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Welcome to The Moth Podcast,
I'm Michelle Jalowski, your host for this week.
The holidays can be tough,
constant reminders that you're supposed to
spend quality time with loved ones,
to find joy in togetherness, to just be happy.
But what if that's not where you're at?
What if holiday movies
and Mariah Carey songs don't perfectly describe you
this festive season?
The Grinch gets a bad rap,
but can we really blame him?
The holidays can be overwhelming,
and sometimes as we make our way
through this chaotic world
we can all feel a little grinchy.
Our story this week is from Mary Gaitskill.
Mary told this on a cold night,
just a few weeks from the holidays,
at a Moth main stage in New York City,
where the theme of the night was Leap of Faith.
Here's Mary live at The Moth.
(audience cheering and applauding)
- [Mary] In August of 2012,
I was separated from my husband,
and I was in humongous debt,
like 66K of it.
I had just taken a job teaching at a college
in Geneva, New York, way upstate.
It was a temporary job that came with a furnished house,
and so I decided to give up
the rental home I'd shared with my husband,
put all my stuff in a storage locker,
and save some money.
My last night in my hometown
was spent at a motel with a boyfriend of three months,
and we broke up that night
when I literally ran out of the motel,
fled to another motel,
drove up to the bucolic college town the next day
where I arrived in a pretty bad mood.
My first social experience
was a cocktail party held to welcome me
at which I was so testy and weird that I alienated,
I'd say three people,
including the head of the department
who had engaged me in a conversation about Madame Bovary,
(audience laughing)
which she seemed to think
was a book about a very bad mother.
(audience laughing)
Excuse me?
They didn't have birth control then,
she didn't want the kid.
Look, she didn't beat her,
she didn't starve her,
she didn't strangle her.
She didn't leave her in a ditch
or drop her down a well,
or drown her in a toilet,
or...
At which point the head of the department
is looking at me like
(audience laughing)
"This is the person we brought here
"to guide our young impressionable students?
"Can we send her back?"
But I actually liked the students,
they were nice.
I liked some of the faculty.
I was friendly with the people across the street
in the science department.
They had these two cute kids, Laurel, eight, and Rose, six.
But it was kind of hard to connect
with such a close-knit community,
which was so much about families.
It didn't help that I was in a state of grief
about my marriage still,
or that my sister was
going through a truly horrible divorce at the same time.
It also didn't help that my husband
was about to publish a book, a memoir, about our marriage,
which he said that no one would know
was about our marriage.
(audience laughing)
Because he had not named me by my name,
but instead was referring to me as F,
(audience laughing)
a pseudonym behind which I would be so hidden.
Plus, I was working on a novel,
which is a sort of cocooning experience
that doesn't exactly foster community bonding.
As part of writing on this novel
I had to do research on riding
and handling horses, which sounds like fun,
except the horse that I was learning with up there
was a very crabby animal named Buzz,
(audience laughing)
who would stamp menacingly when I groomed him,
stamp when I put the saddle on him,
fight the bit, shove me when I tightened his girth.
The trainer was like "You're being too nice,
"his owner's a real bitch,
"he's used to a heavy hand."
(audience laughing)
Okay.
(audience laughing)
So, it was teach, write, gym,
ride angry horse.
Teach, write, gym, angry horse.
(audience laughing)
For fun
(audience laughing)
I drank and watched TV.
(audience laughing)
Because I didn't have cable
I went for CNN,
mostly depressing or just irritating news stories
endlessly recycled,
which I intercut with a show called "Criminal Minds."
(audience laughing)
Which was about horrible crimes
solved by the FBI heroes
who did incredibly complex psychological profiling,
which led to them always closing in on the killer
at the end of the show
as he hovered over his cringing victim
shouting "Drop the gun.
"We know what your father did to you.
"We know what you're going through."
So, one day in late November I'm coming home to my house,
and I see in the yard this beautiful spreading branch tree,
there's an envelope in it,
and I think "A message for me?"
I eagerly reach for the envelope,
which is addressed to "The Grinch."
(audience laughing)
On top of everything else someone's calling me a Grinch?
Why?
I open it and read
"Dear Grinch, you're probably at the Who's right now
"having a good time.
"We're having a good time too getting ready for Christmas.
"This year I would like a beauty bar station,
"so I hope you can get it for me.
"Thank you ahead of time, Merry Christmas, Laurel."
Okay, the little girl across the street.
(audience laughing)
I call her mother, Nan, to tell her about the letter,
and she explains to me the family Grinch lore.
She had read "How the Grinch Stole Christmas"
to Laurel when she was three,
and the child had fallen in love
with the bilious protagonist
who returned her love with a pair of sparkly pink slippers,
a decadent Christmas present
that mama had already said no to.
The lore had somehow expanded
to involved the Grinch living in an invisible encampment
in my yard across the street.
(audience laughing)
Which is probably why Laurel thought
the he would get the letter left in the tree.
Although the Grinch had given Laurel
and Rose Christmas presents every year
since the reading of the sacred text,
(audience laughing)
Laurel had never before written a letter to him,
and Nan wasn't sure why she had this year.
Huh, I said.
"Is it okay if I write back to Laurel as the Grinch?"
"Why sure" said Nan,
"that sounds like fun,
"I'm sure she'll write back to you."
So I eagerly tore a page from my notebook,
and wrote in it.
"Hey Laurel, it's The Grinch.
"I'm not at the Who's anymore 'cause we had a fight,
"and I'm back to hating Christmas,
"so I'm spending it in my dark cave
"with my winged assistants.
"But even though I hate Christmas I still like you,
"so I'm considering your request.
(audience laughing)
"Your friend the Grinch."
I put the letter in the tree,
and eagerly awaited a reply,
which did not come.
Nan said she read the letter over Laurel's shoulder,
and the child seemed quite stoney about it.
(audience laughing)
She didn't even want to talk about it.
I started to apologize,
and Nan said "No, no, it's okay,
"she's at the age where she's realizing
"that relationships change,
"and sometimes not for the better.
(audience laughing)
"I'm sure she'll write back to you."
But she did not.
I checked the tree everyday.
I was honestly kind of hurt.
(audience laughing)
But I was also surprised.
I thought "Come on, little girl,
"it's a grinch,
"you got to let a grinch be a grinch."
Still no letter.
I had dinner with the family a couple times,
dropped by for Thanksgiving,
watched Laurel dance in the "Nutcracker ballet,"
had a good time.
But I did notice that the child
was looking a little pale and sour,
and one night she even snapped at her father
after he had praised she and Rose for something.
"Dad, stop acting like we're so great,
"we're not and you know it."
Well, Christmas came and went,
I spent it in Chicago with my sister and her kids,
came back, worked on my novel,
rode Buzz, was reassured almost every night by the FBI
(audience laughing)
that no matter what "We know what you're going through."
Eventually I got together with Nan,
and asked if The Grinch had at least
come through with the beauty bar,
and she said "Yes, he had."
But when they sat down to watch the cartoon,
and Rose was rhapsodically recapping
about how happy and loving The Grinch was,
Laurel just sat there looking kind of sick,
like she knew the truth,
and it was on her to protect her sister's innocence.
I expressed surprise that Laurel had taken it quite so hard.
And that's when Nan told me that there had been some trouble
between her and her husband that year,
and a lot of tension around the house,
which the kids had picked up on.
And that had been right around the time
when Laurel wrote the letter to The Grinch,
and she thought that's probably why she was so upset
that he and the Who's had broken up.
Nan being a calm person,
and an experienced parent,
felt pretty sure that this could be taken in stride,
but I was not.
I thought "This is awful,
"this charade has taken a turn for the worst.
(audience laughing)
"I got to write another letter,"
and I did.
This time not from The Grinch.
"Dear Laurel, this is The Grinch's winged assistant,
"double O2, second in command.
"The Grinch is wondering if you received the beauty bar
"and if you liked it.
"And just between you and me, Laurel,
"he thinks you might be angry at him
"over his quarrel with the Who's.
"He knows he's in the wrong,
"but he doesn't know how to apologize.
"Please send us your prayers and good wishes,
"I am confident that that would help."
Now because we were well into January,
and I didn't want Laurel to think
The Grinch had forgotten her for so long,
I had to stress the letter,
and basically acted like I had found it in the yard,
where it probably fell out of the tree.
Went over across the street,
and said "Laurel, I found this letter,
"it seems to be to you from somebody
"named a winged assistant.
"Do you know anything about this?"
There was a letter in the tree the next day.
"Well nobody likes to apologize,
"but I'm sure if he did
"the Who's would forgive him right away,
"they are so nice."
(audience laughing)
To which the winged assistant replied
"Well, you see Laurel, when a person's heart
"grows as fast and as large as The Grinch's did
"on that Christmas so many years ago,
"well it can be quite sensitive
"and vulnerable and easily hurt,
"even by well meaning Who's.
"It might help if you could offer him some encouragement.
"He cares a lot about what you think."
Again, letter in the tree the next morning.
"I'd like to encourage him,
"but it might help if I knew what the fight was about."
(audience laughing)
"Well, you see Laurel,
"the Who's were getting ready for Christmas early
"like they always do,
"and The Grinch was especially excited
"about a special present he'd gotten his favorite
"little Who girl.
"He was in the corner wrapping it,
"and the child came running up,
"and said 'Is that for me?'
"And she saw it,
"and the surprise was ruined.
"And The Grinch was so upset
"that he snarled at the child,
"and she burst into tears,
"and ran away from him.
"The Grinch was mortified,
"and he slunk back to his room,
"where he planned to stay for the rest of the night.
"But a kindly Who mother who'd seen the whole thing
"knocked on the door,
"and entreated him to come out,
"which he did.
"And he tried to make it right by smiling at the child,
"but because he was so embarrassed
"and felt so bad the smile came out all wrong,
"like a horrible leer with teeth and everything,
"and the kid just burst into tears again.
"This was too much for The Grinch.
"He fled back to his room,
"where he summoned his winged assistant,
"and made an escape out the window,
"back to the cave,
"where he sulks to this day.
"He is not sure if he can't even smile correctly
"in a way that people can understand
"if he can ever be good again."
Maybe it was the big glass of wine I was drinking,
(audience laughing)
maybe it was the beautiful snowfall that night,
but I got strangely emotional writing this letter,
so much so that I didn't realize
until I went out to put the letter in the tree
that I couldn't put it in the tree
because of the heavy snowfall
which would cause footprints
to be walking up and back,
and give away the whole thing.
The dramatic frustration of this
was heightened the next day
when I saw Laurel outside at the foot of the tree
examining some animal tracks.
"It's the winged assistant,"
she cried to her sister across the street,
"but he didn't leave anything in the tree,
"something must be wrong."
Which meant that I spent a good part of that day
going from store to store
looking for the longest barbecue tongs I could find.
(audience laughing)
which meant that after midnight,
after the snowplows had banked the snow,
I was out there clutching the letter in the tongs.
It was a beautiful night, very clear, starry,
with the heavy snow weighing down the branches
of all the trees,
including my tree, the magic Grinch tree,
which as I approached it,
sweeping up my tracks with a small pine bough,
(audience laughing)
I realized this was important to me.
I was still alone in a strange place,
I was still in pretty serious debt,
and I had no idea where I was going to go after this,
but right then I was really loving
being the secret Grinch pen pal
of this little girl across the street.
I felt real joy in reaching up with the tongs
to get the letter in the tree.
And I felt even more joy
when I read the letter the next day.
"I think it was really brave of you to smile
"when you didn't feel like it.
"I know 'cause I do it sometimes and it's hard.
"If you can do that, you can still be good.
"Love, Laurel."
In other words, you may be a big old Grinch,
and I might be a little eight-year-old girl,
but still, I know what you're going through.
Thank you.
(audience cheering and applauding)
- [Michelle] That was Mary Gaitskill.
Mary is a novelist, essayst
and short story writer.
She published her first book,
a story collection entitled "Bad Behavior" in 1988.
She has since published two more collections of stories,
and three novels.
Her newest work is "The Devil's Treasure
A Book of Stories and Dreams,"
and it's illustrated with art by Mary herself.
That's all for this episode.
Whether you're a holiday Grinch,
or holiday lover,
whatever you do or don't celebrate,
have a story worthy week,
and a happy festive season from all of us at The Moth.
- [Davey] Michelle Jalowksi
is a producer and director at The Moth,
where she helps people craft
and shape their stories for stages all over the world.
This episode of The Moth Podcast
was produced by Sarah Austin Jenness,
Sarah Jane Johnson, Mark Solinger,
and me, Davey Sumner,
with assistance from Jason Richards.
Mary Gaitskill's story was directed
by George Daws Green.
The rest of The Moth's leadership team includes
Catherine Burns, Sarah Haberman,
Jennifer Hixson, Meg Bowles,
Kate Tellers,
Jennifer Birmingham,
Marina Klutse,
Suzanne Rust, Brandon Grant,
Inga Glodowski and Aldi Kaza.
All Moth stories are true,
as remembered by storytellers.
For more about our podcast,
information on pitching your own story,
and everything else,
visit our website at themoth.org.
The Moth Podcast is presented by PRX,
the Public Radio Exchange,
helping make public radio more public at PRX.org.
(crowd chattering)