Inside The Moth Atlanta: A Night of Stories About Belonging, Bravery, and Being Human

At the Moth spoken word storytelling event yesterday, the stage was literally set. But, I was never meant to be there. Who pays $80 and drives to downtown Atlanta on a weeknight to listen to five ten-minute stories? I had told myself. But then came a last-minute nudge from my friend, my husband asking how I expected people to pay for my writing when I wasn’t willing to support the arts myself and that this was Georgia Public Broadcasting’s annual fundraiser. So I went.

And boy, were we in for a treat.

The host, Jon Goode, opened by asking who among us had learned to tie our shoes from Mr. Rogers, who had grown up listening to All Things Considered on NPR and the entire auditorium instantly bonded as one giant family. The theme for the night was “fitting in vs. belonging,” something I’ve written about endlessly when thinking about how teenagers are trying to find their place in their peer group and in the world at large. You had to answer the prompt of the night “How did you leap before looked” before getting on stage.

And then, the stories began.

An incredibly funny nurse, originally from Baltimore, who’s takes care of babies during the day and is a spectacular story slammer by night gave us her most daring move before getting onto stage. Her “leap before she looked” was into her tight pantyhose which did not go well LOL. She confessed her long-standing crush on a “poetry man” that she had once seen on stage, only to realize it wasn’t the man, it was spoken word itself that her heart had fallen for.

The next guy talked about his experience as a sophomore at college as a summer intern for the company Rent-A-Center in the middle of Detroit, where he was instructed to sell “payments” not furniture. He delighted us not so much with his experience of repossessing a roach filled refrigerator but all the stories of how he and his managers would go out to “Come get the thing they were selling” because their patrons wouldn’t necessarily afford it and default on payments, was hilarious and heartbreakingly American.

Then there was the rural Utah farm kid turned Vietnam War vet, a fighter pilot who transported the reeking bodies of American soldiers during the war. He spoke of coming home to a country that treated the war as wrong and the soldiers as war criminals. His “leap before he looked” was simply sending a text without proofreading. After a lifetime of silence, he now wears a Veterans Against War shirt as a way of reclaiming voice and belonging. His uniform, wings and all, is now in the Smithsonian. The crowd felt the compelling need to give him and all the active duty and retired officers for their service to the nation – a roaring standing ovation.

After intermission, Jon’s sister, Tiffany Goode, took the stage with her trumpet, filling the room with sound that vibrated our floor. Her leap-before-looking was simple, every time she jams, she just throws herself into the music and trusts the rest to follow.

There was also Amy Segal, who once bought a nightgown in an Italian lingerie shop and wore it as a ballgown to the opera. And Tory Edwards, originally from Ocilla, Georgia, who was sent to his Aunt Eleanor in Connecticut in 1987 and eventually returned to Atlanta after surviving a near-fatal accident.

And then came the show-stealer and the host Jon Goode himself. He told a heartbreaking story about his divorce, about chess friends from a Connecticut library, and about the homeless chess players in downtown Atlanta, one of whom he lost to mental illness during COVID. He spoke of men with full stomachs and empty ones, wrestling over chess matches on the streets of a city that both feeds and starves its people. And he said that even on his darkest days, the sun rose twice for him. I’ll carry that mantra forever, and I wish you would too. We really do have so much to be grateful for.

Every story was a daring leap to restore our faith in humanity and our shared togetherness of survival.

Some stories funny, all unforgettable.

– 0 –

Things To Do In Atlanta