June 25, 2024 • 36 mins
This episode kicks off the four final stories from our storytellers before the finals, where only two will advance. Naeun and Kate share the theme of New Beginnings.
Naeun finds herself in a small country town in New South Wales, as locals flock to the showgrounds, ready for a big day out. But this isn’t a music festival. It’s a police auction, where thousands of items – lost, stolen or seized – will be sold off to the highest bidder.
In the climax to Kates heartbreak trilogy, she stumbles across Yumi Stynes divorce party, and begins to question why big life changes, such as a relationship breakdowns, aren’t celebrated with the same grand rituals that falling in love has.
Find and Tell is the search for the next generation of Australian storytellers. Each episode, join host Jamila Rizvi and the best up and coming storytellers the country has to offer.
Follow along each Wednesday to find out who will be crowned the Find And Tell champion and take home the grand prize.
Find And Tell is co-production between BlakCast & iHeart Australia.
Hosted by Jamila Rizvi
Storytellers are Naeun Kim, Mark Mariano, Ben Haywood & Kate Robinson
Show Producer is Jay Gasser
Mix & Mastering by Ryan Pemberton
Story producers are Indianna Symons, Ryan Pemberton, James Parkinson & Grace Richardson
Theme music by Alex Cox
Video production by All Things All Creatures @allthingsallcreatures
Special thanks to Mundanara Bayles, Corey Layton, Stephanie Coombes, Alyssa Partington, & Bree Steele.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
My name is Ben. I'm a storyteller and Find and Tell.
I grew up on Durall Country. I'd like to recognize
the traditional Castanians of this continent whose land was stolen
nearly two hundred and fifty years ago, in particular the
Cameagle and Onere people whose land this podcast was recorded on.
And we extend our respect to all Aboriginal Torrestraight islander peoples,
(00:21):
the rich storytelling history of the world's oldest living culture.
My culture is what we pay homage to when we
tell stories on Find and Tell.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Hello, I'm Jamilla Risby and this is Find and Tell,
the search for the next generation of Australian storytellers. Each episode,
our storytellers go head to head to find and tell
a story based around a theme. The best story wins.
Now the steaks are getting high. This could be the
last time we hear from one or both of our
(00:56):
storytellers today. This is big, guys. If you haven't been
keeping score, here are how things stand. Ben, he's sitting
pretty on two wins. Mark and Kate have one win each,
and Naan has suffered some very painful narrow misses. She's
yet to get a win. Today's theme is New Beginnings.
First up is Naan. Let's hear what she's found for
(01:19):
what could be her final story.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
Naan, welcome back to Find and Tell.
Speaker 4 (01:31):
Hi, Jamilla, it's good to be back.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
We're here, we're about to hear.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Well, it might not be your final story, but it
also might be your final story. It's the final of
this trio that we've started off with.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
How does that feel?
Speaker 4 (01:44):
I thought this day would never come. It's been an adventure,
it's been a journey, Naan.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
You have already served us up some really interesting interviews.
You're good at finding people with a story to tell.
How do you pull that off, especially in a short time?
Speaker 4 (02:02):
Prame, I'd like to say it's probably my nosiness. I'm
just very no natural curiosity. Yeah, whichever way you want
to spin it. Yeah, when it comes to people, I
feel like everyone has a story to tell, and especially
with this one, I came across this event and the
(02:22):
organizer of the event, and I thought they were too
good not to interview and meet.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
So will extraordinary characters make for extraordinary stories? I'm excited
to hear yours. This is New Beginnings, which is your
third contribution to Find and tell, let's hear it.
Speaker 5 (02:41):
The sender tables in here, which is your stuff? Like,
as you say, there's angle grind, a commercial vacuum, you know, pumps, generators, surfboards, scooters,
power tools, all of that type stuff.
Speaker 4 (02:55):
That's easy Mike. He's arranging a catalog of items for
an auction. A lot of common household appliances and tools
and some not so common items.
Speaker 5 (03:05):
Tricky little bits in the auction. There's a bud cutter,
which is a big machine for cutting up budheads, which
could be lavender. Yes, why don't know?
Speaker 4 (03:18):
They've all been lost, stolen or seized because this is
a police auction.
Speaker 5 (03:24):
The stuff is exhibits, all right, so they're from events
like it could be a drug raid, it could be
a theft, a break in, stuff like that.
Speaker 4 (03:37):
Until now, they had all been sitting in storage for months.
Police either haven't been able to find the original owners
or just don't have the space to hold it forever.
So they give easy Mic a call. He picks up
all the items and then sells them off.
Speaker 5 (03:52):
Very few of these happened now the old school style
police socials. Everything now so online you've lost all that.
So a lot of people use these as like a
social event. I have people messaging me during the year
when's the next auction?
Speaker 4 (04:09):
The next one is tomorrow. Easy's been doing this for
thirteen years and he likes to make sure every item
gets a second life.
Speaker 5 (04:16):
Absolutely none of this comes home, not one thing. If
I have to sell that fight for a dollar, it'll
sell for a dollar.
Speaker 4 (04:26):
As you can tell, Easy Mike doesn't like waste, but
he does love to have a love. That's his real name,
by the way, how do you spell it?
Speaker 6 (04:35):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Yes, why?
Speaker 5 (04:36):
And that's your That's on my birth certificate, Medicare card, license,
passport everything.
Speaker 4 (04:43):
Easy's mum was hoping for a girl, so she hadn't
picked out any boys' names. She sent his dad to
sort it out.
Speaker 5 (04:50):
She said, you go down the front and register it,
something Easy like Mike. He said, yeah, in norries it all.
So I went down. He registered Easy. Mike sent Pikes
my middle name.
Speaker 4 (05:08):
Another It pulls up at the showground with the next load.
There's scooters, golf sets, TVs and baby seats all up.
There's thousands of items to be sorted, jewelry watchers and
silver bullions.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
Don't you touch anything, Nick, don't you buy anything.
Speaker 4 (05:30):
Natalie and Nick are married and they've been helping Easier
run his auctions for thirteen years. They all met playing
online poker.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
So we took our chances, didn't We.
Speaker 7 (05:42):
Took our chances.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
Didn't know whether it was a serial killer or not.
Speaker 7 (05:47):
But it worked out. It worked out.
Speaker 4 (05:52):
There's still dozens more items to unload and label. When
a visitor drops in unannounced.
Speaker 5 (05:59):
Oh here it is, mister, or I come every time
the day before and buy nothing. He never buys in.
Speaker 4 (06:05):
In his play, a stout man wearing suspenders struts into
the hall and immediately starts poking around.
Speaker 5 (06:12):
And if he does, he doesn't rhyming because he's You
can't eat strawberry Jam, because you can't pass the seage.
It's a tight ash. Hey, Strawberry Jam, here you got.
Speaker 8 (06:26):
II let you out of a home.
Speaker 4 (06:30):
Strawberry Jam promises to come to the auction tomorrow. He
never shows. On auction day. People arrive early for the viewing,
which sounds like a funeral but feels more like a
garage sale. Easy greets everyone like family.
Speaker 5 (06:53):
We opened the door there at eight point thirty. We
had people here waiting. We opened the door. They were
they were registring. They were queued out this door.
Speaker 4 (07:04):
It's hot and sticky inside the hall. People are stepping
over each other to get a good look at the display.
Greg is here showing his son his very first option.
Speaker 8 (07:13):
He's starting to buy.
Speaker 6 (07:14):
His own tools now, so I'm trying to teach him
how to go to options. He hasn't lean to it
one yet.
Speaker 4 (07:21):
A lot of farmers and traders come to the police
action for tools, even the ones that don't work. Before
the auction. Easy make sure they all have some fuel
in them, or at least a sticker to let people
know it needs some fixing up. Like he says, none
of this stuff comes home. It all kicks off at
ten am. Sharp trailer.
Speaker 5 (07:41):
It is an ex police vehicle. What's the having been?
We've got a couple of thousand to kick it away?
One thousand making tall fifty anywhere one thousand calls.
Speaker 4 (07:50):
A man wearing a blue flannel and a Cubra hat
ends up getting the police trailer for around two thousand dollars.
The serious buyers have put up with their own trailers,
ready to score a few bargains. There's even families with prams,
camping chairs and eskis settling in for a big day out.
(08:13):
A group of young guys are loading up their use.
Speaker 6 (08:15):
But it's a six hundred cc engine off a sports bike.
It goes very fast.
Speaker 4 (08:20):
Jack's and Worlder by trade and nabbed this engine for
two hundred bucks. He says, they usually go for one
and a half grand. But the boys are actually more
excited about where it could have come from.
Speaker 6 (08:31):
I mean, I don't know. My bike engine, for example,
could be from, you know, some sort of getaway vehicle.
You never really know. A few ovens on the back
as well. There were a few ovens for marijuana, yep,
bug clippers, whatever you wanted.
Speaker 4 (08:44):
They didn't get the ovens, but it made for a
good story to tell their mates.
Speaker 6 (08:49):
Yeah, so we were standing at one of the tables
and we saw that there were a couple of lights,
funny lights in front of us, looked like a big,
massive array, and the auction that says said it was
Ta Tree equipment, and a couple of the blokes the
back had a chuckle and then it dawned on me
this was actually being used for drug operation.
Speaker 4 (09:08):
He's planning to make an off road go cut with
his purchase while his brother scored a couple of surfboards
for themselves.
Speaker 6 (09:14):
We weren't picking up this stuff and it all go
to landfill, so it'll just be chucked out and you know,
wouldn't have a second life.
Speaker 4 (09:25):
As the auction wraps up, people prepared to hold their
winnings home. They're loading their trailers as others are waiting
for their ride. Even though all these items have had
some sort of criminal past, just like people, they deserve
a second chance. Once again, all these unclaimed stolen goods
have a home. Police can welcome new items to their
(09:47):
storage while all the proceeds go back to state revenue.
And it's all thanks to a guy named Easy.
Speaker 5 (09:55):
You know, I'm not the devil, you know, Okay, I
don't need to sell this stuff, like I'm really I'm
like the undertaker, but I'm just finalizing things.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
Naon.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
That was like an infinitely less posh version of antiques Rocho.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
I was so into it. That's awesome, thank you.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Honestly, that was like it was a delight to listen to.
I felt like I'd been transported from being here in
a studio. Yeah, I really feel like I was there
and like I saw some of the things that you
were using the audio to bring to life.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
So congratulations, great work. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
So being a news reporter by trade, do you need
to be able to spot a great story? What initially
captured you about Easy Mike his name?
Speaker 4 (10:49):
Not only that, but I never heard of a police auction,
let alone thought it was accessible to the public. It
was in Kempsey, which was a foreigner half our drive
from Sydney. But I thought, you know, surely there's got
to be stories out there as well. So and yeah,
it didn't disappoint.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
Yeah, so you drove out there and then you spend
you know what, like half a day or more around
this auction, talking to Easy Mike, talking to others and
trying to get a sense of what's going on. That's
going to mean you collect an enormous amount of audio.
How do you make sure you've got all the bits
you might need later?
Speaker 4 (11:26):
Well it turned out I had too much audio in
the end, I think, because that was my only chance
to get everything that I needed at the time, so
I think I over recorded. I ended up just recording
the whole day, which turned out to be hours and
gigabytes of audio. So I kind of kind of shot
myself in the foot because that I had to go
(11:48):
through all that, but it also made the cutting down easier.
I was a bit more ruthless in terms of getting
rid of chunks of audio.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Looking back on your experience, not just creating this episod,
but over the trio of episodes, what are you most
proud of?
Speaker 4 (12:05):
Oh, good question, I'd say sneaking to my gut. Even
when I felt the pressure of time and the deadlines,
there were certain stories that I was really fixated on
or a bit stubborn about, and I felt I wanted
to do something to see a story that I was
(12:26):
one hundred percent committed to, rather than settle for something
and do something half fast. So I'd say listening to
my intuition and letting that lead the way sometimes.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
Naan, I just I want to congratulate you on all
three of your stories. You have got such a fantastic
talent for finding people who have a perspective or a
story that's just not one we hear all the time,
and I really look forward to hearing more of that
from you in the future.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
Well done, Thank you, Jumally.
Speaker 4 (12:56):
It's been a blast.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
What a fantastic story to kick off today's theme, New Beginnings.
We're going to hear what Kate came up with in
just a moment. This is Find and Tell and this
week's theme is New Beginnings. Kate's previous stories have been
(13:24):
so beautiful, and she's had some really impressive guests like
Elizabeth Day, and she's shown a lot of vulnerability by
sharing quite intimate details about her personal life. Let's see
what she's made for us this time. Hey, Kate, welcome
back to Find and Tell.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
It's the final countdown.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
I know now with you, we've sort of we've taken
this almost trilogy approach in that we've been tracking your
experience of a really significant breakup.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
New Beginnings. What does that mean for you?
Speaker 7 (13:59):
It means joy. It just simply means joy. It means
releasing everything that we've gone through in the first and
second story and starting the next chapter.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Was there a moment in this process where it just
felt like it was impossible, like you weren't going to
get to joy?
Speaker 7 (14:18):
I mean I feel that weakly. I think, yeah, going
through a breakup, it's not a linear journey by any means,
but you just have to celebrate the winds, and you
have to celebrate the growth and the change and there
was so many things in telling this final story that
(14:40):
just made me smile.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
How do you feel we're on the verge, We're about
to press play, nervous still or if we settled in
over a couple of weeks.
Speaker 7 (14:48):
I'm just excited for this one. It's yeah, I hope,
I hope everyone feels really happy listening to it, because
to me, it's a bit of a like, fuck.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
Yes, that sounds like time to press play. This is
Kate's new beginnings.
Speaker 9 (15:07):
So we did these marriage of ours together as a group,
and by the end of it, everybody was screaming them
and crying. My kid was there, who's twenty one, and
she was like, Mum, I've never seen anything like this. This,
this is electrifying. And then basically the DJ kicked off
and everybody danced their hearts at and there were people crying.
(15:29):
There were elderly moms with their adult daughters being held
one on each arm, crying and just having that moment
and that permission to release the disappointment and the heartbreak
of having so much hope, so disillusioned.
Speaker 7 (15:46):
That's Humi Stein's author, podcaster and basically someone who I've
been obsessed with since her Channel V days. She's telling
me all about the divorce party that she held back
in feb to celebrate the end of her marriage. Yeah
you heard that, right, celebrate. I'll let her explain.
Speaker 9 (16:07):
I got divorced myself after a ten year marriage last year,
and I was like, now what. And the whole process
of getting divorced, it's not just you know, signing some papers.
It's a marriage first, and then it's the disintegration of
a marriage. It's a marriage breakdown. It's finally accepting that
the marriage is no longer. It's a really long, elongated
(16:28):
process that's really quite painful, and actually the divorce part
is kind of really good.
Speaker 7 (16:36):
So just to be completely transparent, I've never been divorced
and I haven't even been married, but I absolutely can
relate to what Yumi are saying.
Speaker 9 (16:46):
We've done the hard thinking and the hard decision making
and now we can finally kind of tie a bowl
around it and say, well that was now in the
past and we're moving on. And what I discovered was
just there aren't that many rituals or to celebrate divorce.
So I wanted to ritualize in a joyful way and
a feminist way. The end of a relationship.
Speaker 7 (17:10):
Last year, just like you me my eight year long
relationship ended, and this conversation it really made me realize
that I'd been unintentionally creating my own small rituals to
try and help process my heartbreak. I'd done really tiny
things like getting a fringe groundbreaking I know, or just
(17:31):
remembering the date that i'd been broken up with and
telling my friend AJ about it viral whatsapped voice message.
Yeah this week, it's four weeks, so almost at the
month mark, which is crazy. It's been two months this week,
which is exactly at this time. I was being broken
(17:52):
up with three months ago, and here I am writing
the case for me. Oh my gosh, it's my it's
my form Broaca anniversary today all but celebrate you mean
like again? Actually yesterday was six months broke up? Whoo
I survived. I went out to celebrate the anniversary with
(18:13):
two of my friends a woman new red dress that
I put from the op shop, which was great. I
felt like a new renewal thing. And the idea of
celebrating a divorce or a breakup might sound a little
bit weird, but just think about how many engagements, baby
showers weddings, first birthday, parties you've been to. So why then,
(18:37):
when it comes to celebrating something like the end of
a relationship, which can be such a profound experience of
grief but also of survival, are there no rituals like
not even one. You me and so many of the
people at the divorce party felt exactly the same way.
It was a moment of joy, It was a moment
of reflection, a moment to celebrate their resilience and just
(19:01):
release all of that emotion.
Speaker 9 (19:04):
And so we got maybe seven different people to come
up and talk about a really good story that they
want to share about their divorce. You know. One was like,
I gave birth to my daughter. It was our second kid.
And then my husband was like, I think I want
to leave because I really like my weekends.
Speaker 7 (19:22):
No, the audacity of men is unparalleled.
Speaker 9 (19:27):
I really like my weekends, and now having kids, things
seems to just get in the way of me doing
all the things that I want to do. And it
was heartbreak, but it was also like rage. So it
was a bit of a blood letting, like let's pour
it out and let's scream it out.
Speaker 7 (19:43):
After the blood letting, you me held her own version
of a wedding.
Speaker 9 (19:48):
A ceremony of marriage to ourselves, where we chose ourselves.
And one of the things that I did was reconceptualize
marriage vowls. If you think about what you can remember
off the cuff of the marriage vows, it's we are
gathered here today and it's also till death to us part.
(20:09):
That's the bit that people remember. So in the new
vows that we wrote, where we marry ourselves or we
commit to loving ourselves, I just mentioned that when we die,
like where we're going to be the ones that we
die with this This is our longest standing relationship. So
wouldn't it be great if we were happy to go
together with us with me? And also it's a really
(20:31):
grim thought, you know, it's kind of grim that we
all die alone, right, but.
Speaker 7 (20:34):
Also incredibly freeing, right.
Speaker 9 (20:37):
I totally agree. So we did these marriage vows together
as a group, and by the end of it, everybody
was screaming them and crying.
Speaker 7 (20:48):
And so what did that feel like for you to
be in that space?
Speaker 9 (20:52):
Oh? It felt amazing, you know, because there was a
whole spectrum of people there in attendance. There were quite
shy people who said to me really quietly. I've never
really even acknowledged that I got divorced. It was my
own private pain. And then there were other people who
were just like making an absolute rucous about it and
have been for years. It was such a great feeling
(21:12):
to kind of facilitate people being able to ritualize their divorces.
Speaker 7 (21:18):
I've found that coming to terms with the end of
a chapter of your life it can be really tough,
but it also can be so freeing The impermanence of
it all feels really important. Things that we never expect
to happen just do, and things that we expect to
stay the same just don't.
Speaker 9 (21:38):
If somebody runs a cafe, let's say, for seven years,
and it's really good and it's popular, but then it
starts to not make so much money, and so that
he decided to close. Technically they've failed, But for seven
years it was really successful. So did they fail or
did they just decide to wrap up when the time
was right. So that that, for me is kind of
a comfort. When you think about a failed relationship, it's
(22:00):
not all failure necessarily, It's just you know, at the end,
it didn't last, and not everything should last.
Speaker 7 (22:06):
And it's it's really the rituals that mark the endings
of these relationships and that help us to move on.
And so I just wanted to take what Yumi had
said and just really commemorate the end of my breakup
year and just celerate the start of the next chapter
something that felt feminist and joyful, but also a little
(22:29):
bit like home Tod b.
Speaker 10 (22:31):
Shepherd that been kidde in care chickat the person who
was so ungrateful or did not deserve money. Yeah, this
is going cry now.
Speaker 7 (22:45):
In Persian culture, we have this ritual called halahafez when
around Maru's which is our your ear, you put your
hand on a book of poetry, ask a question and
get an answer half as his poetry is. It's kind
of like trying to untangle shake experience Old English, though,
and so even if you speak fassy, the meaning is
one hundred percent of for debate, which is perfect if
(23:07):
you're my mom and my aunt and you're essentially telling
my fortune.
Speaker 10 (23:12):
The loss of love, what it does to you. Again,
I'm not just saying she's.
Speaker 7 (23:22):
But as I listen to them, even the skeptic in
me was really shocked.
Speaker 10 (23:27):
I cried a lot from that.
Speaker 8 (23:31):
Aless lover Mayam Dick. Can they goa the babe, Babe nice,
my little Astra chicken, Give me a glass of wine.
Speaker 10 (23:50):
Let me enjoy, enjoy the life you never know your
destiny has got for you.
Speaker 7 (24:01):
I've definitely struggled to rEFInd myself this year, but listening
back to all of the voice messages from this time,
it's really helped me to realize how far I've come.
I feel like it's such a gradual process of learning
to spend time with myself and enjoy my own company,
just like you me. I needed to make a commitment
(24:23):
to myself and I bought this like silver ring. It
was kind of like a promise to myself to like
look after myself and my names and have that be
really central. So that was kind of a nice ritual
thing to do, I guess, and I think I'm finally
ready to do what half has suggested and just enjoy
(24:44):
life and start my new beginning. Today I just was
like lying in the water, like looking up at the
citadel and it's so warm, and I just had to
fix a lotto and I just like burst out laughing
kind of with like joy, and I don't know, I literally,
(25:04):
I was just I was like, life is really good.
Speaker 9 (25:12):
I mean, I think that's the thing too with the
ritual of breakup is it's telling your story. I said
that looking at you in a very meaningful way, because
we're doing your podcast. It's telling a story, and then
hopefully that's the bow you tie around that chapter of
your life and then you can kind of push it
to one side.
Speaker 7 (25:31):
Thank you so much, Umia, I've been talking to you
in this beautiful room with all of your mum's beautiful objects.
Speaker 9 (25:38):
I know she's got. It's like a little shrine to
Japan with a treadmill, like it's so Asian.
Speaker 7 (25:46):
A day. The friend that I've been what's up voice messaging?
She started out being a friend of a friend, and
over the last twelve months we've sent each other so
many messages about heartbreak but also lowliness. To be honest,
that's all shifted now. We're talking more and more about
(26:06):
everything else that's going on in our lives in romantic relationships.
They're not really the focus of our conversation. But of course,
when my breakup anniversary rolled around, she remembered.
Speaker 11 (26:21):
Hello, just wanted to say congratulations on pioneering the way
forward for yourself and going on so many adventures and
leaning in so well to pursuing your artistic and creative
(26:43):
endeavors and upholstering your own furniture, all the things that
you do Cape. You are really amazing and it's been
nice to get to know you over the last year
in such a strange format. I hope we actually hang
out sometime soon. But I hope you're well and yeah,
(27:05):
no need to get back, just wanted to say hi.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
It was really nice to hear from AJ again. I
feel like I've missed Aj. I have just a giant
list of things I need to comment on very quickly.
I was excited to hear from AJ again. I didn't
realize your fringe is a breakup fringe. It's a great fringe.
You should always have had a fringe. And was that
your mum or your auntie saying asshole?
Speaker 3 (27:35):
It was so good? It was my maa well.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
Done, well done mom, hey, and well done you. What
a beautiful end to your your trio of episodes.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
Congratulations, thank mama.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
I feel like the question you were asking in this
episode was really clear, Like I felt like I from
the beginning, I had a sense of we are going
to ask why we don't commemorate the new beginnings that
come from a sadness like a divorce or a breakup.
I'm interested though. It makes a lot of sense for
me having listened to it, But beforehand, when you're conceiving
(28:10):
of this episode, doesn't necessarily make sense to put divorce
and new beginnings together.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
So where did that come from?
Speaker 7 (28:17):
To me? It's a really obvious link. Yeah, I think
divorce breakups, they're really reburseed, and as Yumi says, like,
it's not all failure. And I think we often have
in our societies and in our groups of people that
surround us, we often have this notion that divorce and
(28:39):
the end of a relationship can be so sad, but
for so many people it's not. It's so freeing, and
it's such a celebration of refining yourself and reconfiguring yourself
in the world. And so for me, it felt really
important to be able to tell that story.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
I loved there was a moment conversation between you and
Yumi where you talked about the fact that it seems
quite bizarre. I think that something has to last a
lifetime for it to be valuable or good. There's nothing
else we apply that that measure too, I suppose that
measure of success. Tell me about talking to Yumi Steins.
Speaker 7 (29:18):
It was so fun. It was quite weird because she
was in Melbourne with her kids, staying at her mum's house,
and so she just said coming over to my mom's
and I was.
Speaker 3 (29:29):
Like, okay, of course I'll just.
Speaker 7 (29:32):
Come to Umi Stean's mom's house. Sure that's not weird
or different. And at the time, my mom and my
aunt were staying with me, like my aunt was visiting
from overseas, and so I had them in my house
and they were like.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
What are you doing?
Speaker 7 (29:46):
And I was like, I'm going to do an interview
at someone's mum's house. I know, it's very confusing. And
they were like, well, what are you taking? And I
was like, oh my gosh, I haven't even thought about that.
Of course, I can't chrup to someone's mum's house without
bringing herself.
Speaker 3 (29:59):
Bring a plate kicked or something exactly.
Speaker 7 (30:01):
And so I brought her some mangoes. The reason I
did that was because the morning after my breakup, when
my friends came to pick me up and the things
I chose to take with me when I left my
house were in order. My laptop great, practical, good love
(30:21):
that for me. My wallet great, also practical, my passport
like I was just.
Speaker 3 (30:26):
Sure, yeah, and I wanted to flee the country.
Speaker 8 (30:29):
I know.
Speaker 7 (30:29):
I think that's what I was thinking, like tomorrow morning,
I'm And then I took from the football a single
mango interesting, and I think that was like the vindictive
part of me that was like, I love mangos so much.
Speaker 3 (30:43):
Mango's are so expensive.
Speaker 7 (30:44):
I'm taking this with.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
Me, this yours.
Speaker 7 (30:47):
Yeah. And so there was a really nice moment where
I was like on the street walking to Yumie's mum's
house with my mangos in my hands, being like, come
a long way.
Speaker 3 (30:57):
You have come a long way. I want to I'm
gonna go.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
I'm going to hold this to podcasting, the podcasting journey.
Speaker 3 (31:03):
What are you most proud of?
Speaker 7 (31:05):
I think that this has been such an emotional process
to go through, but it's been so healing. Like I
thought that I was all good and then going through
this process, I had to relive a lot of stuff.
And it's been really important for me to be able
to look on a year of voice messages with fresh
(31:26):
eyes and fresh perspective, and there are so many little
things like the fortune telling, for example, with my mum
and my aunt, Like I just recorded that on my
phone before I started this process, because I wanted to
know what my fortune was going to be and I
needed to remember it. And so that was just us
in my laund room because it's something that's important to me.
(31:48):
And so it feels really nice that I got to
include all of these little bits of myself and my
life and my world in a way that feels very
authentic to my voice.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
Kate, your willingness to share, I think what for many
of us is super relatable but also deeply personal has
not gone unnoticed.
Speaker 3 (32:07):
I really hope that this series has helped you.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
Heal even further past the version of you that we
met back in episode one. Now, this could be the
last time we talked to you on Find and Tell,
but I hope I get to hear much much more
work from you in the future. You have done a
wonderful job.
Speaker 7 (32:24):
Thank you so much for listening, Jamela.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
When we come back, who will win today's episode, Naan
or Kate?
Speaker 3 (32:34):
I am going to need a moment to think.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
This is a Find and Tell and the theme this
week was new Beginnings, and this could be the last
time that we hear from one of our brilliant storytellers.
Nayanne's character development in this work, her scripting, her narration,
the way she genuinely went out finding a story, finding
(33:05):
a police auction which I'd never even heard of, and
bringing easy Mike's Gloria's voice and personality to all of
us was really insightful. I think she showed some real skill,
and she's developed over this series. I think one of
the things that she did really cleverly is she made
us see what she was telling us about in audio.
Speaker 3 (33:25):
Right.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
I can picture that police auction in my mind's eye.
I can see what's going on. Huge congratulations to Naan
on that episode. Kate has made this horribly hard to call.
It's rude, how difficult these two have made this decision
for me because this was again an excellent episode. There's
(33:46):
some beautiful wisdom in Kate's episode, and she delivers it
in a way that is warm and friendly, doesn't feel
condescending or sort of annoying, like you're being told what
to think or what to do. An absolute highlight of
this episode for me was being permitted inside Kate's family
home and hearing her interaction with her mum in particular,
(34:07):
I think Kate also gave us an arc a story
arc over these three episodes that made it such a
pleasure to listen along with. And I imagine if I'd
just been through a breakup, this would have been very soothing.
Kate has created a beautiful trio of episodes that sit
together in such an elegant way.
Speaker 3 (34:25):
If I was judging them as a three, oh my gosh,
I haven't.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
I just think it was absolute perfection, But I have
to judge them individually, and individually, I think we could
have seen a little bit more experimentation this week, moving
away from the same structure, branching out with the way
Kate does things, and I'm sure she will do that
in future, because she's super talented. After hearing both stories,
(34:50):
I've really wrestled with this one, Guys. I've gone backwards
and forwards inside of my head trying to figure it out.
But I've decided that the story that wins this week
is Naan's Naar, you are this week's winner.
Speaker 3 (35:05):
Congratulations, awesome, yay. I feel like we did this for easy.
Speaker 4 (35:09):
Mike Ah too easy, right, Thanks so much for having me, Timilo.
It's been a blast, and this whole experience has been unforgettable,
all right.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
The way the scores line out, things are about to
get very very interesting. Make sure that you do not
miss our next episode because we are going to be
hearing the two final tales before two of our storytellers
bow out. Who is it going to be? Don't miss it?
Press follow in whichever podcast app you are listening on.
Speaker 3 (35:47):
A big thank you.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
To our show partners Afters and Road Australia. Find and
Tell is a co production between iHeart Australia and the
black Cast podcast network.
Speaker 3 (35:57):
Black Cast empowers
Speaker 2 (35:59):
First Nations people and people of color to reclaim their narratives,
strengthen cultural identity, and contribute to a more inclusive Australia
by showcasing exciting emerging talent from Australian communities.
My name is Ben. I'm a storyteller and Find and Tell.
I grew up on Durall Country. I'd like to recognize
the traditional Castanians of this continent whose land was stolen
nearly two hundred and fifty years ago, in particular the
Cameagle and Onere people whose land this podcast was recorded on.
And we extend our respect to all Aboriginal Torrestraight islander peoples,
(00:21):
the rich storytelling history of the world's oldest living culture.
My culture is what we pay homage to when we
tell stories on Find and Tell.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Hello, I'm Jamilla Risby and this is Find and Tell,
the search for the next generation of Australian storytellers. Each episode,
our storytellers go head to head to find and tell
a story based around a theme. The best story wins.
Now the steaks are getting high. This could be the
last time we hear from one or both of our
(00:56):
storytellers today. This is big, guys. If you haven't been
keeping score, here are how things stand. Ben, he's sitting
pretty on two wins. Mark and Kate have one win each,
and Naan has suffered some very painful narrow misses. She's
yet to get a win. Today's theme is New Beginnings.
First up is Naan. Let's hear what she's found for
(01:19):
what could be her final story.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
Naan, welcome back to Find and Tell.
Speaker 4 (01:31):
Hi, Jamilla, it's good to be back.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
We're here, we're about to hear.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Well, it might not be your final story, but it
also might be your final story. It's the final of
this trio that we've started off with.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
How does that feel?
Speaker 4 (01:44):
I thought this day would never come. It's been an adventure,
it's been a journey, Naan.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
You have already served us up some really interesting interviews.
You're good at finding people with a story to tell.
How do you pull that off, especially in a short time?
Speaker 4 (02:02):
Prame, I'd like to say it's probably my nosiness. I'm
just very no natural curiosity. Yeah, whichever way you want
to spin it. Yeah, when it comes to people, I
feel like everyone has a story to tell, and especially
with this one, I came across this event and the
(02:22):
organizer of the event, and I thought they were too
good not to interview and meet.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
So will extraordinary characters make for extraordinary stories? I'm excited
to hear yours. This is New Beginnings, which is your
third contribution to Find and tell, let's hear it.
Speaker 5 (02:41):
The sender tables in here, which is your stuff? Like,
as you say, there's angle grind, a commercial vacuum, you know, pumps, generators, surfboards, scooters,
power tools, all of that type stuff.
Speaker 4 (02:55):
That's easy Mike. He's arranging a catalog of items for
an auction. A lot of common household appliances and tools
and some not so common items.
Speaker 5 (03:05):
Tricky little bits in the auction. There's a bud cutter,
which is a big machine for cutting up budheads, which
could be lavender. Yes, why don't know?
Speaker 4 (03:18):
They've all been lost, stolen or seized because this is
a police auction.
Speaker 5 (03:24):
The stuff is exhibits, all right, so they're from events
like it could be a drug raid, it could be
a theft, a break in, stuff like that.
Speaker 4 (03:37):
Until now, they had all been sitting in storage for months.
Police either haven't been able to find the original owners
or just don't have the space to hold it forever.
So they give easy Mic a call. He picks up
all the items and then sells them off.
Speaker 5 (03:52):
Very few of these happened now the old school style
police socials. Everything now so online you've lost all that.
So a lot of people use these as like a
social event. I have people messaging me during the year
when's the next auction?
Speaker 4 (04:09):
The next one is tomorrow. Easy's been doing this for
thirteen years and he likes to make sure every item
gets a second life.
Speaker 5 (04:16):
Absolutely none of this comes home, not one thing. If
I have to sell that fight for a dollar, it'll
sell for a dollar.
Speaker 4 (04:26):
As you can tell, Easy Mike doesn't like waste, but
he does love to have a love. That's his real name,
by the way, how do you spell it?
Speaker 6 (04:35):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Yes, why?
Speaker 5 (04:36):
And that's your That's on my birth certificate, Medicare card, license,
passport everything.
Speaker 4 (04:43):
Easy's mum was hoping for a girl, so she hadn't
picked out any boys' names. She sent his dad to
sort it out.
Speaker 5 (04:50):
She said, you go down the front and register it,
something Easy like Mike. He said, yeah, in norries it all.
So I went down. He registered Easy. Mike sent Pikes
my middle name.
Speaker 4 (05:08):
Another It pulls up at the showground with the next load.
There's scooters, golf sets, TVs and baby seats all up.
There's thousands of items to be sorted, jewelry watchers and
silver bullions.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
Don't you touch anything, Nick, don't you buy anything.
Speaker 4 (05:30):
Natalie and Nick are married and they've been helping Easier
run his auctions for thirteen years. They all met playing
online poker.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
So we took our chances, didn't We.
Speaker 7 (05:42):
Took our chances.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
Didn't know whether it was a serial killer or not.
Speaker 7 (05:47):
But it worked out. It worked out.
Speaker 4 (05:52):
There's still dozens more items to unload and label. When
a visitor drops in unannounced.
Speaker 5 (05:59):
Oh here it is, mister, or I come every time
the day before and buy nothing. He never buys in.
Speaker 4 (06:05):
In his play, a stout man wearing suspenders struts into
the hall and immediately starts poking around.
Speaker 5 (06:12):
And if he does, he doesn't rhyming because he's You
can't eat strawberry Jam, because you can't pass the seage.
It's a tight ash. Hey, Strawberry Jam, here you got.
Speaker 8 (06:26):
II let you out of a home.
Speaker 4 (06:30):
Strawberry Jam promises to come to the auction tomorrow. He
never shows. On auction day. People arrive early for the viewing,
which sounds like a funeral but feels more like a
garage sale. Easy greets everyone like family.
Speaker 5 (06:53):
We opened the door there at eight point thirty. We
had people here waiting. We opened the door. They were
they were registring. They were queued out this door.
Speaker 4 (07:04):
It's hot and sticky inside the hall. People are stepping
over each other to get a good look at the display.
Greg is here showing his son his very first option.
Speaker 8 (07:13):
He's starting to buy.
Speaker 6 (07:14):
His own tools now, so I'm trying to teach him
how to go to options. He hasn't lean to it
one yet.
Speaker 4 (07:21):
A lot of farmers and traders come to the police
action for tools, even the ones that don't work. Before
the auction. Easy make sure they all have some fuel
in them, or at least a sticker to let people
know it needs some fixing up. Like he says, none
of this stuff comes home. It all kicks off at
ten am. Sharp trailer.
Speaker 5 (07:41):
It is an ex police vehicle. What's the having been?
We've got a couple of thousand to kick it away?
One thousand making tall fifty anywhere one thousand calls.
Speaker 4 (07:50):
A man wearing a blue flannel and a Cubra hat
ends up getting the police trailer for around two thousand dollars.
The serious buyers have put up with their own trailers,
ready to score a few bargains. There's even families with prams,
camping chairs and eskis settling in for a big day out.
(08:13):
A group of young guys are loading up their use.
Speaker 6 (08:15):
But it's a six hundred cc engine off a sports bike.
It goes very fast.
Speaker 4 (08:20):
Jack's and Worlder by trade and nabbed this engine for
two hundred bucks. He says, they usually go for one
and a half grand. But the boys are actually more
excited about where it could have come from.
Speaker 6 (08:31):
I mean, I don't know. My bike engine, for example,
could be from, you know, some sort of getaway vehicle.
You never really know. A few ovens on the back
as well. There were a few ovens for marijuana, yep,
bug clippers, whatever you wanted.
Speaker 4 (08:44):
They didn't get the ovens, but it made for a
good story to tell their mates.
Speaker 6 (08:49):
Yeah, so we were standing at one of the tables
and we saw that there were a couple of lights,
funny lights in front of us, looked like a big,
massive array, and the auction that says said it was
Ta Tree equipment, and a couple of the blokes the
back had a chuckle and then it dawned on me
this was actually being used for drug operation.
Speaker 4 (09:08):
He's planning to make an off road go cut with
his purchase while his brother scored a couple of surfboards
for themselves.
Speaker 6 (09:14):
We weren't picking up this stuff and it all go
to landfill, so it'll just be chucked out and you know,
wouldn't have a second life.
Speaker 4 (09:25):
As the auction wraps up, people prepared to hold their
winnings home. They're loading their trailers as others are waiting
for their ride. Even though all these items have had
some sort of criminal past, just like people, they deserve
a second chance. Once again, all these unclaimed stolen goods
have a home. Police can welcome new items to their
(09:47):
storage while all the proceeds go back to state revenue.
And it's all thanks to a guy named Easy.
Speaker 5 (09:55):
You know, I'm not the devil, you know, Okay, I
don't need to sell this stuff, like I'm really I'm
like the undertaker, but I'm just finalizing things.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
Naon.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
That was like an infinitely less posh version of antiques Rocho.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
I was so into it. That's awesome, thank you.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Honestly, that was like it was a delight to listen to.
I felt like I'd been transported from being here in
a studio. Yeah, I really feel like I was there
and like I saw some of the things that you
were using the audio to bring to life.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
So congratulations, great work. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
So being a news reporter by trade, do you need
to be able to spot a great story? What initially
captured you about Easy Mike his name?
Speaker 4 (10:49):
Not only that, but I never heard of a police auction,
let alone thought it was accessible to the public. It
was in Kempsey, which was a foreigner half our drive
from Sydney. But I thought, you know, surely there's got
to be stories out there as well. So and yeah,
it didn't disappoint.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
Yeah, so you drove out there and then you spend
you know what, like half a day or more around
this auction, talking to Easy Mike, talking to others and
trying to get a sense of what's going on. That's
going to mean you collect an enormous amount of audio.
How do you make sure you've got all the bits
you might need later?
Speaker 4 (11:26):
Well it turned out I had too much audio in
the end, I think, because that was my only chance
to get everything that I needed at the time, so
I think I over recorded. I ended up just recording
the whole day, which turned out to be hours and
gigabytes of audio. So I kind of kind of shot
myself in the foot because that I had to go
(11:48):
through all that, but it also made the cutting down easier.
I was a bit more ruthless in terms of getting
rid of chunks of audio.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Looking back on your experience, not just creating this episod,
but over the trio of episodes, what are you most
proud of?
Speaker 4 (12:05):
Oh, good question, I'd say sneaking to my gut. Even
when I felt the pressure of time and the deadlines,
there were certain stories that I was really fixated on
or a bit stubborn about, and I felt I wanted
to do something to see a story that I was
(12:26):
one hundred percent committed to, rather than settle for something
and do something half fast. So I'd say listening to
my intuition and letting that lead the way sometimes.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
Naan, I just I want to congratulate you on all
three of your stories. You have got such a fantastic
talent for finding people who have a perspective or a
story that's just not one we hear all the time,
and I really look forward to hearing more of that
from you in the future.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
Well done, Thank you, Jumally.
Speaker 4 (12:56):
It's been a blast.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
What a fantastic story to kick off today's theme, New Beginnings.
We're going to hear what Kate came up with in
just a moment. This is Find and Tell and this
week's theme is New Beginnings. Kate's previous stories have been
(13:24):
so beautiful, and she's had some really impressive guests like
Elizabeth Day, and she's shown a lot of vulnerability by
sharing quite intimate details about her personal life. Let's see
what she's made for us this time. Hey, Kate, welcome
back to Find and Tell.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
It's the final countdown.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
I know now with you, we've sort of we've taken
this almost trilogy approach in that we've been tracking your
experience of a really significant breakup.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
New Beginnings. What does that mean for you?
Speaker 7 (13:59):
It means joy. It just simply means joy. It means
releasing everything that we've gone through in the first and
second story and starting the next chapter.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Was there a moment in this process where it just
felt like it was impossible, like you weren't going to
get to joy?
Speaker 7 (14:18):
I mean I feel that weakly. I think, yeah, going
through a breakup, it's not a linear journey by any means,
but you just have to celebrate the winds, and you
have to celebrate the growth and the change and there
was so many things in telling this final story that
(14:40):
just made me smile.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
How do you feel we're on the verge, We're about
to press play, nervous still or if we settled in
over a couple of weeks.
Speaker 7 (14:48):
I'm just excited for this one. It's yeah, I hope,
I hope everyone feels really happy listening to it, because
to me, it's a bit of a like, fuck.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
Yes, that sounds like time to press play. This is
Kate's new beginnings.
Speaker 9 (15:07):
So we did these marriage of ours together as a group,
and by the end of it, everybody was screaming them
and crying. My kid was there, who's twenty one, and
she was like, Mum, I've never seen anything like this. This,
this is electrifying. And then basically the DJ kicked off
and everybody danced their hearts at and there were people crying.
(15:29):
There were elderly moms with their adult daughters being held
one on each arm, crying and just having that moment
and that permission to release the disappointment and the heartbreak
of having so much hope, so disillusioned.
Speaker 7 (15:46):
That's Humi Stein's author, podcaster and basically someone who I've
been obsessed with since her Channel V days. She's telling
me all about the divorce party that she held back
in feb to celebrate the end of her marriage. Yeah
you heard that, right, celebrate. I'll let her explain.
Speaker 9 (16:07):
I got divorced myself after a ten year marriage last year,
and I was like, now what. And the whole process
of getting divorced, it's not just you know, signing some papers.
It's a marriage first, and then it's the disintegration of
a marriage. It's a marriage breakdown. It's finally accepting that
the marriage is no longer. It's a really long, elongated
(16:28):
process that's really quite painful, and actually the divorce part
is kind of really good.
Speaker 7 (16:36):
So just to be completely transparent, I've never been divorced
and I haven't even been married, but I absolutely can
relate to what Yumi are saying.
Speaker 9 (16:46):
We've done the hard thinking and the hard decision making
and now we can finally kind of tie a bowl
around it and say, well that was now in the
past and we're moving on. And what I discovered was
just there aren't that many rituals or to celebrate divorce.
So I wanted to ritualize in a joyful way and
a feminist way. The end of a relationship.
Speaker 7 (17:10):
Last year, just like you me my eight year long
relationship ended, and this conversation it really made me realize
that I'd been unintentionally creating my own small rituals to
try and help process my heartbreak. I'd done really tiny
things like getting a fringe groundbreaking I know, or just
(17:31):
remembering the date that i'd been broken up with and
telling my friend AJ about it viral whatsapped voice message.
Yeah this week, it's four weeks, so almost at the
month mark, which is crazy. It's been two months this week,
which is exactly at this time. I was being broken
(17:52):
up with three months ago, and here I am writing
the case for me. Oh my gosh, it's my it's
my form Broaca anniversary today all but celebrate you mean
like again? Actually yesterday was six months broke up? Whoo
I survived. I went out to celebrate the anniversary with
(18:13):
two of my friends a woman new red dress that
I put from the op shop, which was great. I
felt like a new renewal thing. And the idea of
celebrating a divorce or a breakup might sound a little
bit weird, but just think about how many engagements, baby
showers weddings, first birthday, parties you've been to. So why then,
(18:37):
when it comes to celebrating something like the end of
a relationship, which can be such a profound experience of
grief but also of survival, are there no rituals like
not even one. You me and so many of the
people at the divorce party felt exactly the same way.
It was a moment of joy, It was a moment
of reflection, a moment to celebrate their resilience and just
(19:01):
release all of that emotion.
Speaker 9 (19:04):
And so we got maybe seven different people to come
up and talk about a really good story that they
want to share about their divorce. You know. One was like,
I gave birth to my daughter. It was our second kid.
And then my husband was like, I think I want
to leave because I really like my weekends.
Speaker 7 (19:22):
No, the audacity of men is unparalleled.
Speaker 9 (19:27):
I really like my weekends, and now having kids, things
seems to just get in the way of me doing
all the things that I want to do. And it
was heartbreak, but it was also like rage. So it
was a bit of a blood letting, like let's pour
it out and let's scream it out.
Speaker 7 (19:43):
After the blood letting, you me held her own version
of a wedding.
Speaker 9 (19:48):
A ceremony of marriage to ourselves, where we chose ourselves.
And one of the things that I did was reconceptualize
marriage vowls. If you think about what you can remember
off the cuff of the marriage vows, it's we are
gathered here today and it's also till death to us part.
(20:09):
That's the bit that people remember. So in the new
vows that we wrote, where we marry ourselves or we
commit to loving ourselves, I just mentioned that when we die,
like where we're going to be the ones that we
die with this This is our longest standing relationship. So
wouldn't it be great if we were happy to go
together with us with me? And also it's a really
(20:31):
grim thought, you know, it's kind of grim that we
all die alone, right, but.
Speaker 7 (20:34):
Also incredibly freeing, right.
Speaker 9 (20:37):
I totally agree. So we did these marriage vows together
as a group, and by the end of it, everybody
was screaming them and crying.
Speaker 7 (20:48):
And so what did that feel like for you to
be in that space?
Speaker 9 (20:52):
Oh? It felt amazing, you know, because there was a
whole spectrum of people there in attendance. There were quite
shy people who said to me really quietly. I've never
really even acknowledged that I got divorced. It was my
own private pain. And then there were other people who
were just like making an absolute rucous about it and
have been for years. It was such a great feeling
(21:12):
to kind of facilitate people being able to ritualize their divorces.
Speaker 7 (21:18):
I've found that coming to terms with the end of
a chapter of your life it can be really tough,
but it also can be so freeing The impermanence of
it all feels really important. Things that we never expect
to happen just do, and things that we expect to
stay the same just don't.
Speaker 9 (21:38):
If somebody runs a cafe, let's say, for seven years,
and it's really good and it's popular, but then it
starts to not make so much money, and so that
he decided to close. Technically they've failed, But for seven
years it was really successful. So did they fail or
did they just decide to wrap up when the time
was right. So that that, for me is kind of
a comfort. When you think about a failed relationship, it's
(22:00):
not all failure necessarily, It's just you know, at the end,
it didn't last, and not everything should last.
Speaker 7 (22:06):
And it's it's really the rituals that mark the endings
of these relationships and that help us to move on.
And so I just wanted to take what Yumi had
said and just really commemorate the end of my breakup
year and just celerate the start of the next chapter
something that felt feminist and joyful, but also a little
(22:29):
bit like home Tod b.
Speaker 10 (22:31):
Shepherd that been kidde in care chickat the person who
was so ungrateful or did not deserve money. Yeah, this
is going cry now.
Speaker 7 (22:45):
In Persian culture, we have this ritual called halahafez when
around Maru's which is our your ear, you put your
hand on a book of poetry, ask a question and
get an answer half as his poetry is. It's kind
of like trying to untangle shake experience Old English, though,
and so even if you speak fassy, the meaning is
one hundred percent of for debate, which is perfect if
(23:07):
you're my mom and my aunt and you're essentially telling
my fortune.
Speaker 10 (23:12):
The loss of love, what it does to you. Again,
I'm not just saying she's.
Speaker 7 (23:22):
But as I listen to them, even the skeptic in
me was really shocked.
Speaker 10 (23:27):
I cried a lot from that.
Speaker 8 (23:31):
Aless lover Mayam Dick. Can they goa the babe, Babe nice,
my little Astra chicken, Give me a glass of wine.
Speaker 10 (23:50):
Let me enjoy, enjoy the life you never know your
destiny has got for you.
Speaker 7 (24:01):
I've definitely struggled to rEFInd myself this year, but listening
back to all of the voice messages from this time,
it's really helped me to realize how far I've come.
I feel like it's such a gradual process of learning
to spend time with myself and enjoy my own company,
just like you me. I needed to make a commitment
(24:23):
to myself and I bought this like silver ring. It
was kind of like a promise to myself to like
look after myself and my names and have that be
really central. So that was kind of a nice ritual
thing to do, I guess, and I think I'm finally
ready to do what half has suggested and just enjoy
(24:44):
life and start my new beginning. Today I just was
like lying in the water, like looking up at the
citadel and it's so warm, and I just had to
fix a lotto and I just like burst out laughing
kind of with like joy, and I don't know, I literally,
(25:04):
I was just I was like, life is really good.
Speaker 9 (25:12):
I mean, I think that's the thing too with the
ritual of breakup is it's telling your story. I said
that looking at you in a very meaningful way, because
we're doing your podcast. It's telling a story, and then
hopefully that's the bow you tie around that chapter of
your life and then you can kind of push it
to one side.
Speaker 7 (25:31):
Thank you so much, Umia, I've been talking to you
in this beautiful room with all of your mum's beautiful objects.
Speaker 9 (25:38):
I know she's got. It's like a little shrine to
Japan with a treadmill, like it's so Asian.
Speaker 7 (25:46):
A day. The friend that I've been what's up voice messaging?
She started out being a friend of a friend, and
over the last twelve months we've sent each other so
many messages about heartbreak but also lowliness. To be honest,
that's all shifted now. We're talking more and more about
(26:06):
everything else that's going on in our lives in romantic relationships.
They're not really the focus of our conversation. But of course,
when my breakup anniversary rolled around, she remembered.
Speaker 11 (26:21):
Hello, just wanted to say congratulations on pioneering the way
forward for yourself and going on so many adventures and
leaning in so well to pursuing your artistic and creative
(26:43):
endeavors and upholstering your own furniture, all the things that
you do Cape. You are really amazing and it's been
nice to get to know you over the last year
in such a strange format. I hope we actually hang
out sometime soon. But I hope you're well and yeah,
(27:05):
no need to get back, just wanted to say hi.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
It was really nice to hear from AJ again. I
feel like I've missed Aj. I have just a giant
list of things I need to comment on very quickly.
I was excited to hear from AJ again. I didn't
realize your fringe is a breakup fringe. It's a great fringe.
You should always have had a fringe. And was that
your mum or your auntie saying asshole?
Speaker 3 (27:35):
It was so good? It was my maa well.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
Done, well done mom, hey, and well done you. What
a beautiful end to your your trio of episodes.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
Congratulations, thank mama.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
I feel like the question you were asking in this
episode was really clear, Like I felt like I from
the beginning, I had a sense of we are going
to ask why we don't commemorate the new beginnings that
come from a sadness like a divorce or a breakup.
I'm interested though. It makes a lot of sense for
me having listened to it, But beforehand, when you're conceiving
(28:10):
of this episode, doesn't necessarily make sense to put divorce
and new beginnings together.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
So where did that come from?
Speaker 7 (28:17):
To me? It's a really obvious link. Yeah, I think
divorce breakups, they're really reburseed, and as Yumi says, like,
it's not all failure. And I think we often have
in our societies and in our groups of people that
surround us, we often have this notion that divorce and
(28:39):
the end of a relationship can be so sad, but
for so many people it's not. It's so freeing, and
it's such a celebration of refining yourself and reconfiguring yourself
in the world. And so for me, it felt really
important to be able to tell that story.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
I loved there was a moment conversation between you and
Yumi where you talked about the fact that it seems
quite bizarre. I think that something has to last a
lifetime for it to be valuable or good. There's nothing
else we apply that that measure too, I suppose that
measure of success. Tell me about talking to Yumi Steins.
Speaker 7 (29:18):
It was so fun. It was quite weird because she
was in Melbourne with her kids, staying at her mum's house,
and so she just said coming over to my mom's
and I was.
Speaker 3 (29:29):
Like, okay, of course I'll just.
Speaker 7 (29:32):
Come to Umi Stean's mom's house. Sure that's not weird
or different. And at the time, my mom and my
aunt were staying with me, like my aunt was visiting
from overseas, and so I had them in my house
and they were like.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
What are you doing?
Speaker 7 (29:46):
And I was like, I'm going to do an interview
at someone's mum's house. I know, it's very confusing. And
they were like, well, what are you taking? And I
was like, oh my gosh, I haven't even thought about that.
Of course, I can't chrup to someone's mum's house without
bringing herself.
Speaker 3 (29:59):
Bring a plate kicked or something exactly.
Speaker 7 (30:01):
And so I brought her some mangoes. The reason I
did that was because the morning after my breakup, when
my friends came to pick me up and the things
I chose to take with me when I left my
house were in order. My laptop great, practical, good love
(30:21):
that for me. My wallet great, also practical, my passport
like I was just.
Speaker 3 (30:26):
Sure, yeah, and I wanted to flee the country.
Speaker 8 (30:29):
I know.
Speaker 7 (30:29):
I think that's what I was thinking, like tomorrow morning,
I'm And then I took from the football a single
mango interesting, and I think that was like the vindictive
part of me that was like, I love mangos so much.
Speaker 3 (30:43):
Mango's are so expensive.
Speaker 7 (30:44):
I'm taking this with.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
Me, this yours.
Speaker 7 (30:47):
Yeah. And so there was a really nice moment where
I was like on the street walking to Yumie's mum's
house with my mangos in my hands, being like, come
a long way.
Speaker 3 (30:57):
You have come a long way. I want to I'm
gonna go.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
I'm going to hold this to podcasting, the podcasting journey.
Speaker 3 (31:03):
What are you most proud of?
Speaker 7 (31:05):
I think that this has been such an emotional process
to go through, but it's been so healing. Like I
thought that I was all good and then going through
this process, I had to relive a lot of stuff.
And it's been really important for me to be able
to look on a year of voice messages with fresh
(31:26):
eyes and fresh perspective, and there are so many little
things like the fortune telling, for example, with my mum
and my aunt, Like I just recorded that on my
phone before I started this process, because I wanted to
know what my fortune was going to be and I
needed to remember it. And so that was just us
in my laund room because it's something that's important to me.
(31:48):
And so it feels really nice that I got to
include all of these little bits of myself and my
life and my world in a way that feels very
authentic to my voice.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
Kate, your willingness to share, I think what for many
of us is super relatable but also deeply personal has
not gone unnoticed.
Speaker 3 (32:07):
I really hope that this series has helped you.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
Heal even further past the version of you that we
met back in episode one. Now, this could be the
last time we talked to you on Find and Tell,
but I hope I get to hear much much more
work from you in the future. You have done a
wonderful job.
Speaker 7 (32:24):
Thank you so much for listening, Jamela.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
When we come back, who will win today's episode, Naan
or Kate?
Speaker 3 (32:34):
I am going to need a moment to think.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
This is a Find and Tell and the theme this
week was new Beginnings, and this could be the last
time that we hear from one of our brilliant storytellers.
Nayanne's character development in this work, her scripting, her narration,
the way she genuinely went out finding a story, finding
(33:05):
a police auction which I'd never even heard of, and
bringing easy Mike's Gloria's voice and personality to all of
us was really insightful. I think she showed some real skill,
and she's developed over this series. I think one of
the things that she did really cleverly is she made
us see what she was telling us about in audio.
Speaker 3 (33:25):
Right.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
I can picture that police auction in my mind's eye.
I can see what's going on. Huge congratulations to Naan
on that episode. Kate has made this horribly hard to call.
It's rude, how difficult these two have made this decision
for me because this was again an excellent episode. There's
(33:46):
some beautiful wisdom in Kate's episode, and she delivers it
in a way that is warm and friendly, doesn't feel
condescending or sort of annoying, like you're being told what
to think or what to do. An absolute highlight of
this episode for me was being permitted inside Kate's family
home and hearing her interaction with her mum in particular,
(34:07):
I think Kate also gave us an arc a story
arc over these three episodes that made it such a
pleasure to listen along with. And I imagine if I'd
just been through a breakup, this would have been very soothing.
Kate has created a beautiful trio of episodes that sit
together in such an elegant way.
Speaker 3 (34:25):
If I was judging them as a three, oh my gosh,
I haven't.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
I just think it was absolute perfection, But I have
to judge them individually, and individually, I think we could
have seen a little bit more experimentation this week, moving
away from the same structure, branching out with the way
Kate does things, and I'm sure she will do that
in future, because she's super talented. After hearing both stories,
(34:50):
I've really wrestled with this one, Guys. I've gone backwards
and forwards inside of my head trying to figure it out.
But I've decided that the story that wins this week
is Naan's Naar, you are this week's winner.
Speaker 3 (35:05):
Congratulations, awesome, yay. I feel like we did this for easy.
Speaker 4 (35:09):
Mike Ah too easy, right, Thanks so much for having me, Timilo.
It's been a blast, and this whole experience has been unforgettable,
all right.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
The way the scores line out, things are about to
get very very interesting. Make sure that you do not
miss our next episode because we are going to be
hearing the two final tales before two of our storytellers
bow out. Who is it going to be? Don't miss it?
Press follow in whichever podcast app you are listening on.
Speaker 3 (35:47):
A big thank you.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
To our show partners Afters and Road Australia. Find and
Tell is a co production between iHeart Australia and the
black Cast podcast network.
Speaker 3 (35:57):
Black Cast empowers
Speaker 2 (35:59):
First Nations people and people of color to reclaim their narratives,
strengthen cultural identity, and contribute to a more inclusive Australia
by showcasing exciting emerging talent from Australian communities.
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