Speaker 1: My name is Ben. I'm a storyteller and Find and Tell.
Speaker 1: I grew up on Durall Country. I'd like to recognize
Speaker 1: the traditional Castanians of this continent whose land was stolen
Speaker 1: nearly two hundred and fifty years ago, in particular the
Speaker 1: Cameagle and Onere people whose land this podcast was recorded on.
Speaker 1: And we extend our respect to all Aboriginal Torrestraight islander peoples,
Speaker 1: the rich storytelling history of the world's oldest living culture.
Speaker 1: My culture is what we pay homage to when we
Speaker 1: tell stories on Find and Tell.
Speaker 2: Hello, I'm Jamilla Risby and this is Find and Tell,
Speaker 2: the search for the next generation of Australian storytellers. Each episode,
Speaker 2: our storytellers go head to head to find and tell
Speaker 2: a story based around a theme. The best story wins.
Speaker 2: Now the steaks are getting high. This could be the
Speaker 2: last time we hear from one or both of our
Speaker 2: storytellers today. This is big, guys. If you haven't been
Speaker 2: keeping score, here are how things stand. Ben, he's sitting
Speaker 2: pretty on two wins. Mark and Kate have one win each,
Speaker 2: and Naan has suffered some very painful narrow misses. She's
Speaker 2: yet to get a win. Today's theme is New Beginnings.
Speaker 2: First up is Naan. Let's hear what she's found for
Speaker 2: what could be her final story.
Speaker 3: Naan, welcome back to Find and Tell.
Speaker 4: Hi, Jamilla, it's good to be back.
Speaker 3: We're here, we're about to hear.
Speaker 2: Well, it might not be your final story, but it
Speaker 2: also might be your final story. It's the final of
Speaker 2: this trio that we've started off with.
Speaker 3: How does that feel?
Speaker 4: I thought this day would never come. It's been an adventure,
Speaker 4: it's been a journey, Naan.
Speaker 2: You have already served us up some really interesting interviews.
Speaker 2: You're good at finding people with a story to tell.
Speaker 2: How do you pull that off, especially in a short time?
Speaker 4: Prame, I'd like to say it's probably my nosiness. I'm
Speaker 4: just very no natural curiosity. Yeah, whichever way you want
Speaker 4: to spin it. Yeah, when it comes to people, I
Speaker 4: feel like everyone has a story to tell, and especially
Speaker 4: with this one, I came across this event and the
Speaker 4: organizer of the event, and I thought they were too
Speaker 4: good not to interview and meet.
Speaker 2: So will extraordinary characters make for extraordinary stories? I'm excited
Speaker 2: to hear yours. This is New Beginnings, which is your
Speaker 2: third contribution to Find and tell, let's hear it.
Speaker 5: The sender tables in here, which is your stuff? Like,
Speaker 5: as you say, there's angle grind, a commercial vacuum, you know, pumps, generators, surfboards, scooters,
Speaker 5: power tools, all of that type stuff.
Speaker 4: That's easy Mike. He's arranging a catalog of items for
Speaker 4: an auction. A lot of common household appliances and tools
Speaker 4: and some not so common items.
Speaker 5: Tricky little bits in the auction. There's a bud cutter,
Speaker 5: which is a big machine for cutting up budheads, which
Speaker 5: could be lavender. Yes, why don't know?
Speaker 4: They've all been lost, stolen or seized because this is
Speaker 4: a police auction.
Speaker 5: The stuff is exhibits, all right, so they're from events
Speaker 5: like it could be a drug raid, it could be
Speaker 5: a theft, a break in, stuff like that.
Speaker 4: Until now, they had all been sitting in storage for months.
Speaker 4: Police either haven't been able to find the original owners
Speaker 4: or just don't have the space to hold it forever.
Speaker 4: So they give easy Mic a call. He picks up
Speaker 4: all the items and then sells them off.
Speaker 5: Very few of these happened now the old school style
Speaker 5: police socials. Everything now so online you've lost all that.
Speaker 5: So a lot of people use these as like a
Speaker 5: social event. I have people messaging me during the year
Speaker 5: when's the next auction?
Speaker 4: The next one is tomorrow. Easy's been doing this for
Speaker 4: thirteen years and he likes to make sure every item
Speaker 4: gets a second life.
Speaker 5: Absolutely none of this comes home, not one thing. If
Speaker 5: I have to sell that fight for a dollar, it'll
Speaker 5: sell for a dollar.
Speaker 4: As you can tell, Easy Mike doesn't like waste, but
Speaker 4: he does love to have a love. That's his real name,
Speaker 4: by the way, how do you spell it?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yes, why?
Speaker 5: And that's your That's on my birth certificate, Medicare card, license,
Speaker 5: passport everything.
Speaker 4: Easy's mum was hoping for a girl, so she hadn't
Speaker 4: picked out any boys' names. She sent his dad to
Speaker 4: sort it out.
Speaker 5: She said, you go down the front and register it,
Speaker 5: something Easy like Mike. He said, yeah, in norries it all.
Speaker 5: So I went down. He registered Easy. Mike sent Pikes
Speaker 5: my middle name.
Speaker 4: Another It pulls up at the showground with the next load.
Speaker 4: There's scooters, golf sets, TVs and baby seats all up.
Speaker 4: There's thousands of items to be sorted, jewelry watchers and
Speaker 4: silver bullions.
Speaker 3: Don't you touch anything, Nick, don't you buy anything.
Speaker 4: Natalie and Nick are married and they've been helping Easier
Speaker 4: run his auctions for thirteen years. They all met playing
Speaker 4: online poker.
Speaker 3: So we took our chances, didn't We.
Speaker 7: Took our chances.
Speaker 3: Didn't know whether it was a serial killer or not.
Speaker 7: But it worked out. It worked out.
Speaker 4: There's still dozens more items to unload and label. When
Speaker 4: a visitor drops in unannounced.
Speaker 5: Oh here it is, mister, or I come every time
Speaker 5: the day before and buy nothing. He never buys in.
Speaker 4: In his play, a stout man wearing suspenders struts into
Speaker 4: the hall and immediately starts poking around.
Speaker 5: And if he does, he doesn't rhyming because he's You
Speaker 5: can't eat strawberry Jam, because you can't pass the seage.
Speaker 5: It's a tight ash. Hey, Strawberry Jam, here you got.
Speaker 8: II let you out of a home.
Speaker 4: Strawberry Jam promises to come to the auction tomorrow. He
Speaker 4: never shows. On auction day. People arrive early for the viewing,
Speaker 4: which sounds like a funeral but feels more like a
Speaker 4: garage sale. Easy greets everyone like family.
Speaker 5: We opened the door there at eight point thirty. We
Speaker 5: had people here waiting. We opened the door. They were
Speaker 5: they were registring. They were queued out this door.
Speaker 4: It's hot and sticky inside the hall. People are stepping
Speaker 4: over each other to get a good look at the display.
Speaker 4: Greg is here showing his son his very first option.
Speaker 8: He's starting to buy.
Speaker 6: His own tools now, so I'm trying to teach him
Speaker 6: how to go to options. He hasn't lean to it
Speaker 6: one yet.
Speaker 4: A lot of farmers and traders come to the police
Speaker 4: action for tools, even the ones that don't work. Before
Speaker 4: the auction. Easy make sure they all have some fuel
Speaker 4: in them, or at least a sticker to let people
Speaker 4: know it needs some fixing up. Like he says, none
Speaker 4: of this stuff comes home. It all kicks off at
Speaker 4: ten am. Sharp trailer.
Speaker 5: It is an ex police vehicle. What's the having been?
Speaker 5: We've got a couple of thousand to kick it away?
Speaker 5: One thousand making tall fifty anywhere one thousand calls.
Speaker 4: A man wearing a blue flannel and a Cubra hat
Speaker 4: ends up getting the police trailer for around two thousand dollars.
Speaker 4: The serious buyers have put up with their own trailers,
Speaker 4: ready to score a few bargains. There's even families with prams,
Speaker 4: camping chairs and eskis settling in for a big day out.
Speaker 4: A group of young guys are loading up their use.
Speaker 6: But it's a six hundred cc engine off a sports bike.
Speaker 6: It goes very fast.
Speaker 4: Jack's and Worlder by trade and nabbed this engine for
Speaker 4: two hundred bucks. He says, they usually go for one
Speaker 4: and a half grand. But the boys are actually more
Speaker 4: excited about where it could have come from.
Speaker 6: I mean, I don't know. My bike engine, for example,
Speaker 6: could be from, you know, some sort of getaway vehicle.
Speaker 6: You never really know. A few ovens on the back
Speaker 6: as well. There were a few ovens for marijuana, yep,
Speaker 6: bug clippers, whatever you wanted.
Speaker 4: They didn't get the ovens, but it made for a
Speaker 4: good story to tell their mates.
Speaker 6: Yeah, so we were standing at one of the tables
Speaker 6: and we saw that there were a couple of lights,
Speaker 6: funny lights in front of us, looked like a big,
Speaker 6: massive array, and the auction that says said it was
Speaker 6: Ta Tree equipment, and a couple of the blokes the
Speaker 6: back had a chuckle and then it dawned on me
Speaker 6: this was actually being used for drug operation.
Speaker 4: He's planning to make an off road go cut with
Speaker 4: his purchase while his brother scored a couple of surfboards
Speaker 4: for themselves.
Speaker 6: We weren't picking up this stuff and it all go
Speaker 6: to landfill, so it'll just be chucked out and you know,
Speaker 6: wouldn't have a second life.
Speaker 4: As the auction wraps up, people prepared to hold their
Speaker 4: winnings home. They're loading their trailers as others are waiting
Speaker 4: for their ride. Even though all these items have had
Speaker 4: some sort of criminal past, just like people, they deserve
Speaker 4: a second chance. Once again, all these unclaimed stolen goods
Speaker 4: have a home. Police can welcome new items to their
Speaker 4: storage while all the proceeds go back to state revenue.
Speaker 4: And it's all thanks to a guy named Easy.
Speaker 5: You know, I'm not the devil, you know, Okay, I
Speaker 5: don't need to sell this stuff, like I'm really I'm
Speaker 5: like the undertaker, but I'm just finalizing things.
Speaker 3: Naon.
Speaker 2: That was like an infinitely less posh version of antiques Rocho.
Speaker 3: I was so into it. That's awesome, thank you.
Speaker 2: Honestly, that was like it was a delight to listen to.
Speaker 2: I felt like I'd been transported from being here in
Speaker 2: a studio. Yeah, I really feel like I was there
Speaker 2: and like I saw some of the things that you
Speaker 2: were using the audio to bring to life.
Speaker 3: So congratulations, great work. Thank you.
Speaker 2: So being a news reporter by trade, do you need
Speaker 2: to be able to spot a great story? What initially
Speaker 2: captured you about Easy Mike his name?
Speaker 4: Not only that, but I never heard of a police auction,
Speaker 4: let alone thought it was accessible to the public. It
Speaker 4: was in Kempsey, which was a foreigner half our drive
Speaker 4: from Sydney. But I thought, you know, surely there's got
Speaker 4: to be stories out there as well. So and yeah,
Speaker 4: it didn't disappoint.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you drove out there and then you spend
Speaker 2: you know what, like half a day or more around
Speaker 2: this auction, talking to Easy Mike, talking to others and
Speaker 2: trying to get a sense of what's going on. That's
Speaker 2: going to mean you collect an enormous amount of audio.
Speaker 2: How do you make sure you've got all the bits
Speaker 2: you might need later?
Speaker 4: Well it turned out I had too much audio in
Speaker 4: the end, I think, because that was my only chance
Speaker 4: to get everything that I needed at the time, so
Speaker 4: I think I over recorded. I ended up just recording
Speaker 4: the whole day, which turned out to be hours and
Speaker 4: gigabytes of audio. So I kind of kind of shot
Speaker 4: myself in the foot because that I had to go
Speaker 4: through all that, but it also made the cutting down easier.
Speaker 4: I was a bit more ruthless in terms of getting
Speaker 4: rid of chunks of audio.
Speaker 2: Looking back on your experience, not just creating this episod,
Speaker 2: but over the trio of episodes, what are you most
Speaker 2: proud of?
Speaker 4: Oh, good question, I'd say sneaking to my gut. Even
Speaker 4: when I felt the pressure of time and the deadlines,
Speaker 4: there were certain stories that I was really fixated on
Speaker 4: or a bit stubborn about, and I felt I wanted
Speaker 4: to do something to see a story that I was
Speaker 4: one hundred percent committed to, rather than settle for something
Speaker 4: and do something half fast. So I'd say listening to
Speaker 4: my intuition and letting that lead the way sometimes.
Speaker 2: Naan, I just I want to congratulate you on all
Speaker 2: three of your stories. You have got such a fantastic
Speaker 2: talent for finding people who have a perspective or a
Speaker 2: story that's just not one we hear all the time,
Speaker 2: and I really look forward to hearing more of that
Speaker 2: from you in the future.
Speaker 3: Well done, Thank you, Jumally.
Speaker 4: It's been a blast.
Speaker 2: What a fantastic story to kick off today's theme, New Beginnings.
Speaker 2: We're going to hear what Kate came up with in
Speaker 2: just a moment. This is Find and Tell and this
Speaker 2: week's theme is New Beginnings. Kate's previous stories have been
Speaker 2: so beautiful, and she's had some really impressive guests like
Speaker 2: Elizabeth Day, and she's shown a lot of vulnerability by
Speaker 2: sharing quite intimate details about her personal life. Let's see
Speaker 2: what she's made for us this time. Hey, Kate, welcome
Speaker 2: back to Find and Tell.
Speaker 3: It's the final countdown.
Speaker 2: I know now with you, we've sort of we've taken
Speaker 2: this almost trilogy approach in that we've been tracking your
Speaker 2: experience of a really significant breakup.
Speaker 3: New Beginnings. What does that mean for you?
Speaker 7: It means joy. It just simply means joy. It means
Speaker 7: releasing everything that we've gone through in the first and
Speaker 7: second story and starting the next chapter.
Speaker 2: Was there a moment in this process where it just
Speaker 2: felt like it was impossible, like you weren't going to
Speaker 2: get to joy?
Speaker 7: I mean I feel that weakly. I think, yeah, going
Speaker 7: through a breakup, it's not a linear journey by any means,
Speaker 7: but you just have to celebrate the winds, and you
Speaker 7: have to celebrate the growth and the change and there
Speaker 7: was so many things in telling this final story that
Speaker 7: just made me smile.
Speaker 2: How do you feel we're on the verge, We're about
Speaker 2: to press play, nervous still or if we settled in
Speaker 2: over a couple of weeks.
Speaker 7: I'm just excited for this one. It's yeah, I hope,
Speaker 7: I hope everyone feels really happy listening to it, because
Speaker 7: to me, it's a bit of a like, fuck.
Speaker 2: Yes, that sounds like time to press play. This is
Speaker 2: Kate's new beginnings.
Speaker 9: So we did these marriage of ours together as a group,
Speaker 9: and by the end of it, everybody was screaming them
Speaker 9: and crying. My kid was there, who's twenty one, and
Speaker 9: she was like, Mum, I've never seen anything like this. This,
Speaker 9: this is electrifying. And then basically the DJ kicked off
Speaker 9: and everybody danced their hearts at and there were people crying.
Speaker 9: There were elderly moms with their adult daughters being held
Speaker 9: one on each arm, crying and just having that moment
Speaker 9: and that permission to release the disappointment and the heartbreak
Speaker 9: of having so much hope, so disillusioned.
Speaker 7: That's Humi Stein's author, podcaster and basically someone who I've
Speaker 7: been obsessed with since her Channel V days. She's telling
Speaker 7: me all about the divorce party that she held back
Speaker 7: in feb to celebrate the end of her marriage. Yeah
Speaker 7: you heard that, right, celebrate. I'll let her explain.
Speaker 9: I got divorced myself after a ten year marriage last year,
Speaker 9: and I was like, now what. And the whole process
Speaker 9: of getting divorced, it's not just you know, signing some papers.
Speaker 9: It's a marriage first, and then it's the disintegration of
Speaker 9: a marriage. It's a marriage breakdown. It's finally accepting that
Speaker 9: the marriage is no longer. It's a really long, elongated
Speaker 9: process that's really quite painful, and actually the divorce part
Speaker 9: is kind of really good.
Speaker 7: So just to be completely transparent, I've never been divorced
Speaker 7: and I haven't even been married, but I absolutely can
Speaker 7: relate to what Yumi are saying.
Speaker 9: We've done the hard thinking and the hard decision making
Speaker 9: and now we can finally kind of tie a bowl
Speaker 9: around it and say, well that was now in the
Speaker 9: past and we're moving on. And what I discovered was
Speaker 9: just there aren't that many rituals or to celebrate divorce.
Speaker 9: So I wanted to ritualize in a joyful way and
Speaker 9: a feminist way. The end of a relationship.
Speaker 7: Last year, just like you me my eight year long
Speaker 7: relationship ended, and this conversation it really made me realize
Speaker 7: that I'd been unintentionally creating my own small rituals to
Speaker 7: try and help process my heartbreak. I'd done really tiny
Speaker 7: things like getting a fringe groundbreaking I know, or just
Speaker 7: remembering the date that i'd been broken up with and
Speaker 7: telling my friend AJ about it viral whatsapped voice message.
Speaker 7: Yeah this week, it's four weeks, so almost at the
Speaker 7: month mark, which is crazy. It's been two months this week,
Speaker 7: which is exactly at this time. I was being broken
Speaker 7: up with three months ago, and here I am writing
Speaker 7: the case for me. Oh my gosh, it's my it's
Speaker 7: my form Broaca anniversary today all but celebrate you mean
Speaker 7: like again? Actually yesterday was six months broke up? Whoo
Speaker 7: I survived. I went out to celebrate the anniversary with
Speaker 7: two of my friends a woman new red dress that
Speaker 7: I put from the op shop, which was great. I
Speaker 7: felt like a new renewal thing. And the idea of
Speaker 7: celebrating a divorce or a breakup might sound a little
Speaker 7: bit weird, but just think about how many engagements, baby
Speaker 7: showers weddings, first birthday, parties you've been to. So why then,
Speaker 7: when it comes to celebrating something like the end of
Speaker 7: a relationship, which can be such a profound experience of
Speaker 7: grief but also of survival, are there no rituals like
Speaker 7: not even one. You me and so many of the
Speaker 7: people at the divorce party felt exactly the same way.
Speaker 7: It was a moment of joy, It was a moment
Speaker 7: of reflection, a moment to celebrate their resilience and just
Speaker 7: release all of that emotion.
Speaker 9: And so we got maybe seven different people to come
Speaker 9: up and talk about a really good story that they
Speaker 9: want to share about their divorce. You know. One was like,
Speaker 9: I gave birth to my daughter. It was our second kid.
Speaker 9: And then my husband was like, I think I want
Speaker 9: to leave because I really like my weekends.
Speaker 7: No, the audacity of men is unparalleled.
Speaker 9: I really like my weekends, and now having kids, things
Speaker 9: seems to just get in the way of me doing
Speaker 9: all the things that I want to do. And it
Speaker 9: was heartbreak, but it was also like rage. So it
Speaker 9: was a bit of a blood letting, like let's pour
Speaker 9: it out and let's scream it out.
Speaker 7: After the blood letting, you me held her own version
Speaker 7: of a wedding.
Speaker 9: A ceremony of marriage to ourselves, where we chose ourselves.
Speaker 9: And one of the things that I did was reconceptualize
Speaker 9: marriage vowls. If you think about what you can remember
Speaker 9: off the cuff of the marriage vows, it's we are
Speaker 9: gathered here today and it's also till death to us part.
Speaker 9: That's the bit that people remember. So in the new
Speaker 9: vows that we wrote, where we marry ourselves or we
Speaker 9: commit to loving ourselves, I just mentioned that when we die,
Speaker 9: like where we're going to be the ones that we
Speaker 9: die with this This is our longest standing relationship. So
Speaker 9: wouldn't it be great if we were happy to go
Speaker 9: together with us with me? And also it's a really
Speaker 9: grim thought, you know, it's kind of grim that we
Speaker 9: all die alone, right, but.
Speaker 7: Also incredibly freeing, right.
Speaker 9: I totally agree. So we did these marriage vows together
Speaker 9: as a group, and by the end of it, everybody
Speaker 9: was screaming them and crying.
Speaker 7: And so what did that feel like for you to
Speaker 7: be in that space?
Speaker 9: Oh? It felt amazing, you know, because there was a
Speaker 9: whole spectrum of people there in attendance. There were quite
Speaker 9: shy people who said to me really quietly. I've never
Speaker 9: really even acknowledged that I got divorced. It was my
Speaker 9: own private pain. And then there were other people who
Speaker 9: were just like making an absolute rucous about it and
Speaker 9: have been for years. It was such a great feeling
Speaker 9: to kind of facilitate people being able to ritualize their divorces.
Speaker 7: I've found that coming to terms with the end of
Speaker 7: a chapter of your life it can be really tough,
Speaker 7: but it also can be so freeing The impermanence of
Speaker 7: it all feels really important. Things that we never expect
Speaker 7: to happen just do, and things that we expect to
Speaker 7: stay the same just don't.
Speaker 9: If somebody runs a cafe, let's say, for seven years,
Speaker 9: and it's really good and it's popular, but then it
Speaker 9: starts to not make so much money, and so that
Speaker 9: he decided to close. Technically they've failed, But for seven
Speaker 9: years it was really successful. So did they fail or
Speaker 9: did they just decide to wrap up when the time
Speaker 9: was right. So that that, for me is kind of
Speaker 9: a comfort. When you think about a failed relationship, it's
Speaker 9: not all failure necessarily, It's just you know, at the end,
Speaker 9: it didn't last, and not everything should last.
Speaker 7: And it's it's really the rituals that mark the endings
Speaker 7: of these relationships and that help us to move on.
Speaker 7: And so I just wanted to take what Yumi had
Speaker 7: said and just really commemorate the end of my breakup
Speaker 7: year and just celerate the start of the next chapter
Speaker 7: something that felt feminist and joyful, but also a little
Speaker 7: bit like home Tod b.
Speaker 10: Shepherd that been kidde in care chickat the person who
Speaker 10: was so ungrateful or did not deserve money. Yeah, this
Speaker 10: is going cry now.
Speaker 7: In Persian culture, we have this ritual called halahafez when
Speaker 7: around Maru's which is our your ear, you put your
Speaker 7: hand on a book of poetry, ask a question and
Speaker 7: get an answer half as his poetry is. It's kind
Speaker 7: of like trying to untangle shake experience Old English, though,
Speaker 7: and so even if you speak fassy, the meaning is
Speaker 7: one hundred percent of for debate, which is perfect if
Speaker 7: you're my mom and my aunt and you're essentially telling
Speaker 7: my fortune.
Speaker 10: The loss of love, what it does to you. Again,
Speaker 10: I'm not just saying she's.
Speaker 7: But as I listen to them, even the skeptic in
Speaker 7: me was really shocked.
Speaker 10: I cried a lot from that.
Speaker 8: Aless lover Mayam Dick. Can they goa the babe, Babe nice,
Speaker 8: my little Astra chicken, Give me a glass of wine.
Speaker 10: Let me enjoy, enjoy the life you never know your
Speaker 10: destiny has got for you.
Speaker 7: I've definitely struggled to rEFInd myself this year, but listening
Speaker 7: back to all of the voice messages from this time,
Speaker 7: it's really helped me to realize how far I've come.
Speaker 7: I feel like it's such a gradual process of learning
Speaker 7: to spend time with myself and enjoy my own company,
Speaker 7: just like you me. I needed to make a commitment
Speaker 7: to myself and I bought this like silver ring. It
Speaker 7: was kind of like a promise to myself to like
Speaker 7: look after myself and my names and have that be
Speaker 7: really central. So that was kind of a nice ritual
Speaker 7: thing to do, I guess, and I think I'm finally
Speaker 7: ready to do what half has suggested and just enjoy
Speaker 7: life and start my new beginning. Today I just was
Speaker 7: like lying in the water, like looking up at the
Speaker 7: citadel and it's so warm, and I just had to
Speaker 7: fix a lotto and I just like burst out laughing
Speaker 7: kind of with like joy, and I don't know, I literally,
Speaker 7: I was just I was like, life is really good.
Speaker 9: I mean, I think that's the thing too with the
Speaker 9: ritual of breakup is it's telling your story. I said
Speaker 9: that looking at you in a very meaningful way, because
Speaker 9: we're doing your podcast. It's telling a story, and then
Speaker 9: hopefully that's the bow you tie around that chapter of
Speaker 9: your life and then you can kind of push it
Speaker 9: to one side.
Speaker 7: Thank you so much, Umia, I've been talking to you
Speaker 7: in this beautiful room with all of your mum's beautiful objects.
Speaker 9: I know she's got. It's like a little shrine to
Speaker 9: Japan with a treadmill, like it's so Asian.
Speaker 7: A day. The friend that I've been what's up voice messaging?
Speaker 7: She started out being a friend of a friend, and
Speaker 7: over the last twelve months we've sent each other so
Speaker 7: many messages about heartbreak but also lowliness. To be honest,
Speaker 7: that's all shifted now. We're talking more and more about
Speaker 7: everything else that's going on in our lives in romantic relationships.
Speaker 7: They're not really the focus of our conversation. But of course,
Speaker 7: when my breakup anniversary rolled around, she remembered.
Speaker 11: Hello, just wanted to say congratulations on pioneering the way
Speaker 11: forward for yourself and going on so many adventures and
Speaker 11: leaning in so well to pursuing your artistic and creative
Speaker 11: endeavors and upholstering your own furniture, all the things that
Speaker 11: you do Cape. You are really amazing and it's been
Speaker 11: nice to get to know you over the last year
Speaker 11: in such a strange format. I hope we actually hang
Speaker 11: out sometime soon. But I hope you're well and yeah,
Speaker 11: no need to get back, just wanted to say hi.
Speaker 2: It was really nice to hear from AJ again. I
Speaker 2: feel like I've missed Aj. I have just a giant
Speaker 2: list of things I need to comment on very quickly.
Speaker 2: I was excited to hear from AJ again. I didn't
Speaker 2: realize your fringe is a breakup fringe. It's a great fringe.
Speaker 2: You should always have had a fringe. And was that
Speaker 2: your mum or your auntie saying asshole?
Speaker 3: It was so good? It was my maa well.
Speaker 2: Done, well done mom, hey, and well done you. What
Speaker 2: a beautiful end to your your trio of episodes.
Speaker 3: Congratulations, thank mama.
Speaker 2: I feel like the question you were asking in this
Speaker 2: episode was really clear, Like I felt like I from
Speaker 2: the beginning, I had a sense of we are going
Speaker 2: to ask why we don't commemorate the new beginnings that
Speaker 2: come from a sadness like a divorce or a breakup.
Speaker 2: I'm interested though. It makes a lot of sense for
Speaker 2: me having listened to it, But beforehand, when you're conceiving
Speaker 2: of this episode, doesn't necessarily make sense to put divorce
Speaker 2: and new beginnings together.
Speaker 3: So where did that come from?
Speaker 7: To me? It's a really obvious link. Yeah, I think
Speaker 7: divorce breakups, they're really reburseed, and as Yumi says, like,
Speaker 7: it's not all failure. And I think we often have
Speaker 7: in our societies and in our groups of people that
Speaker 7: surround us, we often have this notion that divorce and
Speaker 7: the end of a relationship can be so sad, but
Speaker 7: for so many people it's not. It's so freeing, and
Speaker 7: it's such a celebration of refining yourself and reconfiguring yourself
Speaker 7: in the world. And so for me, it felt really
Speaker 7: important to be able to tell that story.
Speaker 2: I loved there was a moment conversation between you and
Speaker 2: Yumi where you talked about the fact that it seems
Speaker 2: quite bizarre. I think that something has to last a
Speaker 2: lifetime for it to be valuable or good. There's nothing
Speaker 2: else we apply that that measure too, I suppose that
Speaker 2: measure of success. Tell me about talking to Yumi Steins.
Speaker 7: It was so fun. It was quite weird because she
Speaker 7: was in Melbourne with her kids, staying at her mum's house,
Speaker 7: and so she just said coming over to my mom's
Speaker 7: and I was.
Speaker 3: Like, okay, of course I'll just.
Speaker 7: Come to Umi Stean's mom's house. Sure that's not weird
Speaker 7: or different. And at the time, my mom and my
Speaker 7: aunt were staying with me, like my aunt was visiting
Speaker 7: from overseas, and so I had them in my house
Speaker 7: and they were like.
Speaker 1: What are you doing?
Speaker 7: And I was like, I'm going to do an interview
Speaker 7: at someone's mum's house. I know, it's very confusing. And
Speaker 7: they were like, well, what are you taking? And I
Speaker 7: was like, oh my gosh, I haven't even thought about that.
Speaker 7: Of course, I can't chrup to someone's mum's house without
Speaker 7: bringing herself.
Speaker 3: Bring a plate kicked or something exactly.
Speaker 7: And so I brought her some mangoes. The reason I
Speaker 7: did that was because the morning after my breakup, when
Speaker 7: my friends came to pick me up and the things
Speaker 7: I chose to take with me when I left my
Speaker 7: house were in order. My laptop great, practical, good love
Speaker 7: that for me. My wallet great, also practical, my passport
Speaker 7: like I was just.
Speaker 3: Sure, yeah, and I wanted to flee the country.
Speaker 8: I know.
Speaker 7: I think that's what I was thinking, like tomorrow morning,
Speaker 7: I'm And then I took from the football a single
Speaker 7: mango interesting, and I think that was like the vindictive
Speaker 7: part of me that was like, I love mangos so much.
Speaker 3: Mango's are so expensive.
Speaker 7: I'm taking this with.
Speaker 3: Me, this yours.
Speaker 7: Yeah. And so there was a really nice moment where
Speaker 7: I was like on the street walking to Yumie's mum's
Speaker 7: house with my mangos in my hands, being like, come
Speaker 7: a long way.
Speaker 3: You have come a long way. I want to I'm
Speaker 3: gonna go.
Speaker 2: I'm going to hold this to podcasting, the podcasting journey.
Speaker 3: What are you most proud of?
Speaker 7: I think that this has been such an emotional process
Speaker 7: to go through, but it's been so healing. Like I
Speaker 7: thought that I was all good and then going through
Speaker 7: this process, I had to relive a lot of stuff.
Speaker 7: And it's been really important for me to be able
Speaker 7: to look on a year of voice messages with fresh
Speaker 7: eyes and fresh perspective, and there are so many little
Speaker 7: things like the fortune telling, for example, with my mum
Speaker 7: and my aunt, Like I just recorded that on my
Speaker 7: phone before I started this process, because I wanted to
Speaker 7: know what my fortune was going to be and I
Speaker 7: needed to remember it. And so that was just us
Speaker 7: in my laund room because it's something that's important to me.
Speaker 7: And so it feels really nice that I got to
Speaker 7: include all of these little bits of myself and my
Speaker 7: life and my world in a way that feels very
Speaker 7: authentic to my voice.
Speaker 2: Kate, your willingness to share, I think what for many
Speaker 2: of us is super relatable but also deeply personal has
Speaker 2: not gone unnoticed.
Speaker 3: I really hope that this series has helped you.
Speaker 2: Heal even further past the version of you that we
Speaker 2: met back in episode one. Now, this could be the
Speaker 2: last time we talked to you on Find and Tell,
Speaker 2: but I hope I get to hear much much more
Speaker 2: work from you in the future. You have done a
Speaker 2: wonderful job.
Speaker 7: Thank you so much for listening, Jamela.
Speaker 2: When we come back, who will win today's episode, Naan
Speaker 2: or Kate?
Speaker 3: I am going to need a moment to think.
Speaker 2: This is a Find and Tell and the theme this
Speaker 2: week was new Beginnings, and this could be the last
Speaker 2: time that we hear from one of our brilliant storytellers.
Speaker 2: Nayanne's character development in this work, her scripting, her narration,
Speaker 2: the way she genuinely went out finding a story, finding
Speaker 2: a police auction which I'd never even heard of, and
Speaker 2: bringing easy Mike's Gloria's voice and personality to all of
Speaker 2: us was really insightful. I think she showed some real skill,
Speaker 2: and she's developed over this series. I think one of
Speaker 2: the things that she did really cleverly is she made
Speaker 2: us see what she was telling us about in audio.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: I can picture that police auction in my mind's eye.
Speaker 2: I can see what's going on. Huge congratulations to Naan
Speaker 2: on that episode. Kate has made this horribly hard to call.
Speaker 2: It's rude, how difficult these two have made this decision
Speaker 2: for me because this was again an excellent episode. There's
Speaker 2: some beautiful wisdom in Kate's episode, and she delivers it
Speaker 2: in a way that is warm and friendly, doesn't feel
Speaker 2: condescending or sort of annoying, like you're being told what
Speaker 2: to think or what to do. An absolute highlight of
Speaker 2: this episode for me was being permitted inside Kate's family
Speaker 2: home and hearing her interaction with her mum in particular,
Speaker 2: I think Kate also gave us an arc a story
Speaker 2: arc over these three episodes that made it such a
Speaker 2: pleasure to listen along with. And I imagine if I'd
Speaker 2: just been through a breakup, this would have been very soothing.
Speaker 2: Kate has created a beautiful trio of episodes that sit
Speaker 2: together in such an elegant way.
Speaker 3: If I was judging them as a three, oh my gosh,
Speaker 3: I haven't.
Speaker 2: I just think it was absolute perfection, But I have
Speaker 2: to judge them individually, and individually, I think we could
Speaker 2: have seen a little bit more experimentation this week, moving
Speaker 2: away from the same structure, branching out with the way
Speaker 2: Kate does things, and I'm sure she will do that
Speaker 2: in future, because she's super talented. After hearing both stories,
Speaker 2: I've really wrestled with this one, Guys. I've gone backwards
Speaker 2: and forwards inside of my head trying to figure it out.
Speaker 2: But I've decided that the story that wins this week
Speaker 2: is Naan's Naar, you are this week's winner.
Speaker 3: Congratulations, awesome, yay. I feel like we did this for easy.
Speaker 4: Mike Ah too easy, right, Thanks so much for having me, Timilo.
Speaker 4: It's been a blast, and this whole experience has been unforgettable,
Speaker 4: all right.
Speaker 2: The way the scores line out, things are about to
Speaker 2: get very very interesting. Make sure that you do not
Speaker 2: miss our next episode because we are going to be
Speaker 2: hearing the two final tales before two of our storytellers
Speaker 2: bow out. Who is it going to be? Don't miss it?
Speaker 2: Press follow in whichever podcast app you are listening on.
Speaker 3: A big thank you.
Speaker 2: To our show partners Afters and Road Australia. Find and
Speaker 2: Tell is a co production between iHeart Australia and the
Speaker 2: black Cast podcast network.
Speaker 3: Black Cast empowers
Speaker 2: First Nations people and people of color to reclaim their narratives,
Speaker 2: strengthen cultural identity, and contribute to a more inclusive Australia
Speaker 2: by showcasing exciting emerging talent from Australian communities.