"Welcome Back to the Campfire" featuring a story by Nokie Rae

These episodes of The Campfire Storytelling Podcast feature stories finally brought to the stage. The episode you are about to hear was first recorded via Zoom during an online showcase. However, we can now bring you a live, in-person version, along with tweaks and updates to narratives you may have heard before.

This episode features Nokie Rae, a past student in Campfire’s Advanced Storytelling class.  These students take a six-week class to prepare to tell a story about life and how they live it. 

You can learn more about Nokie Rae on the Campfire website, https://cmpfr.com/events/welcome-back/

This episode was originally performed in April 2022, produced by Jeff Allen, and recorded live at the High Low in St. Louis, Missouri.

Transcript

Steven Harowitz  00:12

Hello, Internet. It's been a little while. I'm Steven Harowitz, and I will be your host for this episode of The Campfire Storytelling Podcast, recorded here in St. Louis, Missouri. That may sound new to some of you, and I'm here to confirm that you are correct. What used to be called the Campfire at Home Podcast is now The Campfire Storytelling Podcast. So long Campfire at Home. It was a pretty good five-ish year run. Now you may be asking yourselves, what's different about The Campfire Storytelling Podcast? And what I would tell you, not a whole lot just yet. You'll still find new and old well told stories from the everyday voices that live around us, the things you've come to know us for. We do have some interesting new audio and podcast things that we're experimenting with. But for now, let's not waste any more time. Let's get to some stories. In this episode, I have something extra special for you because we have stories to share from our return to in-person events. Our first event was the Welcome Back to the Campfire event, and our second was a Campfire Showcase. Both events featured storytellers who told their stories virtually due to COVID, so we invited them back to tell their stories in front of a live audience. Now this episode will highlight one of those storytellers. You can catch all the other storytellers by subscribing to The Campfire Storytelling Podcast, wherever you get your podcasts. Now, let's head to the Campfire to listen to Nokie's story from our live and in-person Welcome Back to the Campfire event.

Nokie Rae  01:58

Hi, there. It's been a while since we've all been together. This is a little overwhelming, so please have some grace for me. All right. So, my best friend Emelia swears she wasn't flirting with me the night that we met. It was my first trans support group, and I'm at home. I'm getting ready trying to find that perfect outfit in an apartment that I just moved into like two or three months beforehand, after my separation. And I should be super excited and happy. And I was, but I found myself just a bundle of nerves because I knew that I would show up and they would look right through me and they'd say, “No, you're not trans enough. You're not queer enough,” right? But I've been waiting my whole life for this moment to start this adventure. So, I went and I showed up anyway. And I'm so glad I did. Because everyone was incredibly kind and supportive. But there was this one person in particular with dark curly hair and super cute freckles who was giving the most intentional and wonderful feedback. And right away I just felt drawn to Emelia’s warmth and intelligence. After group, they were all going out to a local café, and they asked if I wanted to go and like yeah, of course I want to go, right? But I realized I hadn't been to this area before. And it took me a while to find somewhere to park. So, when I finally, you know, walk in the door, I take a deep breath. And I breathe in that coffee and I'm searching the room trying to find them and I see them across the room. And I don't know if you've ever been that person who's gone to a new school or a new job and you walk in and the table’s full. Right? My heart sank, and all those emotions that I was feeling at home came all up again, like, “I don't belong here, I don't fit.” But of course, someone looked up and saw me and smiled. They said, “Hey, Nokie, grab a chair. We're going to make room for you.” So, as I'm sitting down, I'm getting settled in, the happiness comes back and I'm feeling better. But that's when I realize I am tired. I'm autistic, so I already knew it was going to be, you know, not the easiest of nights. But I just spent the last two hours in this brightly lit room with a bunch of strangers, you know, bearing witness to a part of myself that I had learned the hard way, time and time again, to keep hidden from the world. So, I just sat there quietly with my hands in my lap, hoping I didn't come off as weird until I felt somebody breeze past me on the left. And I heard the scraping of a chair and I felt it being sat down next to me. And I look over and it's Emelia. And she has this really great way of drawing people out and so pretty soon I was jumping into conversations about books and board games. And I was getting to ask questions about the trans experience from people who have lived it for years successfully, right? It was incredible. Eventually, the cafe shut down. We all went outside to start our long, Midwestern goodbyes. And my body said, “Hey, you know, we were tired. Now we are exhausted. Maybe we should go home.” But I wasn't ready. Right? I felt like I just gotten a foothold into this group of courageous and beautiful humans, and I just wasn't ready to give it up. So, I stuck around. Even as other people started filing off to their cars, I stuck around. And I stuck around until there was just one other person. And of course, that one other person was Emelia. She asked me where my car was parked, and I was like two or three blocks away. She asked me if she could give me a ride. And I said yes. But when we got to my car, instead of giving me that signal, you know, it's like, “Hey, it's been a really fun night, but it's getting late. So, like, get the hell out of my car,” she started up another conversation, and then another one, and another one. And I can't remember exactly how late we talked, but eventually my body was like, “I've had enough. We have work in the morning.” So, I thanked her for everything, I got in my car, and I drove home. I am someone who keeps a meticulous diary. And so, I went back and I looked it up, you know, that day, just to see if my memory and what I had written down matched. And among all the emotions, the hopes and joy and fear and anxiety, all those little details that I just wanted to capture, because that day was so important to me, it was pretty obvious that I had a thing for Emelia. And I thought, you know, with all the attention she was giving me that, you know, maybe she felt the same way. So, the next week, I showed up to group. I may have been just a little bit kind of maybe sort of very excited to see Emelia was there too. And when it's her time to speak, she dropped the hint that she played music, that she was a musician. And I thought I'd be real cute. I'd be real slick. In my feedback to her, I was like, “Well, you know, I play an instrument too. Maybe we could get together at your house sometime and jam out.” And then I realized what I just done, right? I just flirted with this woman in front of a room of people I was just getting to know. But Emelia looked at me and she smiled that smile where her eyes closed almost all of the way. And she said, “Yeah, we should definitely hang out.” And so later that night, at the cafe, we made plans to hang out the following weekend. I ended up getting sick and so we had to reschedule. But instead of putting off our friendship any longer, we decided to start texting. And I went back in my diary to look at that day, and we talked from noon, until 10:30pm. And the last line in that entry said, “I can't be 100% sure, but this definitely feels like flirting.” And so, you know, we kept talking throughout the week, and the day finally came. And I'm in my apartment once again, getting ready, trying to find an even cuter outfit, because this is, you know, really important. And this time, there's no anxiety. I'm feeling so good. I'm happy. And I'm excited until it comes time to pull out my instrument, pack it up. And then I realized maybe this wasn't the best choice, and the anxiety comes, and it grips me again, because Emelia is a real life musician. She plays multiple instruments well. She's been in bands. She's recorded albums. Yeah, like with a “sss” at the end. They’re on Spotify. I was the kid with the little Casio keyboard, you know, just self-taught, and I hadn't pulled it out in years. I'm like, “What was I thinking?” This was the worst flirt. I could have chosen the hubris, right? And so, when I get there, instead of you know, you know, when I get there, Emilia comes out and she's like, “Okay, grab your equipment, and bring it down to my rehearsal area,” you know, in the basement, all fancy. “And we'll get set up and get started.” I'm like, well, wait a minute, instead of doing that thing that we've been talking about and planning and scheduling and rescheduling, and two weeks, right, instead of doing that, why don’t we stay up here and talk and get to know each other? She was so great about it. She instantly jumped up she grabbed a bottle of wine and some snacks, and she handed me a cat, which as an introvert was like the best thing she could have done, right? And then we sat down on either end of her big brown couch. We started off with the broad and, you know, relatively easy topics of conversation, and after a while it felt like maybe we were getting closer on the couch, and you know how it goes, right? You might get up to go to the bathroom or get more wine and then you might sit down a little closer on the couch. And, and then all of a sudden, I think we loosened up from all the wine, and our banter game just went through the roof, right? Like we're cracking each other up. We're having so much fun. We're talking about everything under the sun. It was great, and we are definitely getting closer on the couch. And there's no way that Emelia can deny her flirtations that night, because all of a sudden, she pulled me into her arms, and she kissed me deeply. And then I freaked out. There were a lot of things going on for me in that moment. I’d just gotten out of a long and unhappy marriage. Of course, so I was, you know, any kind of intimacy was going to be scary. And also, even into that moment in my life, in my mid-30s, I was still haunted by the ghosts of my Southern Baptist heritage that told me all the way back, you know, from the age of nine that my queerness was an abomination. But I think the biggest thing for me that night was I didn't know what our sex was going to look like. Hormone therapy affects our bodies in big ways and in small ways, and lately, my body hadn't been as cooperative in the bedroom. So, I looked at her. And I said, “I'm so sorry, but I don't think I'm ready for this yet.” And she was hurt, of course. And I was incredibly embarrassed. And you’d think that our friendship would get a lot more casual after that, right? We'd see each other in group, maybe we'd text each other a cat meme here and there? But that night really set off a cycle for us where she'd invite me over and we'd hang out as friends, and then maybe a time or two later we would cuddle up on the couch and watch a movie as friends, and then maybe the next time we might start smooching a little bit but just as friends, and then eventually one of us would say, “Hey, we're having so much fun hanging out as friends maybe we should try dating again.” But inevitably, one of us would get scared. So, this cycle would continue. But eventually we did, you know, don't worry, we did eventually get back to her bedroom. And I remember she turned down the lights and turned up the music. And then she kicked the cat out of the bedroom, which, okay, that's a choice. That's fine. But when the kissing and the heavy petting finally got to that point of no return, right, like it's happening, once again, I froze up, and I pulled away. And I moved my body to the edge of her queen size mattress. And I tucked my arms under my body, and I turned my head away towards the wall. And I thought to myself, “This is it. Right? This is the moment where she finally realizes she just can't do it anymore.” But Emelia did what Emelia does best. And just like that night when we met outside the cafe late at night, she asked if I needed help. And I said yes. And she asked if she could touch me. And I said yes. So, she put her fingers on my back, soothing me, caressing me. And I remember turning my head towards her and smiling. So, she picked up the pace. And after a while I started making those intimate sounds, right, that let your partner know like they’re doing something real good. Don't stop now. So, she continued touching me in these intricate patterns all over, heavy and then light and then fast and then slow. And eventually, when she lifted her hands from my body, I realized that there was this swirling ball of energy in my chest. I didn't know what it was, I'd never experienced pleasure like that. And not just of the body, but of the spirit. I was fully present in this moment without fear or shame, without ego. It was beautiful. And so, I let Emelia know what was going on. And immediately she like, you know, she put on her thinking cap and her like scientist frock, and she's like, “We are going to figure this thing out together.” And so, she's like, you know, “I'm going to touch on your neck,” and I can feel the energy moved to my stomach. And she touched on my arm, and I could feel it shoot through my legs. She's like, well, “What if I touch your arm and your leg at the same time? Or what if I swirl on your chest clockwise and then counterclockwise? And then what if? And what if? What if?” until we collapsed into to each other's arms. And then we pulled out our phones, right? Let me tell you trying to search the internet for what had just happened without knowing about tantra or other sexual energy practices was damn near impossible. But I felt like in that moment, everything was going to be okay. And even though we continued that cycle month after month trying to figure out if we were more than just friends, I knew now that there were other ways to love and it was going to be this awesome experience, getting to figure them all out. And from time to time, Emelia and I would get together, and we would explore those possibilities together. Until one morning, we've been hanging out like day and night for like two weeks. And Emelia sits up in bed, and sun is streaming in her stained-glass windows, illuminating those dark curls that I still adore so much. And she said, “Is this it? Is this the moment we finally get together for real?” And nothing has ever been so easy to say, with such certainty, than “Yes, my love.” Later I would write in my diary that we don't always get to choose the endings to the stories we set out to tell for ourselves. I wanted to give insight into what it was like for me to discover and cultivate queer intimacy all the way like in my mid-30s, and it's turned into this love letter to my best friend and that no matter who flirted first or who pulled away last, we held on to the hope that we would find each other in the end. Thank you.

Steven Harowitz  16:23

That is a wrap. You can make sure to hear the other episodes from our return to in-person events by subscribing to The Campfire Storytelling Podcast, wherever you get your podcasts. And if you liked what you heard, please leave a review. It helps others find our podcast, support our students, and to prove to the internet that we are legit and not a rando podcast out in the interwebs. We'd love to have you come out for an event or even take a class. You can visit cmpfr.com. That's cmpfr.com for all the details. Whether you live in St. Louis or nowhere nearby, there are ways to attend our events virtually. You can also find out more about that at cmpfr.com. That’s cmpfr.com. As always, a big thank you to the Campfire team, our Podcast Producer Jeff Allen, and everyone who attends these live events. Tonight’s stories were recorded live at the High Low, one of the wonderful venues that the Kranzberg Arts Foundation runs here in St. Louis, Missouri. Thank you for listening to The Campfire Storytelling Podcast. I've been your host, Steven Harowitz. Until next time.