Speaker 1: Pushkin.
Speaker 2: Hey everybody, it's Jonathan speaking sitting in my closet. I
Speaker 2: was sitting in this closet last night for a couple
Speaker 2: of hours, trying to figure out what to say, and
Speaker 2: then just scrapping everything because.
Speaker 1: I don't know what to say.
Speaker 2: And usually, you know, the way that we've been doing
Speaker 2: these check ins, Stevie Cleveland and I, we've been trying
Speaker 2: to talk from our own experience because that's all we
Speaker 2: could do. But right now, it just doesn't feel like
Speaker 2: what needs to be heard. I can't speak to the
Speaker 2: experience or the pain that the black community is going
Speaker 2: through right now.
Speaker 1: But what I do feel like I could.
Speaker 2: Say is that the murder of George Floyd is an outrage,
Speaker 2: that the system that props up this kind of behavior,
Speaker 2: these sorts of actions, is sick. And I don't know
Speaker 2: what's going to come next, but I know that what
Speaker 2: came before cannot stand. I live in the Longfellow neighborhood
Speaker 2: of Minneapolis, and I went out walking on the weekend
Speaker 2: and the neighborhood was still smoldering. I feel like everything
Speaker 2: that's happening right now is necessary, and I don't even
Speaker 2: know in what way, but I have faith in that
Speaker 2: before all of this started, before the events of this
Speaker 2: past week, we'd planned an episode about teachers. We were
Speaker 2: thinking a lot about teachers during the quarantine, about students
Speaker 2: missing their teachers, teachers missing their students. And we have
Speaker 2: today two stories from two different women, coincidentally, both looking.
Speaker 1: For their first grade teachers.
Speaker 2: And I don't know what they have to say about
Speaker 2: this moment, if anything, but if you'd like, you could
Speaker 2: listen to them, and I hope they bring you some
Speaker 2: feeling of community, of comfort or just maybe a respite.
Speaker 2: And if you want to read some of the things
Speaker 2: that we've been reading right now, we're going to also
Speaker 2: include some links in our show notes to some thoughtful
Speaker 2: pieces that have spoken to us and might be worth
Speaker 2: reading right now. So here's our show. Hello Stevie, Hey, Hey,
Speaker 2: let me get Khalila on the line.
Speaker 1: Hello Khalila, Hey, Hi.
Speaker 2: This week we have two stories about two women who
Speaker 2: are both searching for their first grade teachers. So the
Speaker 2: first story is from my friend Hamber, who from day
Speaker 2: one was set apart from the other kids that you
Speaker 2: went to school with.
Speaker 3: So I was raised a Jovah's witness.
Speaker 4: I'm the third generation Jeovah's Witness and the religion's kind
Speaker 4: of changed over the years, but there's one common theme,
Speaker 4: and that is that the world is ending any minute,
Speaker 4: and in order to secure your own salvation, you have
Speaker 4: to preach and try to convert others and tell them, hey,
Speaker 4: you better convert to be a Jova's Witness before it's
Speaker 4: too late, because you're going to die.
Speaker 1: And what happens if you convert then you don't die.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And then what happens after armageddon is that paradise
Speaker 4: will come to earth.
Speaker 3: We'll all be walking around in like.
Speaker 4: Sacks, burlapsick like you know, and will be cuddling pandas
Speaker 4: and the tigers won't eat us and everyone's happy.
Speaker 2: But you know, eternal life requires sacrifices. So while her
Speaker 2: classmates were attending birthday parties and watching cartoons and being kids,
Speaker 2: amber preaching door.
Speaker 4: To door and as a kid sometimes you knocked on
Speaker 4: the door of someone you went to school with, and
Speaker 4: that was just the peak mortification. There were times where
Speaker 4: we fake knocked because we knew that the kid lived there.
Speaker 4: I didn't live in a very big area.
Speaker 1: What does it mean to fake knock?
Speaker 3: Some people called it the Bible knock.
Speaker 4: So you hold the Bible up to the door and
Speaker 4: then you knock on the Bible. The thing is, it's
Speaker 4: a very complicated thing because as a Joe was an
Speaker 4: is I really believed in it, and so I knew
Speaker 4: that this is how we had to be.
Speaker 3: You just accept that you were different.
Speaker 2: But in spite of being different, Amber really loved school,
Speaker 2: which brings us to Missus Mosen.
Speaker 4: My first grade teacher. Her name was Missus Mosen. I
Speaker 4: just think she was one of those people that's a
Speaker 4: very good teacher. I was really shy as a kid,
Speaker 4: and I think in a lot of classes I was in,
Speaker 4: teachers overlooked me. And I was not the type of
Speaker 4: kid that would you be really eager and put up
Speaker 4: my hand and such. And she seemed to believe in me.
Speaker 4: That was important. I mean that kind of stayed with me.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 4: Maybe she was kind of like a mother figure. I
Speaker 4: don't know, because my relationship with my own mom was
Speaker 4: not very close. Yeah, and she had a son around
Speaker 4: my age, and she always used to say that she
Speaker 4: wanted her son to marry me when we grew up.
Speaker 2: Amber did grow up. She graduated high school and one day.
Speaker 2: Soon after graduating, Amber and her mom were in the
Speaker 2: neighborhood of her old elementary school, so they decided to
Speaker 2: stop by to see missus Mosen.
Speaker 4: She was still in the same classroom and still teaching,
Speaker 4: and she was so thrilled to see me. And then
Speaker 4: she asked me, what college are you going to go
Speaker 4: to now that you've graduated high school?
Speaker 3: And I told her, oh, well, I'm not going to college.
Speaker 4: Actually, you know, Joe's who says, we believe that we
Speaker 4: need to share the good news of what we know.
Speaker 4: So I'm going to be a full time preacher, you know,
Speaker 4: I'm going to be it's like a missionary of sorts.
Speaker 4: And I remember that her face just she looked stunned, and.
Speaker 1: Because she thought she expected more.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, and then sadness, like and it just the
Speaker 4: look crossed her face just for a second.
Speaker 3: Maybe she just said something in her eye.
Speaker 4: I don't know, but I took when I saw that look,
Speaker 4: I was like, oh, it kind of struck me that,
Speaker 4: like she was really really sad. I think that there's
Speaker 4: these moments through my life where I there would be
Speaker 4: a second of lucidity about my religion, and I feel
Speaker 4: like that was one of those moments, there was a
Speaker 4: moment where I glimpsed the other side and the reality
Speaker 4: of who I was and the conflict with you know
Speaker 4: who I had to be met for a second, but
Speaker 4: then I turned away from it.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 4: At the time, I'm like, she just doesn't understand that
Speaker 4: the world is ending. And then yeah, I laughed, and
Speaker 4: I didn't ever see her again.
Speaker 2: So for the next fifteen years, Amber preached. But that
Speaker 2: moment of lucidity in the classroom with Missus Mosen led
Speaker 2: to more moments of lucidity, these little cracks in the
Speaker 2: things Amber had always believed to be true, And then
Speaker 2: it all came to a head in China. She'd move
Speaker 2: there to preach, even learning Mandarin.
Speaker 4: When you're speaking another language, you can hear yourself in
Speaker 4: a different way. Yeah, And even as I started to
Speaker 4: teach the things that I believe to them, I would
Speaker 4: think this is weird, Like it just sounds weird.
Speaker 3: This even sounds a little crazy.
Speaker 2: So although Amber had gone to China to convert people,
Speaker 2: slowly she became the one to change her mind. And
Speaker 2: for a long time she just kept these doubts to herself.
Speaker 3: Because I didn't want to give up eternal life.
Speaker 4: And I really like my friends, especially so for a
Speaker 4: long time I hit it. But I'm not very good
Speaker 4: at hiding things. That's one problem with my personality. So
Speaker 4: it was more uncomfortable for me to try to keep
Speaker 4: going in it when I didn't believe in it anymore.
Speaker 4: And I don't have to pretend that I did, because
Speaker 4: being a jobs one is you cannot be like a
Speaker 4: Sunday Christian.
Speaker 3: It involves your entire life.
Speaker 1: And so eventually Amber admitted that she no longer believed,
Speaker 1: and in a nutshell, what ended up happening was that
Speaker 1: the church elders were called in and Amber was labeled
Speaker 1: an apostate and was stranded in China, without money, without
Speaker 1: friends or family.
Speaker 4: Everyone that I knew just dropped me, like everyone in
Speaker 4: my life. So like my grandmother was someone I was
Speaker 4: very close to, and I wrote her.
Speaker 3: A letter explaining, and she didn't write me back because
Speaker 3: people are terrified.
Speaker 4: People are taught that an apostate like me, someone who
Speaker 4: doubts the faith is mentally diseased, is like a.
Speaker 3: Dog that's returned to its vomit.
Speaker 4: Like they use all this very like awful discs, and
Speaker 4: so people they think that it's about their loyalty to God,
Speaker 4: and so they just drop you. It doesn't matter who
Speaker 4: you are, but if you're your daughter, your son, your mother,
Speaker 4: your father, you just shun Immediately. I moved to New
Speaker 4: York City. I was trying to figure out what to
Speaker 4: do in my life. I didn't have an education past
Speaker 4: high school. I didn't have much job experience. I didn't
Speaker 4: know anyone here, I didn't have any friends, but I
Speaker 4: did start to go to college. It's one of the
Speaker 4: first things I did.
Speaker 2: Amber started going to night school and working towards a
Speaker 2: college degree, and as soon as she was back in.
Speaker 4: School, Missus Molson popped back into my head, and I thought, oh,
Speaker 4: you know, I think she had such high hopes for me.
Speaker 4: I bet she would be happy to know that I
Speaker 4: made it out. Maybe there's some way I could be
Speaker 4: like I saw that look in your eye all those
Speaker 4: years ago, and just tell her that maybe I'm fulfilling
Speaker 4: the potential in some way that you saw in me.
Speaker 2: Now, the question is how do we get in touch
Speaker 2: with Missus Moson. Amber couldn't even remember her first name.
Speaker 4: You know, It's funny, It's like on the tip of
Speaker 4: my tongue. She had a very unusual first name. But
Speaker 4: I can't. I've googled and I have tried, and I can't.
Speaker 4: The sad thing is I could ask my mom, but
Speaker 4: my mom doesn't knock to me.
Speaker 2: My mom would remember, so I'm not sure what to
Speaker 2: do without a full name. I try looking up Mosin
Speaker 2: in the phone book. Amazingly in the area where Amber
Speaker 2: grew up under Mosen there's just uh, there's only one listing.
Speaker 1: Should we try calling it?
Speaker 3: Let's try? We can try.
Speaker 1: Is this exciting?
Speaker 6: I feel nervous. I feel nervous.
Speaker 3: Oh, oh, hello, is this missus Moson?
Speaker 7: It is?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 4: Hi, I just want to I want to sure I
Speaker 4: have the right missus. Did you teach at Bellmead School?
Speaker 7: Yes, I did, so.
Speaker 1: Amber explains who she is.
Speaker 3: So, I'm one of your former students.
Speaker 2: I'm Amber Scora, and she explains why she's calling. That
Speaker 2: moment she still thinks about all these years later, just this.
Speaker 4: Moment, there was a slight, like a subtle shift in
Speaker 4: your face. And for this very lucid moment, I sensed
Speaker 4: that you were sad, like that you felt that that
Speaker 4: was like I was.
Speaker 3: It was like a shame.
Speaker 4: So long story short, I ended up moving to New
Speaker 4: York because when you leave the jobs, Whnes says, they
Speaker 4: all shun you. So like, no one in my family
Speaker 4: speaks to me anymore because of that.
Speaker 7: Yeah, not even your mom.
Speaker 3: No, she doesn't either.
Speaker 4: Actually, But the point of this whole story is that
Speaker 4: I was I've I thought back to you, and I
Speaker 4: felt like, now I would like to tell you that
Speaker 4: I escaped and that that moment when you looked at
Speaker 4: me that way, it actually it did something in me,
Speaker 4: and it's something that came back to me now that I,
Speaker 4: you know, had.
Speaker 7: Left, sort of stayed with you, did it.
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: And I also just wanted to say, like, as a teacher,
Speaker 4: I think you were probably like the teacher I remember
Speaker 4: most for my whole childhood.
Speaker 7: Oh thank you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I felt like you.
Speaker 4: Really saw me. And I just wanted to tell you that, Like,
Speaker 4: I'm going to college now.
Speaker 3: I take night.
Speaker 7: School, So what are you what are you studying.
Speaker 4: I'm actually getting a degree in psychology because when I finished,
Speaker 4: I wanted to become like a therapist that helps people
Speaker 4: sort of the same similar situation that I was in
Speaker 4: to escape cults or like mind control and help them
Speaker 4: to deprogram and.
Speaker 7: Can I tell you how proud I am of you.
Speaker 3: Oh that's so nice.
Speaker 7: I mean, you were you were so bright. And when
Speaker 7: when you said that you weren't going to university, I
Speaker 7: mean I just I was shocked. I couldn't understand it,
Speaker 7: you know, I thought, my god, why doesn't that girl
Speaker 7: go to university? But I couldn't say too much with
Speaker 7: your mother being.
Speaker 3: Oh that's funny. Yeah, I could see it in your
Speaker 3: face because.
Speaker 7: You just stood out as far as academics was concerned.
Speaker 7: I surprised the road on my face.
Speaker 3: That's funny.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't know, I ticked it out, but it's
Speaker 4: really nice to hear you say that now.
Speaker 7: I mean, I'm just so glad that you're doing it.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 7: Don't ever let anybody deter you from whatever you want
Speaker 7: to become. You become. I'm so glad for you. Really,
Speaker 7: you're making an old woman very happy.
Speaker 3: Oh I'm so glad I reached you.
Speaker 7: Just absolutely amazing. It just made my day.
Speaker 2: Amber has just been accepted into Harvard and she'll be
Speaker 2: beginning virtual classes in the fall. Stevie, Yes, Khalila, Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know this is probably before your day, But in
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy nine, Pink Floyd saying, hey, teacher, leave those
Speaker 2: kids alone. But here it is twenty twenty, and we
Speaker 2: don't want those kids left alone, not at all.
Speaker 8: Sounds like you're like on all things considered, I feel
Speaker 8: like that's like a very like NPR, like hostant tro.
Speaker 2: I'm Jonathan Goldstein. So this next story is about Ava,
Speaker 2: who also can't stop thinking about her first grade teacher,
Speaker 2: a woman named Miss Susie, who taught her thirty years
Speaker 2: ago in a small Connecticut town called Jewett City.
Speaker 5: We lived in a house that didn't have heat or
Speaker 5: hot water. We didn't have a car, we didn't have
Speaker 5: a phone, we didn't.
Speaker 1: Have a TV.
Speaker 5: I went to this Catholic school when I was young,
Speaker 5: and I just we remember this woman named Missussie. She
Speaker 5: was the person that first told me about New York
Speaker 5: City and I live in New York City. Because she
Speaker 5: was very influential to me, I felt like she was radical.
Speaker 5: Maybe she wasn't. Maybe she just felt radical to me
Speaker 5: because she was kind and she felt different than the
Speaker 5: rest of the teachers. She never spoke to us like
Speaker 5: we were children. She just spoke to us like we
Speaker 5: were smaller people, her making us listen to John Lennon's
Speaker 5: Imagine and giving us little candles so that we could
Speaker 5: sway back and forth like we were at our own concert.
Speaker 2: To think about some of the lyrics to imagine, you
Speaker 2: know about how imagine there's no heaven.
Speaker 5: Yeah, imagine there's no religion.
Speaker 2: I mean that does seem kind of like in the
Speaker 2: context of a Catholic school with nuns walking around, that
Speaker 2: is kind of radical.
Speaker 5: During this time period, my mom has been in recovery
Speaker 5: for twenty seven years now, but she didn't quit drinking
Speaker 5: until I was eight years old, so I spent a
Speaker 5: majority of my time caring for my mom. There were times,
Speaker 5: because I was really worried about her, that I would
Speaker 5: actually sneak out of school and I would try to
Speaker 5: go home and make sure she was okay because she
Speaker 5: had she fell down the stairs one time, and she
Speaker 5: would get hurt because she would be drunk. And when
Speaker 5: I got to school, my first grade teacher she would
Speaker 5: make me be able to forget about those things a
Speaker 5: little bit until really I got off the bus to
Speaker 5: get back home. And so I think that's why I
Speaker 5: was really drawn to this teacher, because she made me
Speaker 5: feel safe and she made me feel like things were
Speaker 5: going to be okay. And that's kind of why I'm
Speaker 5: thinking about her right now, because there's this sense of
Speaker 5: safety that we're all looking for.
Speaker 2: So Ava only had Miss Susie that one year for
Speaker 2: first grade, and then Miss Susie left the school. But
Speaker 2: then she actually came back seven years later to attend
Speaker 2: Ava's eighth grade graduation.
Speaker 5: And she was standing off to the right, and we
Speaker 5: hadn't seen her since she left. Wow, And I remember
Speaker 5: I remember looking at her and I saw her and
Speaker 5: she said, she mouthed, I'm so proud of you, and
Speaker 5: for somebody that went through a lot at that time,
Speaker 5: it was really wonderful. I keep a series of photographs
Speaker 5: in my vanity area, and I still have the class
Speaker 5: photograph of everybody. It's next to a picture of my grandmother,
Speaker 5: and it says Miss Susie nineteen ninety like I.
Speaker 1: Look at it every day. Huh.
Speaker 5: I just look elated. I look so happy in that photo.
Speaker 5: I wonder if she still thinks about us, and I
Speaker 5: wonder if she's still teaching.
Speaker 3: I would really like to talk to.
Speaker 5: Her again and thank her for you know, inspiring me
Speaker 5: to letting me tell her that I'm really grateful for
Speaker 5: the strength to go someplace else besides Suett City.
Speaker 2: So the only problem really was finding Miss Susie, this
Speaker 2: woman that Eva hadn't seen in decades. And added to
Speaker 2: that was, you know, the ever constant problem of someone
Speaker 2: in search of their first grade teacher, which was that
Speaker 2: Eva was not one hundred percent sure of Miss Susie's
Speaker 2: first name. And it was at this point, Khalila, that
Speaker 2: I turned to you, yes, to help in this search.
Speaker 8: It was very hard.
Speaker 2: Dozens of Miss Susie's across Connecticut were phoned.
Speaker 8: And then finally called the right person. She still is
Speaker 8: a teacher, she's an upstate New York now.
Speaker 2: So I connected Ava with Miss Susie, and you know,
Speaker 2: at the beginning, it was a little awkward, as these
Speaker 2: things can be, but Miss Susie was just very kind,
Speaker 2: just as she was all those years ago.
Speaker 9: I don't know that you know, but the year that
Speaker 9: I taught you, that was my very very first year teaching.
Speaker 3: Ever.
Speaker 9: I was twenty two, So our first day of school
Speaker 9: together wasn't just your first day of first grade. It
Speaker 9: was my first day of first grade entirely. I was
Speaker 9: just out of college and I was younger than you
Speaker 9: are now.
Speaker 5: I didn't know that. I mean, it seemed you were
Speaker 5: unlike any of the rest of the teachers that I
Speaker 5: remember from that area. But the other part was so
Speaker 5: I don't obviously I don't think that you would know this,
Speaker 5: but my mom got sober when I was eight, So
Speaker 5: when I was six, I was in your class and
Speaker 5: she was still drinking.
Speaker 9: I did know that, I was told that by a
Speaker 9: else in the building, but I don't think that I
Speaker 9: realized how much you knew.
Speaker 10: So after your class, sorry, oh no, that's okay.
Speaker 5: The year that I had with you was really it
Speaker 5: was really wonderful because I was so engaged and I
Speaker 5: wasn't really worried about my mom. I didn't know if
Speaker 5: you knew, like of course, like my mom would show
Speaker 5: up sometimes to pick me up, and I know she
Speaker 5: would be drunk, and she would be drunk driving. From
Speaker 5: that time on, I always like I worried about her.
Speaker 11: I worried about her a lot.
Speaker 5: But I do remember like first grade, that class to
Speaker 5: me was very freeing because I wasn't really worried that much.
Speaker 5: It was important for me to let you know that.
Speaker 5: I thought of that time period as like the last
Speaker 5: time that I like, I didn't worry, I was allowed
Speaker 5: to be a kid.
Speaker 9: I thank you so much for sharing that with me.
Speaker 9: You know, I I say that I knew, but it
Speaker 9: was it was kind of a just in passing. It
Speaker 9: wasn't a I feel all the more blessed to have
Speaker 9: been a part of that and to have made it
Speaker 9: a place, you know, where you didn't have to worry,
Speaker 9: where you got to be a child, because that's what
Speaker 9: you were. You, you know, you were just a sweet
Speaker 9: little girl. The one thing I remember about your mom,
Speaker 9: because I do have a vague picture of her in
Speaker 9: my head, was that she let me know that you
Speaker 9: were a very good reader and that you had taught
Speaker 9: yourself how to read. And it was like her way
Speaker 9: of letting me know to make sure that I challenged you,
Speaker 9: or to you know, maybe she was afraid you would
Speaker 9: be shy or quiet and not you know, not have
Speaker 9: your true colors come out. But that is really the
Speaker 9: one thing I remember her saying to me, and I
Speaker 9: held on to that.
Speaker 5: I still actually have a pair of earrings that you made.
Speaker 5: At one point you were like making jewelry, and you
Speaker 5: were we would do those like church basement your sale things,
Speaker 5: and they don't have hooks on them anymore, but I've
Speaker 5: always kept.
Speaker 9: Them absolutely just I have no words for that, that
Speaker 9: you still have them, that that really, Oh my gosh,
Speaker 9: oh you're you're You're making me speechless. That year was
Speaker 9: so special to me. I the very last day of school,
Speaker 9: we all walked out the one main door, and the
Speaker 9: bus came and picked everybody up, you know, all the
Speaker 9: kids spilled out the windows and are waving goodbye. And
Speaker 9: I ran back into the school and I shut myself
Speaker 9: in a stall and I cried and cried and cried,
Speaker 9: and the third grade teacher at the time came looking
Speaker 9: for me, and she said, what's wrong, what's the matter.
Speaker 9: And I remember saying to her, I said, they left,
Speaker 9: they left, and it will never be this year again.
Speaker 9: I'll never have this again. I just knew that it
Speaker 9: would never be so pure. And I'm just glad that
Speaker 9: we connected, that you were in my class, that I
Speaker 9: did get that job, that there wasn't some other version
Speaker 9: of first grade for you, or some other version of
Speaker 9: a career for me.
Speaker 5: So it's sometimes overwhelming when you think that you're the
Speaker 5: only person that's thought of the other you know, I
Speaker 5: just assumed that I was carrying all this stuff with
Speaker 5: me for this many years without being considered, but being remembered.
Speaker 3: That age also feels really nice.
Speaker 9: It's really satisfying in a way that nothing has kind
Speaker 9: of felt before, to uh, to be able to talk
Speaker 9: with with uh, someone I knew when they were such
Speaker 9: a little girl and and I was such a young woman.
Speaker 9: I mean we were, we were both we were both
Speaker 9: just newbies, we were both fresh in a way.
Speaker 5: Do you remember Julie Lordie and Paul Wisnowski?
Speaker 9: I do, yes, I do absolutely remember those names.
Speaker 5: So do you know they're married now?
Speaker 11: Now?
Speaker 5: I would past them around the schoolyard. She had a
Speaker 5: really good crush on them in the first grade, and
Speaker 5: we all knew it.
Speaker 1: Thought, Hello, John, Hi, Hi, how are you?
Speaker 11: I'm well worried and well, you know, how about yourself?
Speaker 1: Worried and well, I guess yeah, it's a good way
Speaker 1: to put it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, can I can I ask you to uh to
Speaker 2: play some in an empty room?
Speaker 11: Sure? I'd be glad to.
Speaker 1: Yeah. When's the when's the last time you played it?
Speaker 11: Hm?
Speaker 1: Hmm?
Speaker 11: I think uh it would have been on that tour
Speaker 11: in the Midwest where I saw where we saw you,
Speaker 11: so I think it. Yeah, I think it would have
Speaker 11: been in Fargo. Actually it would have been the last
Speaker 11: time I played it. So I'll just put the phone
Speaker 11: down and then, uh, we'll see, uh, see how this works.
Speaker 11: Now that the furnitures returning to its goodwill home.
Speaker 12: With dishes in last week's papers, roumors and elections, crosswords
Speaker 12: on unending war, blacken, our fingers smear their prints on
Speaker 12: every door pulled shut. Now that the last month's rent
Speaker 12: is scheming with the damage deposit, take this moment to
Speaker 12: decide if we meant it, if we try.
Speaker 13: We felt around for far too much, from things that
Speaker 13: accidentally touched, the hands that we nearly hold with pennies
Speaker 13: for the gst, the shoulders we lean our shoulders into
Speaker 13: on the subway, mutter on apology, the shins that we
Speaker 13: kick beneath the table, that reflexive cry, the faces we
Speaker 13: meet one awkward beat too long and terriorfy know the
Speaker 13: things we need to say but said already any way.
Speaker 13: A parallelograms of light walls that we repainted white.
Speaker 1: Sign in an.
Speaker 14: Empty room, sign in an empty room, sign in an
Speaker 14: empty room, sign in an empty room.
Speaker 13: Take eight minutes and divide but ninety million longly miles
Speaker 13: and watch a shadow cross the floor.
Speaker 14: We don't live here anymore.