This is the Moth Radio Hour.
I'm your host, Suzanne Rust, the Moth's Curatorial Producer.
Sometimes people ask me what moth stories are about.
I tell them they are really about everything and anything,
which explains the title of this episode, Punks, Blessings, Berlesque, and Lotus Flowers.
Like this title, moth stories are like life itself, a variety show with every act imaginable.
But what often unites them are common themes, like self-discovery,
finding sanctuary, learning to forgive and acknowledging blessings of different kinds.
Our first story is from Eddie Laughter, who discovers just what she needs in a most unlikely place.
She told this story at our Moth Teacher Institute.
Here's Eddie.
I'm on my way to see live music for the first time and I'm so much more anxious than I think I have any right to be
because this band I'm about to see I'm completely and utterly obsessed with and I have seen every interview YouTube will physically let me watch and I listened to them so much at this point It's probably doing something unhealthy to me.
I don't know how that would work,
but it's happening and When I listen to this is
because when I listen to them all of a sudden I feel like I'm big and like I'm powerful and like nothing can touch me when I'm walking down the street which is really not something I feel at this like ever at this point in my life and I feel like so small and clunky and
like I don't fit into my own body right and I'm kind of starting to think that the middle school mentality that I'll never fit into any scenario I go to is just going to be how I live my life and I feel like I'm
like I just have to accept this at this point.
So it doesn't make any sense that I'm this anxious to see this band.
But I'm trying to think about what I can expect and I'm just kind of thinking about how in movies punk shows are always like a bunch of loud,