My friends, we're excited to announce our first ever virtual gala. Please join us for liftoff. Stories of going above and beyond honoring Padma Lakshmi on November 17th. This story studded event will bring us together virtually to enjoy the wisdom and insights of storytellers from the moth's global community and education programs. In addition to storytelling, all stars from the Moth Mainstage and stories lands with their gorgeous stories and testimonials. Each teller will lift us from the isolation and confusion of the moment to a collective vision of a stronger, more inclusive world for all.

To learn more and donate, please visit them off. Lift off. From here, this is the Moth Radio Hour, I'm Jennifer Higson, I see you is a phrase people used to indicate that they understand what Headspaces you mean or what you're presenting. It's an acknowledgement of who you are. In this episode. We'll hear stories about seeing and feeling seeing. Our first story is from Raewyn Grant and the people who really saw her were far from home on the other side of the globe.

She told it for us at a show at the Palace Theater in Los Angeles, where we partner with public radio station KCR Debu. Here's Raewyn Grant. I was 19 years old and a junior in college when I embarked upon a life changing study abroad opportunity at that point in my life, pretty much all of my family and friends were curious why I would choose something like this. But in retrospect, it all made sense. I was searching for some things.

For one, I needed a connection to nature. I was a bona fide city girl and had essentially never been outside. Not only that, I was studying environmental science and had only learned about the outdoors through a textbook or in my classroom. I really needed my real experience in nature. This study abroad program would do just that. It was a wildlife management program in southern Kenya.

We would be living in the bush, studying wild animals in their natural habitat and basically camping for a full semester. I was pumped.

The second thing is that like many African-Americans coming of age, I felt like I needed a connection to the African continent. I imagined that my ancestry stemmed from West Africa somewhere, but I figured spending time in East Africa would give me that ancestral connection I was looking for. I couldn't wait.

And so before I knew it, I was there. And as soon as my plane landed, I was struck by two things. The first one was kind of a bummer. As it turned out, I was the only black student in the program and the only black student they had ever had in the program.

It seemed like my identity was going to be more of an issue in Africa than it was in the US. And the second thing was awesome. It was the wildlife as soon as our Jeep left the airport in the city of Nairobi and started driving into the bush, I was struck by the change in scenery and I saw my first ever wild animal. Now, it wasn't one of those iconic African species like an elephant or a giraffe.

It was a marabout stalk.

You don't read about those in textbooks, but marabou storks are five or six feet tall with a 12 foot wingspan, and they walk along the landscape all together like dinosaurs. I saw them and was transfixed and I knew that I had made the right choice in a study abroad program and also in a career studying wildlife. The other cool thing about the program was that it was situated within a Maasai community. These were people who chose to live a traditional tribal lifestyle and they really stuck to it.

I was thrilled because I had so many questions for them and I figured that our skin color could at least bridge that cultural gap.

We were really, really different, so it took a lot of time for me to make those friendships, but eventually I did.

Some of the Maasai warriors were my age and apparently they had been waiting for a black person to come on. That's on this program.

Most of their questions for me were about the black experience in America.

And they had heard these rumors about slavery, the way that black people had ended up in this country.

Before I knew it, we were spending days and days and weeks and weeks with me giving them lessons on African-American history. And it was hard. It's a violent, oppressive history.

And I was telling tales of torture and bondage.

It got to be pretty uncomfortable. And after a while I decided, you know what, I think I'm painting the wrong picture here of America because slavery is over and black people have civil rights.

Now we're free and even look at me. I'm a young black woman pursuing higher education, traveling around the world. I insisted to them that actually things were great. One day, one of the warriors that I had grown to know named Sereni came rushing to me in the field as I was collecting data on Zebra's.

He had a look of terror in his eyes, and instead of embracing me with the normal hug, he shouted at me when he was still far away.

All of your people there dead in the water. I didn't understand what he was saying, and so I asked again and he seemed a little bit angry with me, you told us that everything was OK, but your people are dead.

I was terrified because I didn't know what could be going on. We were completely cut off. This was pre Internet, pre cell phone Kenya. And it was going to be nearly impossible for me to understand this news.

I told him that he must have misunderstood something. Maybe there is some news lost in translation or he got word of some kind of weird tabloid story that was totally incorrect. I sent him back to the village with the message that this couldn't be true and everything was fine.

The way we got our news from home was through bi monthly mail runs to Nairobi.

And so a few weeks went by until I could figure out what he was talking about as my white classmates were opening their care packages of candy and new CDs to listen to, my parents had sent me Time magazine.

It was September of 2005, and Hurricane Katrina had just hit the cover of the Time magazine showed a flooded city and bodies floating in the water.

Almost 2000 people drowned in that hurricane. Almost all of them, the black residents of New Orleans.

I was shocked, I was ashamed of my country and I was ashamed of myself for misleading this entire group of people who depended on me.

Of course, I had come into some kind of racial consciousness, but it took a national crisis like that for me to understand the scale and the magnitude of the impact of racism. I took the magazine into the village and I passed it around doing my best to translate the news. When I got to Sironi, I began to cry.

He held me and said my tears were exactly what was missing that day in the field, that the village had already cried for me and with me and that they were here. The next baby to be born in that village, they would name Katrina after the hurricane. Nine years later, after a number of wild life experiences in East Africa, I was headed back to Maasai land and this time the roles were reversed. I was an instructor for a study abroad program for undergrads.

In about a decade, I had become an expert in African wildlife ecology, and this was my chance to show my chops and to get some skills in teaching. I couldn't wait.

I think about my grandfather's a lot. I have the privilege of having been very close to them throughout my childhood and even into adulthood.

And so it's easy for me to remember the day that my paternal grandfather, George, died, January 26, 2014.

It was the same day that I was to leave for Kenya to teach this course and all of a sudden something that seemed so important to me, like my career coming full circle was the least important thing in the world. But it was too late to cancel.

And after an emotional conversation with my family, we concluded that I needn't halt my life because of a death. My grandfather had known how much I loved him, and so with a heavy heart, I left for Kenya, chaperoned 12 undergraduates through Amsterdam successfully.

And began the course always well, when we landed and I had the wonderful opportunity to watch my students experience the same thing that I had as we left the airport in Nairobi and drove into the bush, their jaws dropped and their eyes widened at seeing their first African wildlife. And yes, it was a marabouts stalk. OK, they're very prevalent.

The course went on without a hitch and one particularly exhausting day, I found myself sitting with the chief of the village, a massive man who I had grown to know over the years, and he noticed that I was really fatigued and found a way to get in slip in some personal questions.

Where is your mind? He asked. I opened my my my mouth to answer, and instead of words coming out, tears just started flowing.

I admitted to him that I was grieving the loss of my grandfather and I was feeling selfish that I had chosen a professional opportunity over the ability to honor his legacy. And the chief looked really confused. Why can't you honor him? He asked. And I explained as the expert that in America we usually do this thing where all the family and the friends get together when a person dies and we view their body. And then we talk a lot about the life they lead and we say some prayers and then we bury them in the ground and walk away.

He nodded his head and said, yeah, right, we do that in Kenya, too, and he insisted that my problem was indeed one of selfishness, not that I had chosen the field course over the funeral, but that I hadn't figured out a way to honor my grandfather independently.

Let us help you.

He said, well, bury him here. The next morning, I awoke hours before a normal long before my students and I walked in the predawn darkness to the road, I met the chief, his wives and two elders from the village. They adorned me and traditional Maasai red cloth and wiped red paint on my cheeks and my forehead.

I walked with them in silence as they chanted in the language down the road until we stopped at a giant over 1000 year old baobab tree. One of the elders got down and used his hands to dig a small hole at the base of the tree, and I was instructed to kneel. As soon as my knees hit the ground, I started crying again and they tilted my head so that my tears fell into the soil in English, the chief said. You exist because your grandfather existed.

Your tears are a part of him and will bury them.

I finished crying after some time and they patted the earth back over the hole all together.

Everyone lifted me back onto my feet. And when I was standing, I felt taller and lighter and I felt forgiven. We turned and this time we all walked in silence back up the road. We arrived back at camp as the sun was coming up, and I thanked the chief, his wives and the two elders I left to teach my course for the day. And before my time was over in Kenya, a baby boy was born in the village and I would learn that they named him George after my grandfather.

That was Dr. Raewyn Grant to raise a large carnivore ecologist.

She uses field biology, statistics and mapping to track how human activity influences carnivores. I consider her pretty fearless because Ray has studied black bears in the western Great Basin, grizzly bears in Montana and African lions in rural Kenya and Tanzania.

Ray has lots of selfies with animals, most people, me included, consider ferocious, but she always looks calm and in control because she is to see some of her pictures and learn more about her work with the Museum of Natural History and National Geographic.

We'll link to her site at the morgue, where you can also find a link to share this story. When we return, a trip to Mecca and the awkwardness of trying to make new friends as a grown up. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and presented by PRICK'S.

This is the Moth Radio Hour from PUREX, I'm Jennifer Higson. We're listening to stories about being seen and being understood. This next story comes from Angelica Lindsay Ali, who we met in Arizona, where she now hosts the Phoenix Moth Story Slam with support from public radio station CCWs. Angelica told this story when she visited us in New York City. Here's Angelica. A little over six years ago, I got an invitation to take a five day desert vacation where I would sleep in tents, stand in line with thousands of people and use squaddie potties.

This wasn't Coachella wasn't Burning Man either. And my first response was, oh, hell, no, because I was eight months pregnant. And I don't like people that much, especially not when I'm eight months pregnant. And the idea of living with thousands of strangers in the desert didn't appeal to me, but I said yes, because this was the trip of a lifetime. This was HUDs now had just one of the five pillars of Islam. It's a pilgrimage that thousands, millions of people take every year.

They save up their entire lives to go. It's kind of like if you complete Hajj, you've completed 20 percent of your religion. And in 2012, my husband and I were two of those people.

Now, I had serious imposter syndrome going into Hajj. I've always been a very spiritual person, but I kind of color outside the lines a little bit. I pray every day, five times a day, sometimes more on a particularly rough day, but I curse a lot. F Bomb is my favorite. I like to listen to the Koran at home with my children, but on the way to work I listen to Prince and trap music. I wear the keema every single day, but I have been known to go out in sequined leggings and thigh high boots.

I am a bit of a spiritual anomaly and I wasn't sure that it was the right place for me.

But I have been dreaming about Hajj for a long time. It all started and Miss Atkins' third grade social studies class. We were doing a unit on world religions and she showed us this picture of what looked like thousands of people is the most number of people had ever seen in one photograph. They were all dressed in white and they were circling this little black box. She told us it was the Kaaba and this was Saudi Arabia and these were Muslims and they were making Hajj.

And right then in there, I made it my mission. I said one day, Miss Atkins', I'm going to make Hajj. She said, Angelica, didn't you just say you got baptized this year?

You have to be Muslim to make Hajj? And I figured my strict Christian mother and father wouldn't let me attend. So I set my sights on more attainable pursuits like winning the third grade spelling bee and convincing Mario Pumpkin's that he was indeed in love with me. But Dreams of Hajj resurfaced when I was a sophomore in college. I had become disenchanted with the church that I had grown up in, and I happened upon that same picture that Miss Atkins had shown us in our third grade class.

And I set out to understand the wonders of Islam. I was going to prove this religion wrong. And what I found was a practicality, a simplicity and an elegance that stole my heart. And at the age of 23, four years after I set off on my spiritual quest, I found myself kneeling in front of a Senegalese imam in a northwest Detroit Cape Cod style bungalow, saying the shahada, the Muslim Declaration of faith.

It was six years later that I met my husband. Now, unlike every other Muslim woman I knew at the time, I was not trying to get married. I wanted to travel the world, see the sights, teach, dance. I didn't want to be tied down. But my friend Firdaus said, Angelica, you need to get married. Look, my husband has a friend. He's really tall, he's cute, he's smart. You'll love him.

So she set me up on a blind date at her house. I showed up four hours late for the day. He showed up five hours late.

And she was right.

He was everything that she said he was. He was smart. He was funny. He was engaging, handsome. But I'm five eleven and he's five, six. He wasn't exactly tall. But what Firdaus didn't know is that I loves me a bite sized man. It was like a fun size Snickers Just enough chocolate. And we got married six weeks after we met, children soon followed, and he helped me make good on my single woman's promise to myself when he came home one day and said, Babe, I got a job teaching English in Saudi Arabia.

We're moving to Jeddah now. Jeddah is the jewel of the Red Sea. It's kind of like a Muslim New York City. And it's only 45 minutes away from Mecca. My dream of Hajj was now closer than ever, but there was the imposter syndrome again. You see, I'm the only Muslim in my family. And on Hajj, the men and the women are in separate tents. So I couldn't be with my husband. I would be with dozens of strange Muslim women.

And I was afraid that I was going to mess up their Hajj experience because I'm kind of wayward, very irreverent, almost always inappropriate. Like the first time I went to a Western style grocery store in Jeddah, I was super excited. It wasn't like the normal farmer's market that we were going to. This place had Cheerios, they had Pepsi, they had cheese, its and it was all in Arabic. It was so cool.

I was dressed in a black abaya, the long flowing gown. I had a black face veil over my face. I was really trying to blend in, but the part that I couldn't turn off was my internal jukebox. So it's a little raunchy and it plays music in my head at any time. And sometimes the music that's selected is almost always inappropriate. And it was really hot that day. So I'm walking with my stroller and I'm going through the store looking at all the sides and it's getting hot in here.

So take off your clothes and kids. So I want to take my clothes off, get a little bit. I mean, my head is back, my eyes are closed. And by the time I get to the second I open my eyes and every other person in the store is looking at me and they're all men because men do the majority of the shopping in Saudi Arabia. And I was afraid that just like I ruined their shopping experience, I was going to ruin Hajj for some poor, unknowing woman.

But when we got to the tents, I realized that it really wasn't a tent. It was these roomed, carpeted, air conditioned deals. And the women inside were a different mix than I had expected. There was the blond haired, blue eyed Mexican woman who had brought her nursing baby and she would whip her boob out to feed him in front of all of the other women. And they were all aghast. And I was secretly laughing. There was the British Algerian woman who was very prim and proper.

I nicknamed her the Muslim hyacinth bouquet. There was the Irish woman with pink and blue cornrows and shaved sides. She was a white girl, but she had a big booty and she taught us all how to twerk.

There was the Somali contingent who wore black veils and gloves and bloomers and socks but satin circles and told ridiculously dirty jokes. They were nothing like what I imagine them to be, but I wonder what they think. I was cool where they cool. How is this five days going to go? The day after we got to Hajj is the day of Arafat. Now, the day of Arafat is the most important religious ritual in Hajj. You spend the entire day praying, engaging these fervent acts of worship.

But I had a secret. See, I knew just enough Arabic to make my five daily prayers, but I didn't have any extra credit prayers in my pocket.

I knew one day one short prayer and I sat in the corner by myself, just reciting it over and over and over again. The teacher showed up like they do every time we have Hajj. And she said, OK, ladies, I'm going to teach you the very prayer that the Prophet Muhammad will make on this day. This is the most important prayer that you can make. So I got out my notebook and my pen. I was ready. No more kindergarten for me.

I'm ready to move up to high school Arabic.

And as she started talking, she began reciting the exact same prayer that I had been saying all day.

I was feeling like maybe I wasn't an imposter after all. And the women in the group, they were cool. They were kind of growing on me, especially when we went out to make our rounds. The men and the women are separated sometimes even when we're in the crowds. And Muslim Hyacinthe, she was like a linebacker in the crowds. She told all of the women, protect the belly. When a man tried to push me out of my seat on the train, she clotheslined him.

It was a beautiful thing to see. So on the third day of Hajj, when we all sat down to have breakfast, I decided to take out a jar of jam.

Now, on Hajj, we each additional Saudi food, we have a breakfast of fule, which is fava beans mixed with olive oil and spices. It's really delicious. And they serve it with a flatbread called Sammie's. Not normally. This will be a great breakfast, but there was squatty patties and I was pregnant and it was beans and bread wasn't exactly a good mix for my digestive system. So I took out my jar of Bomberman all fruit preserves and tried to slide a little bit on my bread so that nobody would see.

I told you I don't like people that much. But the Moroccan woman next to me says, Sister Angelica, can I have a scoop? I figured, this is hard.

So I let her have some. And just as I feared, the woman next to her asked for some and the woman next to her and the woman next to her. And I watched my jar of jam make its way around a circle of three dozen women. But something interesting happened as each woman took a scoop of jam. She shared her mother or her grandmother's recipe for the women who had come from cultures that they didn't eat. Jam for breakfast, they said, hmm, dessert for breakfast.

I can get down with that. And just like I feared, by the time the jar made its way back around to me, it was completely empty. But my heart was full. On the last day of Hajj, we make a right call to laugh out loud, the farewell to Life. It's seven circumambulation around that black box that I had seen and Miss Atkins' third grade class. By this time, pregnancy had gotten the best of me. My feet were swollen, my head was achy, I was dehydrated.

And as I walked into the crowd, the sheer number of people lifted me up. I couldn't even feel my feet on the ground. And I did the worst possible thing you can do when you're in a crowd. I looked around at all of the people and I began to hyperventilate and my blonde haired, blue eyed Mexican hippy mama friend said, Angelica, close your eyes and just breathe. And as I did, I could feel a wash of cool air flow over me.

And it was just enough for me to finish making those seven rounds.

I had to walk back to the bus. It was about 2.5 kilometers. I was dragging my pregnant belly. I sent my husband ahead. I was certain that the bus had left me in. It already gone back to Jetta. But when I got on the bus, I saw that Hyacinthe was sitting there saving a seat for me, just like she had done on the train. We went back home and picked up our children and I spent the next few days eating fried chicken, ice cream, cookies, all of the things that a pregnant woman craves when she's on Hajj.

And I reflected, I had gone to Hajj as a wayward, incomplete Muslim, and I came back from Hajj, a wayward, incomplete Muslim, because God is not about being in competition with the millions of other people who are there. Hajj was about refining and becoming a more complete version of myself. It made me stop and think about the stereotypes that I had foisted upon my Hajj sisters in the tent, the same type of stereotypes that I get upset when people lob at me.

My daughter was born six weeks later, miraculous Saudi home birth as a story for another time, and now when she doesn't want to pray, she gets to tease her brothers and sisters and say, well, I've already made 20 percent of my religion because I did Hajj Mommy's belly.

And when she turned six this December, I didn't even get a chance to post her picture on Facebook because when I opened my Facebook page, one of my sisters had already put her up on the page. We're all still very close. We trade stories, recipes, pictures of our babies. Those ladies from the tent, they're no longer strangers. They're my sisters. That was Angelica Lindsay lead to see a picture of Angelica and her daughter Kenny, the one she was carrying at Hoj visit the Moth Dawg.

Angelica is originally from Detroit and is a certified sexual health educator.

She's part of a global movement of women in 86 countries. She goes by the name The Village Auntie, and her lessons are no nonsense. Straight forward and yet so, so fun.

I said, so take off your clothes. Oh, my God. Oh. This next story is another take on our theme.

I see you. This is a bit more literal.

It comes from slang in Chicago where we partner with public radio station WDM. Here's Grace Topinka.

You know, those kids in elementary school that talk so much that the teacher had to move them around the classroom? Well, I was the quiet kid that those kids got sat next to and everybody knew it.

I was always so shy. And every time I tried something new, I was like, I'm going to be outgoing. I'm going to be popular. I'm going to make all these friends, high school, camp, middle school, college. And it never happened. Not that I never made friends. It just took me a really long time to warm up to people.

After college, I was kind of nervous because they say it's harder to make friends as an adult. And I was like, well, I wasn't even good at it before.

But it's true, I mean, when you don't have school proximity, it takes a lot more effort to spend time with someone and get to know someone as an adult.

So I started going to therapy.

And one of the things that I want to work on was my anxiety around social situations.

And my therapist gave me an assignment that week and was like, you need to go out of your comfort zone and ask people what they're doing on the weekend and take like any hint of an invitation that you get. You need to jump on it.

So there was this girl at work named Chelsea, and I had my eye on her. And I feel like we shared a lot of similar interests, like maybe she would like to hang out with me and it really felt like I was trying to date her, except we weren't trying to see each other naked. But I would find excuses to Alexander D.M. on Instagram and talk to her. And then one day she mentioned that she had found this Groupon for this Korean spa.

And I was like, oh, I totally be down to do that. Like, let's go.

So on the day of I was really nervous because I was like, OK, where it was first, I'm hanging out outside of work and it made me extremely nervous. And that's why I was in therapy. And I was like, I need to put together a cute outfit.

So I wore this bathing suit and these wide like pants and a little sweater like that spy do this all the time.

Vibe is what I was trying to give.

So we met up and we got to the spa and we check into the women's locker room. And I can't help but notice there are signs everywhere that say no bathing suits in the hot tubs. You have to be completely naked, take a shower in front of everyone and then get into the hot tub area.

Now, I had figured that some people would be nude at this Korean spa because it's common in Korean spa and also in Spoors in countries all over the world. They don't sexualize everything and have these terrible views on like the naked female body. But I didn't grow up in one of those countries.

So I ignorantly thought that maybe you had the option to wear a bathing suit, but you did not.

So we had come this far and the like hot tub area looked so cool and inviting. I was like, OK, I guess we have to go. So we got naked and took a shower in front of everyone and got into the hot tub.

And then we saw someone in the locker room and it was our boss's wife.

I was like, how many colleagues are going to see me naked today? Like, I'm already nervous.

This our first time hanging out and we've already done way more than I thought we were going to do. And she was nervous, too.

She was like, well, that would be really weird if she comes in here, like, do we acknowledge her? And I was like, I'm not acknowledging her. She barely knows me.

But she ended up skipping out the hot tub part and going to the fully clothed sauna area or steam room area, which was good because it suddenly made Chelsea and my situation feel a lot less awkward.

That could be way worse. And we ended up getting like pretty comfortable and having a great time.

And as I looked around this room of naked women in a non creepy way, I saw friends, sisters, mothers, daughters, and I realized how important it was for me to get out of my comfort zone, because friendship, especially female friendship, is so important.

And ever since then, Chelsea and I have become great friends. We've gone back to the Spaull multiple times.

And we even started a podcast together, which I consider to be the pinnacle of millennial friendship. So I don't think my therapist would officially say getting naked is a great way to break the ice with a new friend. But in this case, it worked. Thank you.

That was Grace Topinka live in Chicago.

Grace is still going to the spa and bringing more friends because she said she's totally over the awkwardness. Her weekly podcast with Chelsea the Friend and her story is called Two Girls, One Crossword. And it features trivia for people who are bad at trivia. In an ironic twist, Grace and Chelsea are known at work for their clothing because they often coordinate their holiday party outfits, visit them often or to see one of their recent ensembles.

Do you have a story about letting your guard down and making friends in an unconventional place like a hot tub or against all odds, we'd love to hear it.

You can pitch us your story by recording it right on our site. Or call 877 seven nine nine.

That's 877 seven nine nine six six eight for the best pitches I've developed for math shows all around the world.

When we return, trying not to be seen as the ugly American while abroad and seeing your birth mother for the very first time.

The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and presented by the Public Radio Exchange PUREX Doug.

You're listening to The Moth Radio Hour from NPR. I'm Jennifer Hickson. This hour is called ICU and the next story is about not seeing at first. It comes from a moth story slam in Detroit, where we partner with public radio station WDTN.

Zakiya Minifie was celebrating her 27th birthday when she put her name in the hat. The fate smiled upon her and her name was pulled. And this is the story she told. Here's Zakiya.

So it was the May. It was May of 2015. I just graduated college and I was taking my second international trip.

All I knew was I was determined not to be that American on the trip. You know, the one that speaks really loud English just constantly over and over again until you hope somebody understands you. I just hope everyone thought I was Canadian. I was going to visit my sister in Spain with my mom. We were excited. They're both severely type A.. So the whole thing was beautifully planned and itinerary. And I just had to go along for the ride.

First week I was doing wonderfully. I was muddling my way through Spanish, traipsing through tons of cities.

And next up on our trip was Granada. We were going to spend a day at the Flamborough, which is this fortress palace, Moorish, Roman Catholic. Just amalgamation of things in my history degree was just absolutely swooning at the possibility of being there. And I didn't want to be that tourist.

Right. So we weren't going to take a tour guide.

We were just going to go and explore the space, but like kind of follow a tour, do you know what I mean? So that you're not like with the tour?

We are with the tour because we didn't want to be with the group of Americans that were being the group of Americans like tall white socks and the short cargo's and the short sleeve shirt and the wide brim hat and the big sunglasses and the like, white orthopedic sneakers to bring it all home.

But we were behind this group and we kept trying to kind of cut in front of them to like get a really good view of the good stuff, but like still here a little bit of the tour guide in the back.

We just kept getting stuck. And there was this just fan favorite in the group, this older gentleman who was all the stereotypes wrapped and run.

He had the really, really big glass.

I had never seen anything like that before.

And every stop it was, oh, wow. Oh, I at every single stop and the first time I grinned because it just made me happy.

It was like contagious. And the second time, the third time I had an indulgent smile because I was willing to play along. And by the sixth time my smile had slipped in, my eyes were rolling into the back of my head. And my sister and I were having one of those silent conversations that you can only have with someone that's like firmly inside your squad, you know what I mean? Where you're just like, what is you doing? And why won't he stop?

And we got to the like one of the most famous spots in the Ambre. It's this gorgeous patio with like this big open fountain space and.

He did it again. Oh, and before I could get too frustrated, this very good natured woman who is better than I, I must admit, I leaned over to the woman who was walking with him and said, wow, he's really enjoying it.

And it's like, you bet he is killing it for me. And the woman that was with him said, yeah, he just had corrective eye surgery. It's all really new for him.

There goes all the wind out of my bitch sails like. Why I'm so horrible, how do I not look like a big glass is like a really big glass as I was not paying attention to that. Oh my gosh, I leaned into my sister. She kind of leaned in to me. And that just like moment of wonder, like, oh, my gosh.

So the rest of the trip was just we were like, whoa, oh. All right, because now it's even more amazing because it was cool to see it to begin with, like my history degree, because it wasn't going to pay me was paying off here. And now I get to see it with these amazing new eyes of somebody that was really actually like looking and seeing it for something new and for something special.

So at the end of that tour, when I was alone and sitting on the steps in the Palace of Charles the Fifth, which is built 500 years ago, this big open roof and looking at the stars and getting kind of misty eyed, I'll be damned if I didn't say, Oh, wow.

That was Zakiya Menefee. She's a program manager in Detroit but loves travel, live music, books, black garlic, ice cream and her cat Kevin to see a picture of Zakiya, her sister and her mom on the trip in Spain. Visit the morgue, where you can also find a link to share this story. She hopes this story reminds everyone to keep their sense of wonder. Let your oohs and ahs flow, but also socks and sandals. That's a No.

Our final story is from Josh Holland. He was visiting from Maine when he told this that a story slam in New York City where we partner with public radio station WNYC. Here's Josh Harlow. So I am in a pickup truck and I get out and I look in the rearview mirror. Because I want to see my face as my birth mother will see it for the first time in 39 years. And I look tired and I look like I've been thinking about this moment a little too long.

And it's Alki Beach in West Seattle. I don't know if anyone knows Seattle, but you're over on the west and then there's Seattle over here. And so there's a beach there and it's December. So it's empty. I turn around from the from the pickup and I see there's just an empty beach and there's a small Statue of Liberty statue to my left many hundreds of yards away. And I can see one figure.

She's got a leather jacket, red hair. You can see at a distance like jeans. I know it's her. I start walking towards her and it's like one of those people, movers in the in the airports, you just suddenly already over there and she's standing in front of me. And she says, oh, here you are. And I give her a big hug. And she's so strong. And I look and step back and I see for the first time in my life, except for the pictures she sent me, someone who looks like me.

First time ever. I don't know if anybody else is adopted in the room, but that's a pretty intense moment. And then I as I'm hugging her, I have this the only time I've ever had this thought, I have this physical response to her. Physical self, I'm from eastern Washington, I identify with it really strongly, but I'm from. Her. And I step back and we'd exchange letters and emails and so on, but this is the first time we're talking and she's on my left and we're walking down to the beach and she is walking and just looking at me.

And she says, well, tell me everything. She's not joking, and so I start talking about this, you know, I got a bunch of great friends and you know, what I'm doing with my life and so on and so forth. It surprises me the questions and questions. And I'm walking. She's right here. And every time I look, she's just looking at me.

And I don't know if anybody knows teachers or principals or cops, but there's this look that people who are good at this do where they're watching everything you do. And she's doing it the whole time, she wants to know about about everything, even stuff I said in the letter she's asking about, we walk down the beach. It's an empty beach, very beautiful water on the left side. Houses on the right. And I don't know if anyone has ever been subjected to that sort of gaze over time, but it's exhausting.

The minute careful noticing, this is how my genetic son moves his hand when he's telling a story, this is how my genetic son moves his feet when he's walking on the beach. This is how much next son fixes his coat. This is how my genetic son moves his head away when he's nervous about how I'm looking at the side of his face. We go down the beach.

Finally, I'm able to redirect the conversation a little bit to her and ask about, you know, what it's like being a critical care nurse and what was, you know, what to tell me about owning horses. Tell me about your sister. She has four brothers, one. And as soon as it gets to her, she redirects to me and my mama go to the bar. Oh, I find it very difficult to face her. I can't really bring myself to square off.

Because it's so intense. Because I'm sensing what it's like as far as a son can or any adopted kid can, what it's like to finally have that baby back in front of you. So we go down the beach. We get to a bar and we have to sit across from someone in restaurants. That's the rules. And so and so I find myself shifting to the waiter so I can deflect because it's so intense, you know? This is how my son orders an IPO.

This is this is how my son orders the second and so on.

We go back the other way and it's getting dark and it's still happening. The intensity and I'm I'm really tired. We get almost to the Statue of Liberty. I was there, and she's not next to me all of a sudden and I turn around and she's. She's back a bit. And I go back and I say, what's up? She's like, are you mad at me? And I said, No, why would I be mad at you?

She said, for giving you up. And I was like. No, and then I realized what this is all about, you know? And squared off with her shoulder to shoulder in the fading dark on beach, and I said, Marine. My life is full of beauty. I have so many friends. Loving family. You know, stuff wasn't always great with my folks, but if we worked it out like every family does and I love them very much, I got two sisters and my whole life.

Have chased my dreams. So, no, I'm not mad at you. What you did as a 19 year old girl in eastern Washington was one of the bravest things I even know about. And I don't know if you guys have had that experience where you don't know something isn't in place until it falls into place. But I saw it hit her and then hit me. Thank you very much. That was Josh Holland. He grew up skiing, fishing and camping in eastern Washington State and was very active in the Boy Scouts.

And after a good stint as university academic, Josh now runs sleepaway summer camp in Maine called Camp Karbasi for boys.

Josh sees Maureen whenever he comes through Seattle, including one Christmas, where he learned that Maureen's entire family gets matching flannel pajamas each year, just like his family does. To see a picture of Josh and Maureen and one of Josh and his mom and one of them together with his nephew, you can visit them off, dawg. That's it for this episode of The Moth Radio Hour. We hope you'll join us next time. And that's the story from The Moth.

Your host for this hour was Jennifer Hixson, who also directed the stories in the show, the rest of the most directorial staff includes Kathryn Burns, Sara Haberman, Sara Austin Ginés and make bolls production support from Emily Couche.

Most stories are true, as remembered and affirmed by the storytellers. Our theme music is by the drift of the music.

In this hour from Nelly Percussions, Regina Carter, Blue Dots, Sessions, Struan's and Farrar and Ben Harper. You can find links to all the music we use at our Web site.

The Moth Radio Hour is produced by me. Jay Allison with Viki 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 PRICK'S for more about our podcast. For information on pitching us your own story and everything else, go to our Web site, The Moth Dog.