From PRX, this is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm your host, Suzanne Rust, the Moth's curatorial producer.

Sometimes people ask me what Moth stories are about. I tell them they are really about

everything and anything, which explains the title of this episode.

Blessings, Berlesque and Lotus Flowers. Like this title, Moth stories are like life itself.

A variety show with every act imaginable. But what often unites them are common themes,

like self-discovery, finding sanctuary, learning to forgive and acknowledging blessings of different kinds.

Our first story is from Eddie Laughter, who discovers just what she needs in a most unlikely place.

She told this story at our Moth Teacher Institute. Here's Eddie.

I'm on my way to see live music for the first time and I'm so much more anxious than I think I have any right to be.

Because this band I'm about to see, I'm completely and utterly obsessed with.

And I have seen every interview, YouTube will physically let me watch.

And I listened to them so much at this point. It's probably doing something unhealthy to me.

I don't know how that would work, but it's happening.

And when I listen to them, I feel like I'm big and powerful and nothing can touch me when I'm walking down the street.

Which is really not something I feel at this point in my life.

And I feel so small and clunky and I don't fit into my own body right.

And I'm kind of starting to think that the middle school mentality that I'll never fit into any scenario go to is just going to be how I live my life.

And I feel like I just have to accept this at this point.

So it doesn't make any sense that I'm this anxious to see this band.

But I'm trying to think about what I can expect.

And I'm just kind of thinking about how in movies, punk shows are always a bunch of loud, aggressive, intoxicated white boys.

And that doesn't really seem like my scene.

...