TurboTax Sponsor (0:00)

This is a message from sponsor Intuit. TurboTax Taxes was waiting and wondering and worrying if you were going to get any money back and then waiting, wondering and worrying some more. Now Taxes is matching with a TurboTax expert who can do your taxes as soon as today. An expert who gives your taxes their undivided attention as they work on your return while you get real time updates on their progress so you can focus on your day. An expert who will find you every deduction possible and file every form, every investment, Every everything with 100% accuracy all so you can get the most money back guaranteed. No waiting, no wondering, no worries. Now this is Taxes. Get an Expert now on TurboTax.com only available with TurboTax Live full service real time updates only in iOS mobile app. See guarantee details@turbotax.com guarantees the Apple Watch.

Apple Representative (1:01)

Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist whether you're running, swimming or sleeping. And it's the fastest charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum compared to previous generations. IPhone Xs are later required charge time and actual results will vary.

Dan Kennedy (1:31)

Hey, welcome to the Moth podcast. I'm Dan Kennedy. Thanks for tuning in for another batch of stories. This week. We're going to take a look at the distances that we go, the distance we go for vacation, for health, for living a life filled with purpose that really that escalated right there. We've gone from vacation to a very lofty goal, but we want to talk about the changes we find in ourselves when we return. It's part of a two episode little series that we'll be doing on this same theme. And to start off, we want to jump right in with this story from Emma John. Emma shared this story at a special event we held with Afar magazine. Here's Emma John.

Emma John (2:15)

It's late at night. I'm 13 years old and I am lying in a four poster bed next to my sister in Venice and the door to our room bursts open and in rushes a woman in pink silk pyjamas and she is yelling at us, gondolier. Gondolier. The woman's name is Annie and she is my mother's best friend and she is single and in her 30s and has never been left in sole charge of children before this. We are in Venice because my grandmother has just died and our grandma lived with my family since my Sister was born and my mum has just spent the last six months nursing her through a terminal illness. And it's been a rough time on our family. And Annie thought that my parents could do with a break, so she offered to take the kids away to her favorite city, which is why she is now exploding into the room and flinging open the shutters. And as she does so, we realize what she is so het up about. Because out in the darkness, somewhere in the canals beneath us, is the sound of singing. There is an actual real life singing gondolier somewhere out in the dark nearby. There's no time to lose, says Annie. No time to get dressed. So we slip on our shoes and we just pull a coat over our pajamas and we hurtle down the stone steps of our building, chasing through the maze of Venice's footpaths and bridges, which are, by the way, lit only intermittently by by sporadic street lighting. We lose ourselves repeatedly in dead ends and blind alleys. We have to navigate by the sound of the music, so each time we hear a new snatch of aria, we pelt across empty piazzas. Now, in my case, I'm wearing pyjama bottoms that are too big for me, so I am having to run, holding these things up at the waist so that they don't fall down around my ankles. We emerge very suddenly onto a tiny stone bridge and we catch our first sight of the gondolier. His low boat is passing smoothly through the water towards us, carrying a smooching couple who look quite surprised to see three females in their night clothes giddily staring and pointing at them. One of them, me, actually bent double because I'm puffed out from the running, but I am also still trying to keep these wretched pajamas up. But the gondolier looks at us suavely and waves. And as the boat passes beneath the bridge, he sings to us. And I feel like I'm in a movie. And it is without doubt the single most romantic, thrilling escapade of my 13 year old life. That whole week in Venice left a huge impact on me. It introduced me to arts and culture in a way I'd never experienced before. It left me with a love of Italy that I've never shaken since. And it formed this bond with Annie that just grew stronger and more special as the years went on. So 20 years later, I am 33 and single and childless, and Annie is married and her daughter Neve has just turned 13. So I offer to repay the favor. I take Niamh to Venice to experience some of the magic of that place that I felt when I was a teenager and hopefully to be the same kind of crazy, inspiring chaperone that Annie was to me. And we stand in St. Mark's Square together for the first time, surrounded by the golden lions and the glittering mosaics and the breathtaking basilica. And I ask Niamh what she thinks, and she shrugs and says, I've seen stuff like this before and I am crushed. But it's okay. I think we've plenty of time and there's lots more here to impress her. So I pack our schedule with activities. We do the glassblowing at Murano and the fish market at Rialto, and we do the frescoes at the Doge's palace and the beaches at the Lido. And I even get the waiters at Harry's cocktail bar to serve her a Shirley Temple because the Italians are really laid back about children being around alcohol. And frustratingly, none of this impresses Niamh at all. And every time we finish one activity, she looks up at me through her wispy blonde hair, her wide blue eyes emanating boredom, and she says, what we gonna do next? And these words begin to pierce my heart because every time I hear them, I fret about, what am I doing wrong? And I am obviously boring her. So I try to up my game. And I book us into a workshop at a costumier's, and we spend the afternoon creating and decorating Venetian masks, the kind, you know, they wear to the masked balls. And this reminds me of how during my teenage trip, Annie would tell my sister and me spellbinding stor about secret societies and deadly jewels and Casanova. And I recount all I can of these to Niamh, hoping to inspire her with some of the exotic romance of the place. And she finishes her mask and she gives it a satisfied nod. And she looks up at me and says, what are we gonna do next? I had pictured her being overwhelmed with excitement. I had imagined us sharing the same kind of wild, extravagant fun that Annie and I had had. But I see none of that in her eyes. And in fact, I have the heartbreaking feeling that she is just waiting out this week, longing to be home. And meanwhile, I am spending every moment of this vacation fretting about what we do when the next distraction runs out. And by the middle of the week, I am at peak levels of anxiety and I have run out of ideas. So one morning, while Nev is still asleep, because I, by the way, am exhausted and sleepless, I grab my phone from the side of the bed, and I sneak it under the bedclothes and I frantically text Annie, help. What did you do with us? Question mark, question mark, exclamation point. And she messages back a few minutes later. Took siestas, sat in the square and made you draw things. Now, I haven't sketched since I was a teenager, but before we left, Annie had slipped a hardcover, spiral bound sketchbook and a tin of pencils into the top of my suitcase. So that morning over breakfast, when Nev asks, what are we gonna do next? I point at the book and I say, today we are going to draw things a little way from our apartment. She picks a spot with a view of an ancient, crumbly building and we sit down and we open the sketchbook across our two laps and we begin our wobbly line drawings. But as we sit there and I catch sight of Niamh's face concentrating very hard on this casement window in front of her, I have a wisp of memory from 20 years before of my sister and I sitting next to each other, chewing on the ends of our pencils and sharing an eraser between us. And as I now become absorbed in the columns with their leafy capitals, a new feeling descends on me, kind of like a piece. And we sit there for about an hour in mostly silence, before Niamh looks at my picture and tells me she thinks it's very good. I like the way you've made it lean to the left, she says. And I look at hers and I tell her hers is very good too. And she smiles and she says, let's do some more. So we go looking for new subjects. Wells, palazzos, the bell tower of the Santa Maria Gloriosa. And when we've done and we've had enough, we walk around town feeling really proud of our achievements. And suddenly anything seems possible. And Niamh suggests that we play a game. She says, I'll flip a coin. Heads we go left, tails we go right. And now the afternoon is an exciting, exciting adventure. And it leads us through pretty squares lined with olive trees, and it takes us to expensive shops that sell silk scarves, which we wrap around our heads like movie stars and expensive grown up perfumes, which we spray all over each other until we stink. And eventually we pop out again at St Mark's Square, only this time Niamh wants to go in the basilica. So we stand in line for the obligatory half hour, during which time my now delightful companion bubbles with conversation. Look at that cute dog. Oh, I love small dogs, not big ones. Though. When did you get your ears pissed? I want to get mine pierced, but Mum says, not until I'm 16. Have you read the Pittacus law books? Oh, they're amazing. Let me tell you how they start. So we are within spitting distance of the vast cathedral door when the marshal on duty looks at Niamh and points at her skirt and shakes his head. The skirt is too short. It might offend God. He can't risk it. Niamh leans over to me and whispers, it's okay. I've got this. And she grabs her skirt and she twists and wiggles and wiggles and twists until the hemline is reaching her knees. Of course, this means that her waistband is now barely covering her butt. So as we walk up the aisle of Venice's most holy and magnificent edifice, she has her hands clamped to her midriff, desperate not to expose herself. And we're in fits of giggles. And the more we try to suppress them, the worse it gets. And we're getting strange looks. And by the time we are up at the altar, she is doubled over with laughter and I am looking at a giddy 13 year old who is holding her skirt just as I had to hold my pajama bottoms up 20 years ago. And finally, we are sharing the magic of Venice.