Muse

Hey, it's Chloe Salmon from The Moth. As a story director, I talk to a lot of people who say they want to tell a story but don't know where to start. A tip I give them? Get specific. What's a moment that meant something to you? Your first home run? That road trip with your dad? The time you bombed at the talent show? Start there, then build on that foundation. You can find tips to help you identify those moments along with prompts to inspire them in The Moth's new guided journal, My Life and Stories. Whether you want to find your own story, reflect on your life, or even give it as a gift, you can order your copy at themoth.org forward slash mylifeandstories. That's themoth.org forward slash mylifeandstories. Support for today's episode comes from Square, the business platform that helps sellers become neighborhood favorites. Whether you're gearing up for a busy season or just trying to keep up with everyday demand, Square keeps your business running smoothly, from payments and POS to online orders, inventory, staff, and more. All in one place, so you can focus on your customers, not your to-do list. Whether you're just starting out or growing into multiple locations, Square gives you the flexibility to sell online, in-store, or both, and adapt as your needs evolve. With smart tools and real-time insights built in, Square helps you stay organized, make informed decisions, and keep everything moving forward. Square helps you run your business more smoothly, bringing payments, operations, and insights together in one place so you're ready for whatever's next. Right now, listeners can get up to $200 off Square hardware when you sign up at square.com slash go slash moth. That's S-Q-U-A-R-E dot com slash go slash moth. Get started with Square and build a setup that works the way you do.

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Welcome to the Moth Podcast. I'm your host for this week, Kate Tellers. This week's episode is about parenting, a word that, according to Merriam-Webster, is a noun, but I would certainly argue is a verb. During the summer that I was 14, my parents were getting divorced. My Aunt Mary, who sensed that we could use a getaway, invited my dad, my sister, and I to stay with her in her timeshare in Vermont. It was at the top of a mountain in the Trap Family Lodge. Yes, of the sound of music. We drove for a half day from Pittsburgh, and when we finally got to the base of the mountain, my father pulled the car over, locked eyes with me and then my sister, and said, Roll down your windows. Then he shoved the tape he had queued up into the deck and sang along with the voice of Julie Andrews, dialed up to 11. The hills are alive! As we made our upward climb. For years, this was our go-to Dad is such a dad story. but now that story reminds me of how hard my father was trying to keep his two girls happy during a really tough summer to the exuberant dads everywhere i see you and thank you on that note our first story this week is from caroline connelly caroline told this story at a story slam in boston where the theme of the night was roads here's caroline connelly live at the moth

So the distance between my hometown of Newburyport, Massachusetts and New York City is about 250 miles. When you're 11 years old and strapped in the way back seat of a Volvo station wagon with your sisters, that is enough time to be assaulted by a sibling and to declare to your conservative Catholic parents that you no longer believe in God. and i honestly feel like that might be why volvo made a way back seat because it is in the literal trunk of a car and faces away from everybody else inside the car it's like where a kidnapper might put a victim except suburban moms were like jump in it's gonna be so fun and honestly my parents had kind of earned this right to do that to us on this particular occasion my mom had sacrificed Thank you.

her birthday to take us all to see Lucy Lawless debut in Grease on Broadway. She was the actress who played Xena the warrior princess and my sisters and I were huge Xena fans and Grease fans so this was like the greatest gift she could ever give us and the first part of the ride was relatively unremarkable. My mom would give us little fistfuls of Dramamine that to this day she swears were non-drowsy and I'm not going to call my mother a liar or a drug dealer on this stage but we had some very foggy car rides as kids. But this one was pretty clear because about two hours into it, my dad is driving down the highway and he's looking for a McDonald's so that he can get a large vanilla milkshake as he always liked to do. And my mom says to him, hey, where are the tickets? And he responds with this benign, what tickets? As if he has like no idea why we're all in the Volvo heading to New York City. And she's like, the tickets. Well, no one had the tickets because this was like 1997 inexplicably the only solution to this problem was to turn around and drive all the way back to Newburyport to get the tickets for the show that night so by the time we start our second trip to New York City the Dramamine has started to wear off and it was as if like three feral cats had come alive in the back seat of my parents Volvo so my little sister suddenly bursts into tears because she's starving and my older sister suddenly remembers that I exist and apparently my leg had shifted to her side of the way back seat, which was a crime punishable by a swift punch to the side of my head. And because I was smaller, but no less insane, my only recourse was to take her Nintendo Game Boy and hold it up and threaten to lick all of the buttons on the surface, which is gross, but super effective because she let out this blood curdling scream, which prompted my mother to whip around and issue a threat that she loved to give us at this time in our lives, which was girls, God is watching you. And because I was in the way back seat and separated from my mom by like an entire row, I turned around and I was like, well, good thing I don't believe in God. Well, we pulled over really quickly after that at a McDonald's and my dad jumps out of the car because he had no interest in this portion of parenting. And so my mom comes around to the back seat where I was, and it gets really close to my face, and she says, you better apologize for that, or I am telling Sister Ruth what you said. And if you have ever been a kid since a Catholic school, you know the threat of a sister is way worse than like whatever your mother or God could ever do to you. So I was like, I am so sorry. I love God and Jesus and like everybody up there with them. And once that was settled, we went inside the McDonald's and we found my dad finally ordering his large vanilla milkshake and he gets us some happy meals and we all go out to the car and get back in and he places his shake down in

the driver's seat and comes around to the back very calmly as he always is says to us look could you guys please just get along for the remainder of this ride it's your mother's birthday after all And he gets back in the front, and he sits down right on top of that large vanilla milkshake, which causes this, like, explosion of dairy on the steering wheel and the windshield and my mom. And I was at an age where, like, I knew what swear words were, but I had never heard one delivered super well just yet. And so he dropped with force a slew of expletives. And I remember my sisters and I looked at each other like, did we just break dad? And so we drove the rest of the way in silence, because nobody wanted to cross him. And we get to New York City, and we check into this fancy hotel my mom had booked, and we go see Lucy Lawless, and she's amazing. And we go back to the fancy hotel, and it's actually a pretty fabulous night in New York City for our family. The next morning, we all pile into the Volvo again, and everybody is on their best behavior today. The only thing my sisters and I were complaining about was that we thought the beds at the fancy hotel were kind of itchy, and we're, like, scratching ourselves all morning. it would be a few hours and a couple hundred miles later before my mother realized we had all contracted lice at the hotel and you would think that after like several freezing cold lice shampoo baths with a mom and dad and these three girls no one would want to take a road trip ever again but we've actually got on dozens more and we still go on them today and my dad is in his 70s now, and he still demands a vanilla milkshake on the way there and on the way back. And for whatever reason, we are all still in a Volvo station wagon. But truthfully, we would have it no other way. Thanks. That was Caroline Connelly. Caroline Connelly is a reporter who lives and works in Boston.

She enjoys horror films, as well as a good romantic comedy montage. When she's not telling stories, she loves to run and likes the idea of cooking. When we followed up with Caroline, she said, Our last family trip was a visit to the Berkshires a few years ago. Even though my sisters and I are now adults living in different cities, our mom insisted we all drive together. I spent four hours in the backseat listening to my father snore, and my mother asked if any of us thought we would be married soon. We were, of course, in a Volvo station wagon.

A year from today,

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Okay, the jig is up. I said this was a podcast themed on parenting, and it's really a very niche podcast about my family obsession with Broadway as nurtured by my dad. Our next storyteller also made it to Broadway. Christopher Moncayo Torres told this at a Moth Story Slam in New York City where the theme of the night was Home. Here's Christopher, live at the Moth.

August 2004, I'm 19. I'm at the doorway of what's going to be my new bedroom, which I'm sharing with my dad, who I haven't seen since I was two. And left side of the bedroom is super clean. It's got a mattress that he stole from me. On the right side is his side that's mostly Western Union receipts. Ripped up scratch off lottery cards Lots of movies all over the ground But every night He always watched the same movie Not Terminator, not Die Hard But Filla on the Roof I can't tell you why this Ecuadorian man Loved Filla on the Roof But he watched it every night And he would ask me, his estranged son Come watch Filla on the Roof with me And I was like, no Besides the fact that it's like a three and a half hour Or however many hour saga I at that time just didn't feel comfortable being in this very small room when I say small you know like the back of a u-haul like the tiny truck that you could probably afford like small than that so I would usually be in the living room and I would actually sleep in the living room of this apartment so he was renting a room from this lady friend that he knew it's actually not too far from here like 39th place in Queens Boulevard so a couple blocks away and I kind of felt bad after just always saying no that serendipitously in October same year, Phil on the Roof was on Broadway. Alfred Molina was playing the lead, and I was like, I'll surprise him, I'll get tickets. Now, here's the thing. I have kind of a language barrier. Like, yes, father-son language barrier, but like, my español is like very muy malo, if you catch my drift. So I told dad, hey, vamos salir outside, let's go. And I have like a little like translation book that's like not working for me, and he's just like, and whatever Spanish you're about to hear right now is like very rehearsed. No, mijo, canamos en la casa. Just stay home. Let's watch Fiddler on the Roof. Vamos Fiddler on the Roof. And I'm like, no, let's go. I'll pay for everything. He's like, great, let's go. The trip there, super anxious. My father likes to smoke in between the train carts of the 7th train. And he also likes to like stop. Not like walk and talk. He likes to stop and tell you a story. Imagine doing that in Times Square. So we finally get there, but we're like super late. But just enough to hear the opening song, Tradition, for those who know, that's the big number, and it gives the whole story of the town and this Jewish family. And I look, and I'm like, oh, man, he's probably going to be super excited. He's going to be moved. He's going to be amazing. He hasn't been saying anything since we got in. I don't really think he understood where we are. Dead. He's asleep. hi my little like abandoned child heart broken I nudge him and he's just like

rest of the show sleeping he really woke up for like if I were a rich man he loved that song and there is this one song I think maybe if anybody knows it but if you love me

husband's asking the wife if you love me and she's just like you're an idiot more or less because like I've been with you for like 20 some odd years why are you going to ask me that question but he keeps asking so Melina Alfred Melina when he was doing this he just kind of took these really long beats in asking this question and in one of those really long beats mind you we're like in the balcony because that's all I could afford like in a CUNY tuition and it's super quiet and suddenly I hear but do you love me and my dad says the line and I was like oh that's cool and people around us started laughing but like in a really quiet theater like how everyone's quiet right now like it's really loud and you laugh and so Afra Melina like looked in our direction and like my father who like for me was like the Latin Paul Bunyan of my life like shrunk and Melina just like continues with the song the show's over I will say this much we did cry both at that Far From The Home I Love I think is one of those songs so we're outside he's taking a photo with a big poster Tevye's arms are big up in the air and then I hear from the backstage, Jessica's door some ruckus, I turn around and I'm like, I'm new to Broadway I didn't grow up in theater, but I'm like, oh I think people get signatures from these people I was like, dad, let's go do this and my dad's just like, no let's go home, I was like, why? and I figured, oh maybe he's scared, maybe he's embarrassed so I grab him by his sleeve like he's my kid and I'm like, hey Mr. Molina we love your show And my dad, I'm like, right, dad? Like, my dad loves the movies. It's the first time he's seen this live. And my dad's, like, shaking his head. And Melina is like, oh, that's beautiful. And then I recount what happened in the balcony. And he didn't laugh. But then he, like, he's got big, thick eyebrows. So I feel like he just moved me with them. And he just looks at my father. He's like, is that true? Did you say my line? And my dad's, like, shakes his head yes. And he takes his huge arm and he puts it on his shoulder. and he grabs my dad and Malina's a tall dude. He's like, good job. You made your Broadway debut. Congratulations. Way to go. And my dad's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Grabs him. He's like, don't move on to take a photo. And I'm like, okay, cool. Take the photo. We're on our way home and my dad's just enamored with this photo and he just keeps just looking at it and I kind of figure it out in my own interpretation. Like, oh, you're this dude in this story. This is the first time I had ever seen it. This immigrant man far away from his family and he's trying to hold it together at this point me and my dad are trying to like figure out who we are to each other and I tell him all this he doesn't understand a word of it and but he just says mijo good night this was a good night he goes in between the train carts he's smoking a cigarette he looks like the fillet on the roof because it's like in the shadows as we're turning to Queensborough Plaza and then when we get home like I actually that night was the first time I slept in the room with him together thank you

That was Christopher Moncayo-Torres. Christopher is an Ecuadorian-American playwright, teaching artist, and live storyteller born and bred in Queens, New York. He first practiced creative writing while pretending to study for his forensic psychology degree. He's since founded Fail Better NYC, a BIPOC-centered artist community where he produces and hosts a monthly storytelling workshop show, Fail Better Storytime. We followed up with Christopher about his relationship with his father now. Here's Christopher.

I wish I could tell you the follow-up is that we had more nights like that,

that we remained connected, and I really wish we did. But it feels sincere and not what storytelling is for me if I gave some sweet button at the end. You see, him and I haven't spoken in a year. The most I can say that feels like a realistic follow-up is that my relationship with my father is in itself like a fill-on-the-roof, at least to how Tevye explains it. Fathers are hard. I figure sons are just as difficult. Relationships between the strange fathers and son has felt like a pretty high roof to me. I'm not sure, even until now, if him and I know how to keep our balance. but we tried and now we've fallen off that roof so hearing from the moth about my gesture of love from that night especially when i've been thinking a lot about him these days feels like a sign and i am very big on signs um i haven't been sure how to start the conversation with him after not talking with him for this long but maybe i can present this gesture to him repackaged that our first story together is going to be shared with the world and maybe that can help us try again to keep that balance

That was Christopher Moncayo Torres. There is no one way to parent. There is no one way to show love to a parent. There is no one way to love anyone. In my family, though, it often includes a sing-along. Okay, all right, kiddos. We're going to say it. One, two, three. Can we say it together? Have a story-worthy week. Let's try again. Ready? Have a story-worthy week.

That was Kate Tellers and her children. Kate Tellers is a storyteller, host, and director of Mothworks at The Moth. Her story, but also bring cheese, is featured in The Moth's All These Wonders, true stories about facing the unknown. And her writing has appeared on McSweeney's and The New Yorker. Podcast production by Julia Purcell.