and I congratulate every story teller here for Having the courage to share I wish you all a good evening thank you thank you so much first lady my name is sazanka this is on campus among I will be your host this evening I am a South African writer and a moth alumni and I am very very pleased to be here in Nairobi salsa

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I've been practicing my Shang

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so tonight's moth mainstage Global stories of women and girls will showcase graduates of the moths Global Community program before we begin please people can we turn off our cell phones we want these stories to be broadcast in perfect sound all around the world so please do not stand in the way of African progress on the global stage can I get a sense of how many of you have heard of The Moth before you arrived here today

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so

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it's time for us to get started ladies and gentlemen welcome to the stage she's already here hi hi Sandra welcome to the stage Sandra chemo koti

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as a child I idolized my brother's I want you to be just like them

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they were the cool kids in the neighborhood they were the cool kids in school and they played Sports so by default I did too so one day when I was about 10 years old we have been playing basketball outside and we were heading back into the house so just as y in the doorway my brothers were comparing the size of their biceps as teenage boys to and I kind of got into the flow and I said look at me I have big biceps too and one of my brothers turned to me and said who told you girls with muscles are beautiful

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strike one

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I'm not sure how to describe what I thought at that point it was a combination of confusion and hurt and I was wondering why it wasn't okay for me to look the way I did and I wasn't sure why somebody else should tell me what I'm supposed to look like but at 10 I didn't have the words to articulate this so I just cut it in my mind but from that moment I created with me that as a girl it was okay to be athletic but I couldn't be too athletic because at the end of the day what I looked like took precedence over anything else

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so let's goes on when I was in the sixth grade my classmate and I were walking from class going to take the bus home her older brother and his friend were walking behind us so as we walked her brother says to me you have such big girls you look like a boy

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strike two

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wow so this kind of teasing about how boyish I looked continued for about a year so I joined high school I went to public voting School in Kenya in my school was allowed to have permed hair I had found her so that meant I had to cut my hair or this could this could cut it for me so I took most of the salon cut off my hair I was walking back home on my way I passed by two men walking the opposite direction as they walked by me ever had one of the guys say to the other man is this a girl or a boy

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strike three

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I was hoping that

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high school would be some kind of new beginning and I could start afresh but at that moment I felt like I would never be able to shake off this perception that I wasn't feminine enough and I therefore wasn't beautiful enough so

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as I said life has to go on all through high school I played Sports because that's just who I was and that's just what I did I played Sports After High School I started uni in the US and decided I'll try something different something new so I have seen these posters on campus asking girls come try out rugby so I thought why not so I walk onto the pitch the first day I find a few girls getting ready wearing their boots getting stopped one of the coaches walks over to me starts talking to me she stretched out her arms and put some on my shoulders and filled my shoulders for about five seconds and then she says to me

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you're so solid this is awesome

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and I just I was asking that glory for what feels like ours but it's just a few seconds and then she has me make some tacos and I realized I really enjoy hitting people without having to go to jail so in short I fell I fell in love with rugby and I loved how we would compete on how strong you are how fast you are how hard we could hit and was about what our bodies could do to us about how our bodies could perform not what they look like and my coach mentioned to me you know Sandra if you really want to you can keep professional rugby

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and at the time I didn't take it too seriously but it was always at the back of my head

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a few weeks into the season we were in the gym lifting weights now our school gym had mirrors all around so as we were lifting I look at myself in the mirror and I realized that my muscle mass had increased significantly and I had a lot more muscle definition now and as I looked in the mirror all those

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emotions from when I was 10 and primary school and in high school or feeling too boyish too masculine too muscular all those feelings came back and the more I played rugby the happier I was with what my body could do but the more frustrated I became with what my body look like and it was like this internal conflict where I want these two things deliberately but I can't have one without compromising the other so at the end of the year we have to break for the summer the coach gives us a training program that has both cardio and weights and I think okay this is my chance so I go home I reduce the weight lifting I am pop the cardio

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I do way more cardio than I'm supposed to do for my position and I also cut my mom sizes by half

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that's how I use 10 kgs and feels awesome I feel amazing because now my body is morphing into this thin ideal that I believe it's supposed to be so at the end of the summer I go back to school I walk into my coach's office and expect a warm welcome as soon as I walk through the door she looks at me and says what the hell happened to your body

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so for my position my biggest assets or my strength and my size before the weight loss I was already the smallest person in the league in my position I had gone and with myself even smaller So what had essentially done was self-sabotage so for the next two years I played this game where I did just enough to be good enough of my position but always toning down the weight gain than the muscle gain and at the end of my third year I come back home and I get this opportunity some how to train with the Women's National Team in Kenya and I think okay this this might be the door to that career in professional rugby that I've been waiting for

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and I walk onto the bridge that first day and these girls man these girls are big they're strong they're fast we do a gym session the smallest person on that team lifts more weight than I've ever lifted my entire life the a lot more muscular than I am they're just great athletes and they're so Unapologetic about it and I know this is a competition if I want to wear that Jersey if I want to present my country this is why I have to beat to make the squad and at that point I know that something has to change and I know at the South sabotage has to stop and deep down I always knew that

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the body that I needed to perform optimally as an athlete might not be the body that Society thinks is ideal for a woman but in that moment I was finally ready to just go out there and be the best rugby player that my body would allow me to be thank you

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that was Sandra came up OT Sandra has since retired from competitive rugby but she remains a self-professed Jim Warrior and works as a strategy consultant in Nairobi she's noticed a recent trend of more women embracing the strength of their bodies and she says when you walk into a gym here in Kenya there are a lot more women lifting weights and there's more women Rugby teams now because more schools are investing in women's programs if you'd like to see a picture of Sandra in action on the Rugby field and photos of Her Excellency mrs. Margaret Kenyatta the first lady of Kenya who introduced this evening visit the moth dot org

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there were five other stories told at this main stage in Nairobi and you may have heard some of them on the moth podcast but all of them are included in the women and girls playlist on our website The Moth but org and video of the stories is on our YouTube channel so check those out for some women in the early part of their lives strength has to be found almost like a quest we need to go out into the world and prove to ourselves that we are tenacious and that's what our next story from one Giroux kibera is about shiru as she likes to be called was part of a moth Global Community Workshop that we also held in Kenya this recording is from the end of that Workshop when each person shares their story with the rest of the storytellers in the group so there were only about 15 people in the room to hear this when people tell these stories they can be emotionally overwhelming at times as you'll hear hear

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Eureka Bera and no Basha Kenya

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in my high school before we did our final exams the school had a trip that would go for at Mount Kenya and this trip was to prepare us before this trip was to prepare the trip was to prepare us for our final exams and it was to teach us endurance and patience and courage and so I was very excited for the trip but I was not very athletic in high school I was sick before and I had asthma so this prevented me from playing a lot of sports because in when I'd get when I would participate in physical activity I'd get an attack and I was unable to continue and my mom and my sister had also previously taken the same trip so I really wanted to prove that I could also do it as well and I was just as strong and capable as everyone else going on this trip

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I found myself not in the fast-paced group neither was I in the slow play Space group and I would be in the middle and I'll be walking alone for most of the journey and it was very tiring it was an exhausting trip and the point was to get to a place called Point Lana which is the third highest peak in the mountain and the journey was very tiring as I had said and it took us three days to get to the place where I would start that sent on to the summit and the scent would do it at night and this was to trick our minds so that we wouldn't see how far would have to go and would keep walking and keep moving forward when we got to this place we started that centered around 7:00 and just as the rest of the journey I found myself alone as I was making this ascent and we were told that there were guides along the way in case we

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lost in case we veered off the path would be someone to guide us back so I knew that I would be fine even if I was working alone so they got to a point where I had of the path and I was walking towards the glaciers and would be knowing about the glaciers because people had actually lost their lives falling into the glaciers but I knew I was fine because I definitely got watching us and I was walking someone yelled at me and they were like you're going to you're going to get hard so I come back to the path and not frighten me that I wasn't seeing at that point but I kept walking and it was dark as I said and I was alone and I got an asthma attack and had previously taken already two shots of my ventilation and I was weak and I wasn't allowed to take another because of course medical reasons and so at this point I thought I should just sit down and wait for the group behind me to catch up and then maybe would go down in the morning and

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so I thought you know this is as far as I can go and I sat down and I was just crying and I was frustrated and I was tired and then a guide a guide came up he wasn't part of a group he was leading this other man and he saw me in this mess you saw me with all this dirt around me you know the whole trip you don't shower and I was dirty and I was I was I had mucus on my face and I just been crying and I was dubbed by myself and the way he looked at me he had so much kindness in his eyes and he's like we'll go together and I'll help you up and so the man next to him actually looks a lot worse than me because he had Mountain sickness and we're going very slowly up the mountain and he held my hand and so we went up with him and he kept saying you can do this we can go together and you make it and just as we reached the top the point is called Point Lantana and as we reached it the day broke and was the most beautiful view I've ever seen

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in and he was like look you did it and I saw the first team that I don't like hey you made it Hi how are you I don't think they really expected anyone after that point to make it and there I was in this place and I was just like this lesson isn't about exams it's not about success it's a lesson in life and

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up till now I didn't realize how much the story has affected me in my life I've had mountains I'd have had to climb alone figuratively I didn't go up and down the mountain after this but I realized that it feels dark and you're not alone the people who

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the people

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the people were there to hold your hat in the darkness and is this quotes that I later read and it really does summarizes this whole story for me and it says that tell the story of the mountains you climbed because your words can become a survival guide in someone else's book thank you she worka Berra is a visual artist who dreams of opening an interior design business in math workshops people choose which stories they'll tell shiru chose to tell about a literal Mountain but she said she's had figurative mountains in her life too it's just that she's not yet ready to share those stories she told me she draws strength from knowing that every Mountain Journey will come to an end and she will be proud of getting through it

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for gorgeous photos of shiru on Mount Kenya and to hear more stories from I'm off Global Community program go to the moth dot-org after our break two stories Gabrielle Longs for a career as a welder and Catherine realizes she and her male best friend have identical taste in women oh

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The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic public media in Woods Hole Massachusetts and presented by PRX each year people can't wait for Sam Adams to brew their very first batch of Sam Adams Oktoberfest neither can we Sam Adams Oktoberfest is everything you love about fall in one sip with its unique blend of caramel roasted malts it's sweet smooth and delicious Savor the season with a fall favorite Sam Adams Oktoberfest Boston Beer Company Boston Mass saver responsibly

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this is the mouth radio hour from PRX I'm Sarah Austin jeunesse and this hour is all about growing up female finding yourself being yourself and moving through the world according to your own rules Gabrielle Shelton told this next story at an open mic story Slam in New York City the theme of the night was persuasion here's Gabrielle live at The Moth

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every single welding shop in Manhattan refused of hire me

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it wasn't my youth or my inexperience they said it was just simply the fact that I was a girl and they didn't know what to do with a girl welder the the first guy who was just straight-up disgusted he said no I had no it's not all right one of the other guys said I'm sorry honey I we don't even have a girls bathroom the corpulent Italian metal shop owner on Grand Street in SoHo leaned back in his chair put a cigarette out he literally shoved my resume back to me and he said you know what don't get me wrong we wouldn't mind looking at you but you just going to be way too distracting to my men

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so

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I kept looking and everybody turned me down I had just driven across country from Chicago to New York and my 73 Chevy it wasn't the was in the hot rod one it was the kind of dorky cream puffs post catalytic converter 1 and I had been working as a welder and in foundries in Chicago when I was in school and I had just come off a six-month gig as iron worker in Georgia and I was a really fucking good welder and I didn't understand why nobody would hire me the union wasn't really what I wanted but Ironworkers Apprenticeship wasn't for me it was you had to start as a flag waver is a girl and it was about a four-month program to even touch a piece of metal and I wasn't going to wait for that and so I kept looking and sort of broaden my search and I got a job as a as a

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in this little theater on Greenwich Street and spraying it was sort of this coltish theater Community Center and I was doing props and helping in their tiny little shop and then they expanded into the room next door and on the first day that the contractor came in the sky Joe I just put my hooks in him right away and I knew he might be a way in and so I started stalking him and I would get there before he did so I could help bring the tools up in the elevator I started showing up on days that I wasn't even on shift or on call I would sort of nonchalantly bring him a coffee or a bacon egg and cheese on a roll as if I had just had an extra one and I got to know his guys and Esteban his head Carpenter he looked at me one day he's like do you like working for free or do you know what's going on here and I just told him I needed a job I wanted a job and I wanted to be a metal worker and I wanted to be an engineer and I wanted

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be you know I wanted to figure out cut list in order steel and I wanted to learn how to build everything I possibly could and weld every possible thing I could and design and being a mechanic and engineer everything and he's like well you gotta ask for a job first you know and so on the last day that they were wrapping up the construction at the theater I follow Joe down and put his toolbox in his truck and I was standing there and he's looking at me kind of not really sure what to do with me and I was about to ask but I was in the way and he got in his truck and he sat down and was standing there still and he sort of did this half like by you know not and he drove off and the guys were walking to the subway and I ran after him and I said hey you know you guys want to get a beer and they said sure and Esteban was like let's tell shorty let's get her high in again and tell her how poorly she swings a hammer so we went to

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the ear in which was right around the corner and this is 1995 by the way almost 22 years old and and so that night they told me that actually that afternoon constructions pretty early we're drinking and Sun hence at yet and they told me a lot of crazy stuff it was the whole crew and the most important thing they told me is that Joe was starting a new job on Forsyth Street the next morning so I picked up Steve and Dave at 26th and 2nd Avenue Second Avenue the best six o'clock in the morning we drove down and Steve was this wild ex-heroin addict he'd been played drums and every punk band in New York and he looked like scrap your version of Kramer few could imagine that and it's real fucked up teeth and Dave was a sexy cool Carpenter mill worker sorry and he he wore the single conch shell on a leather piece around his neck and he

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tight jeans and his hair was in front of his eyes and the only real turnoff about Dave was that he was a huge Pat Metheny fan and he used to do this Fusion air guitar and anyway so I got the job on Forsyth Street the first date a money and I had to bring up 300 sheets of drywall on chip tile and pull pipes and all that at the end of that job a couple of months later Joe liked me and we're buddies and he told me he hire me full-time and I told him you know I really wanted to be a metal worker and he said yeah that's what the guys say and he said you know what you got to go to Williamsburg so all the scrappy metalworkers your age are going and I know a guy over there and I'll tell them you're a hard worker so I took the L train to Bedford Avenue got a coffee at the El Café and walk to North 6th Street made a right old Meatpacking District back then and right as the delivery truck was pulling up in front of the shop

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kind of smile drop my backpack started unloading the truck before my new boss even knew my name I thank you

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Gabrielle Shelton lives in New York with her husband and two teenage children she's been running her own business a custom metal fabrication studio in Brooklyn for about 19 years since the story took place she's also just opened up a restaurant called five leaves in Los Angeles that is filled with her metal work she says quote I'm happy to report that there are a lot more women welders out there today I've trained many women and offered apprenticeships to every woman who's come to me looking for employment or experience

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by the way if these stories are reminding you of your own we want to hear from you record a two-minute version of a story you'd like to develop with a moth director by calling 877799 moth that's eight seven seven 7996684 or visit them off that org and record it right on our site and your story could find its way to the moth stage or this radio show my name is Deborah Nora when I was 14 I was given a horse for my birthday it was wonderful I did a lot with him but he got sick he rolled on a rock and he pinched nerve in his back end and made the muscle collapse my parents couldn't afford three to keep him so he gave me to a little boy and I had no idea where he went

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I found him the way I found him is I went and worked as a riding instructor at a camp and he was one of the camp washers and the people told me about this strange black horse with a sunken rear end and a crooked tail and I found him I had a wonderful summer with him and I purchased a I got him back and I had him for quite a few years after that until he passed away remember you can tell us your story at the moth dot-org

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our next Storyteller is Catherine's Micah she told us that are open mic story slams in Seattle where we partner with public radio station kuow the theme of the night was unintended here's Catherine's Micah live at the mall

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so I never intended to develop feelings for my friend Scott and it's not because Scott is not a really wonderful guy but because I'm gay and I don't like guys he and I met through a friend right after I moved to Seattle and he actually asked me out and I remember telling him you're awesome but I like women and he was like hey you're all so awesome and I also like women and I was like that's so perfect this be friends so Scott and I worked at the same theater for a little bit and we realized pretty quickly we have almost identical taste in ladies so it became this really funny running joke between us where we usually say that see the same woman at the same time in the lobby and try to figure out from afar who got to ask her out because if we like figured out that she was probably gay then she was mine if she was straight she was Scott's and then we were out at a bar the first time we couldn't quite determine if this really beautiful woman was gay or straight and so Scott had said Catherine I have this incredible vision of us walking up to either side

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her and saying one of us would like to buy you a drink we hung out we hung out all the time we both loved good food action movies going running playing Scrabble and talking about feelings we talked about feelings all the time and we both run into some pretty crummy dating luck in the past and we started talking about what our ideal partner would be like and I had told him like dude you are so smart and funny and reliable and you're a grown-up I just need to find the female version of you he's sitting right there and but then some time over the summer things began to feel a little bit different and you'd walk into my apartment and I think it's a really attractive shirt you're wearing or if you'd play me this new song and his guitar and I think I kind of want to make out with you right now and I'd be like what does like terrifying feeling that was like kind of nice but mostly terrifying because it had taken me

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years to become the token lesbian and all of my Circles of friends and I was not about to give that up to be with a guy even a guy that was like really incredible like it's got and this is very strange feeling like I didn't know who I was for a little bit because it wasn't like I was sitting around thinking that I'd gotten my sexual identity wrong like joke's on you you do like men because it wasn't actually a question of liking men or women or both it and it wasn't even a question of liking women or Scott it was the realization that I thought I liked women and Scott and scared the shit out of me so I didn't tell anybody didn't talk about it certainly didn't tell him and the first time I said it out loud I was hanging out with my sister and I was like yeah so Scott and I what would you say if we were together she was like isn't he a dude I was like yeah you know what never mind forget it

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and the only other time I brought it up was it was it a girls night and very casually slipped into a conversation we were having and then nobody thought it was weird and my friend Catherine had said so just sleep with him and see what happens how was like I know that sounds gross and she was like maybe that's your answer and it's pretty obvious if someone else has said look like you're never gonna know unless you try new things like you know what's the harm in trying so one night I was getting ready to go to his apartment and I thought yeah I am I'm tell my feel we're going to take the plunge it's gonna be great and I started walking to his apartment I got like really excited and I was thinking about all of the awesome movie dates would go on and the dinners would make each other and the adventures we'd have and we could be each other's plus ones at weddings we could do all kinds of couple e stuff and I got so excited I started to run so I'm like running up Pine and to Capitol Hill and I'm passing all of these couples who are out walking their dogs with these great arm tattoos and I was like yeah we're going to get dogs and take walks

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I think it more arm tattoos is like the best idea I've ever had and I looked her in the corner his apartment I go running up the steps and I bring the bow tie out of breath and I was like yeah we're gonna be together it's gonna be great and then he answered the door and all of those feelings just rush right out of me because here he was he's my best friend in the city standing there with a spatula and one hand and a James Bond movie in the other and very quickly thought about all of the awesome movie dates we'd gone on and the dinners we'd already made each other and the adventures we'd had in the last couple of months and I realized we don't have to be a couple to do couple-y stuff for already doing couple e stuff just out the complicated Parts like having sex or arguing about whose turn it is to do the dishes and we had a really great thing going and didn't need to be a romantic thing because it was even better than that it was this like Blood Brothers type thing this family type thing and I wouldn't trade that for anything

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later that night we ended up talking about us and turns out he'd had the same thought process as I did that he thought about us together and then realized it was a bad idea because it was just really great the way it was so we sat at his kitchen table eating tofu and gearing up for an Indiana Jones marathon and talking about feelings and we were both like we really are meant to be together I never intended to develop feelings for him the same way he never intended to find somebody who like Sean Connery as much as he did we never intended to become family but sometimes the best kinds of intentions are formed from the strongest kinds of love thank you that was Catherine's Micah Catherine and Scott never did get together romantically but they're still very good friends I asked her if

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approves of her current partner and she says yeah he does she's been happily married to her wife Courtney for three years and Scott was the best man at their wedding after our break the daughter of a Vietnam War veteran tries to get her dad's attention when The Moth Radio our continues The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic public media in Woods Hole Massachusetts and presented by the public radio exchange PR x.org with the Capital One Savor card you earned four percent cash back on dining and entertainment that means four percent on milkshakes with the kids and 4% on music with your pal

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you'll also earn 2% cash back at grocery stores and one percent on all other purchases now when you go out you cash in Capital One what's in your wallet terms apply

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this is The Moth Radio Hour from PRX I'm Sarah Austin jeunesse Crystal Brown tells our last story in this hour all about girlhood maybe you've noticed but even though this hour is about young women men play significant roles in all these stories and Crystal story explores her relationship with her father she told the version of this with a group called cocoon at Middlebury College in Vermont and we asked her to expand it a bit for a moth night dedicated to stories of the Vietnam War here is Crystal Brown

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so my father was loud he was loving but he was also distant he was a mystery

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he could put all the curse words in one sentence even when he wasn't mad

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he loved to make people happy but he also didn't mind pissing him off and

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I had this collection of memories these stories that I told that I was told the story that I overheard maybe in my imagination I made some of them up but it's kind of who he is for me

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I know that he was born in Jacksonville Florida in a little swamp I know that he loved to play football I know they love to play football so much that he for go to college scholarship to go into the army because they guaranteed he could play football

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I know that he was an athlete through and through

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he joined the army he was stationed in various places I know one of those places was Greensboro North Carolina where one night he and his buddies went to a party and he wrote a girl a pretty girl a note on toilet paper and she ended up marrying him

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my mother

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I know that they traveled he was stationed in many places they lived in Germany for a little while right before he was deployed to Vietnam but I know that his athletic Spirit was always there even in that military training and that he followed behind the men in his platoon so closely that when the guy in front of him stepped on a landmine and lost his life he lost both of his legs

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then football was no longer an option

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he and my mother moved back to a little town where she was from call Kinston North Carolina they had two kids a boy then eight years later a girl that's me

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my brother didn't fulfill my father's athletic vision of life he really didn't like to get dirty

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and so then somehow in a snafu of a carpool I found myself sitting in my friends ballet class when I was supposed to be at a piano lesson and that's how my athletic career began I started dancing when I was nine tap ballet Jazz acrobatics modern point and I tried to convince my father those ten years that I was an athlete too

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I invited him to all the recitals he came to one

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he left at the intermission configure out when it was time to clap why all the people were dressed alike when was a good time to yell

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so I wanted his attention I wanted him to point to prove to him that I was just as strong and just as athletic as he was or that at least I'd heard he was so in high school I started running track and so I kind of translated those hurdles into Grand jete days and I was running and he loved it he did not miss one track meet he was so loud that I remember distinctly at a home meet when the PA system went out they asked him to announce all the events

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he would lean over the railing right where the track would meet and I'd be in a starting block and he be like alright let's go girl and then he'd say to my opponents hey you in Lane three can you be my daughter

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and instead of you know being encouraged I was mortified I took off running just to escape the embarrassing moments

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and most of the time I would win but one day I came about of a starting block and I pulled a muscle in my back and that kind of ended my track career so I went back to the studio and kept on dancing but by that time I had earned enough collateral to ask him to do something for me so being a little girl from the south

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do these things called cotillions so you get a sponsor you raise this money and your family presents their daughter to society and you have to dance with your daddy

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so I asked he grunted

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my mother asked he fanned her away every father in the neighborhood came by to encourage him and tell him how important it was to dance with me for the Cotillion and he listened and then quickly turn the conversation to the sports scores of the previous night

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finally he relented he came to at least three of the rehearsals and in the rehearsals we would saunter back and forth he would figure out his spacing and then go back to his seat and Grumble but I distinctly remember

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him having a hesitation maybe because he spent a lot of his time in his wheelchair at home and he put his prosthetic legs on just to run errands or to be out in public or to yell at track meets or football games but that was in his overalls where he felt like he could stumble and the left Swagger of the Gimp in his Prosthetics didn't matter to anyone but at that Community College gymnasium he was going to have to stand in front of a little girl who he may not have pay that much attention to before and in front of hundreds of people who were watching and waiting for the beauty or maybe for his mistakes

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we stepped out onto the floor me and my big white dress

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Crystal's Sparkles nails done hair done long white gloves and he stepped out in his tuxedo already foreign

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he grabbed my hand and we started to dance and he was sweating bullets he was so afraid that he would do the wrong move or embarrass me or him so I kept whispering in his ear 123123 and he followed me and I held onto him and I hurts kind of connected and all that space that had been between us evaporated I think for that moment I saw the guy that my mom fell in love with that not at that party

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I saw someone I had never seen before but it was still my dad

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after the Cotillion things went back to normal he watched his football I went to my dance classes

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he took me to that swamp one day where he grew up that's how I know it's real I'm not making that part up

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it was a long arduous truck ride pickup truck to radio stations me and a guy my dad who doesn't talk

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we pulled up on this dirt road and at the back of the dirt road in the middle of this swamp was a little Shack and a woman came out she's my grandmother maybe I had met her before but I didn't remember and he left me there with my grandmother for 48 hours with the strict warning of do not go in the backyard there are alligators there

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I'm pretty sure he was lying he didn't want my grandmother to have to chase me around and he wanted to go to the dog races so I stayed there for 48 hours and I explored every nook and cranny of that little Shack I didn't find any distinctive clues about who he was or anything like that but I got the feeling that being confined by those four walls is what made running on that football field for him so amazing

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same thing that I feel when I step on stages like this and I get to dance for audiences like you

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all over the world I get to step on stage and feel that same adrenaline that he felt I get to be immortal for at least 15 minutes

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I think about him often and how our athletic Hearts may be one even though we just didn't see eye to eye

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my father died before I graduated from college he never saw my professional dance career even though he said I got my dancing talents from him

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he'll never be able to give me away when I finally do get married but I have the memory of me and him and that big white dress

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five years or so ago I was blessed to have a son

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he was born 11 days shy of my father's birthday and three weeks earlier than his due date he's surprisingly athletic he moves to the beat of his own drum he seems to be an old soul and he's a mystery too but I love them both and I think that as I listen to him

► 00:48:07

and the small stories that are becoming a part of his life and remembering the big stories that I think give me clues about my father I think I learned to know both of them at the same time

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Crystal Brown is a native of Kinston North Carolina where she remembers cleaning up on Saturday mornings as a child to the music of Marvin Gaye the chili lights and Shirley Caesar she says she's danced since she was released from the confines of piano lessons at age 9 crystal is the founder of in spirit the creator of the liquid strength training module for dance and the chair of dance at Middlebury College in Vermont I sat in the Green Room of the Shubert Theater in Boston and spoke with Crystal just after she told this story and there were 1600 people here and it was sold out and I was having some Deja Vu of being here as a dancer and then starting this kind of new adventure as a storyteller

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I tell a lot of stories with my body and make dances about stories that are important to me but being able to just stand and recite the story or give people an entry into the linguistic manner of how my memories work was really important did you feel as you were telling the story like you were seeing your father again I did I felt like I was unearthing even more information about who he is I think like I say in the story he and my son kind of remind me of each other in various ways and me putting together the memories or the connotations of the memories that I have give me a more in-depth cents or more authentic sense that the man I grew up with is still the man I'm getting to know

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how do you think your dad would would have reacted to the story I think you would have loved it I think he would have been whooping and hollering in the audience I think he would have been co-signing and probably challenging some of the things that I said but at the end it would have all it would have all been true

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the man I grew up with is still the man I'm getting to know to see a photo of Crystal Brown and her father and to see other extras related to all the stories you hear on The Moth Radio our go to our website The Moth that org so that's it for this episode on girlhood and growing up we hope you'll join us next time for The Moth Radio Hour your host this hour with Sarah Austin jeunesse Sarah also directed the stories in the show along with Larry Rosen the rest of the Moss directorial staff includes Catherine Burns Sarah Haberman Jennifer Hickson and make bowls production support from Emily couch The Moth would like to thank the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for their support of the moths Global Community program most stories are true is remembered and affirm by the

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here's our theme music is by the drift other music in this hour from Stellwagen Symphony net John Scofield Kelly Jo Phelps and Marvin Gaye 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 this your own story and everything else go to our website The Moth dot-org