Bonus: 2 Lives Creator Listens To Her Inner Voice
TRANSCRIPT
This is 2 Lives. I’m Laurel Morales. We’re working hard on season 10 of 2 Lives, which we’ll be bringing you just in time to kick off your summer. In the meantime I thought I’d share a bit about 2 Lives origin story.
The following is a speech I gave at the Flagstaff Women’s Leadership Summit.
I love stories. I love listening to them. I love watching them. I love reading them. And I love making them. But when I’m consuming stories, I’m tuning out the world and my inner voice – my source of creativity. This a story about how I tuned back into my source.
At a young age I established an identity for myself as a journalist. I was a public radio reporter for 20 years. I covered many disasters — both man made and natural. As we all know these events can have traumatic implications on people and the environment. I’m talking about wildfires; uranium and coal mining; drought and climate change.
In late spring my editor would often remind us to have our go bags ready — a change of clothes, recording equipment, extra batteries.
So on June 30, 2013, when the Yarnell Hill Fire killed 19 firefighters outside Prescott, I thought I’ve got this.
The loss was devastating and unprecedented. If you listen to war correspondents or news anchors that word gets thrown around a lot. The impact of what that word really means would hit me later when I most needed to hold it together. But there was no time to react on a human level. I had stories to file and deadlines to make.
This was a huge story – both National Public Radio and BBC wanted me on the air.
My NPR editor called me that Sunday night and we strategized a plan to cover the story. I would do live debriefs with Morning Edition, midday and afternoon hosts. He wanted me to not only track the spread of the fire, but also interview the grieving families.
After I drove down the following morning I learned there was going to be a community gathering that afternoon. Within hours of finding out their husband, father, or son had been trapped in a box canyon, and burned alive, community leaders decided to hold this public event.
I arrived early sweaty and over-caffeinated at the Embry Riddle auditorium. The families were already seated in the front two rows. They looked pale and shell shocked, their eyes puffy and red. They were experiencing something so private, so raw, on full display.
The entire town crowded into that auditorium. I stood with other reporters at the side of the stage with off duty firefighters dressed in army fatigue pants and T-shirts showing where they were each from.
Most of the event consisted of politicians, who didn’t know these men, giving canned speeches. It was awkward. This was not the time or place for campaigning.
Finally after 45 minutes, the division fire chief Don Devendorf walked to the podium. This man knew all too well the dangers of the job. He knew these men individually because he’d mentored them and worked alongside them.
Out of all my years as a reporter this moment sticks with me. He said the word brave gets thrown around a lot but firefighting is a calling. He said it’s about getting the training, having the drive, and making a difference. He gave the families something to hold onto – a moment to feel more than grief.
As he sat down I was thinking, my editor gave me a directive. This might be my only chance to introduce myself to the wife or relative of one of the hotshots. But if I approach them I’m no better than those politicians finding sneaky ways to talk about their agenda and get votes. And of course, this was when the devastation hit me. As I started to approach the families, a wave of grief overwhelmed me and I burst into tears.
It was at that moment a little voice inside was trying to tell me this kind of journalism – shoving my microphone in the face of someone in deep grief and probably shock – was not for me.
In the days that followed I decided to pivot and take Mr. Rogers' advice. I looked to the helpers. Someone told me the men who had died were never left alone. It’s called honor watch and began that sunday night when the prescott fire crew stayed with the men who died through the night until the bodies were taken to the medical examiner's office.
Days later they lined the streets holding flags during the procession of 19 white hearses. Inside each of the hearses another honor guard member sat vigil. Eric Caputo, the commander of the Flagstaff honor guard, who was also a firefighter, told me we do this so that they are never alone.
I continued covering Yarnell for several weeks and even years afterward as the investigation came out.
It was around then that a little voice inside told me it was time to move on from reporting. I still loved telling stories but four minutes wasn’t enough time to do certain stories justice. I wanted to produce longer sound designed stories like This American Life and Snap Judgment.
My identity was still wrapped up with being a journalist. So I pitched KJZZ a podcast. My boss said he was willing to give me three months to report a limited series then I’d go back to daily reporting. But I’d caught the bug. This is what I wanted to do – dive deeper into someone’s story, do it justice, honor them, and convey meaning.
The station paid for me to take a podcast workshop and I pitched another one. I came up with what I thought were several convincing arguments for my boss to make me a full time podcast producer. He wasn’t quite willing to embrace on demand radio, even though other public radio stations in Vermont, Seattle, and Denver had.
So I went back to daily news reporting covering wildfires, a kidnapping, and uranium mining near Grand Canyon National Park.
Then in 2020 when the pandemic took such a terrible toll on the Navajo Nation, I had a bit of a personal come to Jesus. I think many of us took this time to reexamine our lives.
You all remember what the news was like in 2020. Personally I was no longer listening to the news myself. I had very little desire to report on it. The only thing keeping me going was the knowledge that reporting on the pandemic’s impact on the Navajo Nation might bring them the help they so desperately needed.
I kept meeting people whose stories deserved more time including Navajo translator Marquerita Donald who barely survived COVID. But when she did seized the moment to become a nurse, her lifelong goal. That’s when I came across this quote: “We all have two lives. The second begins the moment we realize we have only one.” That little voice inside spoke up again. That’s how I came up with the idea for the podcast 2 LIVES - stories of people who have faced darkness and how those moments transformed them. I’d had my own 2 LIVES moments and knew how powerful they could be.
My boss loved the idea and said sure, take three months to produce it. So I created seven episodes. As I was interviewing people and writing and sound designing their stories, I was getting into a groove. I loved what I was doing. Listeners said they found meaning and connection in 2 LIVES.
As my three months came closer to an end, I didn’t want to go back to daily reporting. So I went to my boss and asked if he’d let me produce it full time. I thought surely he’ll let me continue this time with all the positive feedback the show was getting. But he said no. He needed me to get back on my beat.
So that’s when I gave my two weeks. I’d been going to therapy and my wonderful therapist helped me listen to my inner voice. She helped me untangle myself from this journalist identity. I’d talked it over with my husband and we budgeted and planned for this. He knew how ready I was for this change.
KJZZ let me keep the intellectual property of the name and the idea and here I am producing my 10th season. And 2 LIVES has won several awards including a Viola for digital storytelling and a Signal Award for best indie podcast.
And I’ve learned to listen to that voice inside and sometimes it's quiet but that’s when I have to get real still.
This is 2 Lives. I’m Laurel Morales.
