storytelling

I never remember my mom reading books, and yet I think she would if she had the time. Often she worked all day, had a second job, helped us with our homework, made our meals, cleaned the house. As many moms out there know, it is a thankless job, and yet I never remember my mom complaining. She stayed up all hours of the night for months to make our Christmas presents so that we would have something to unwrap under the tree. I did not know that at the time, and yet thinking back on the gifts she made for us I know the countless hours it took for her to pull it all off. If she was purchasing the gift she would put it on layaway months and months in advance and diligently go and pay a little more each week until it was finally paid off. This was before she had a credit card so it was the only way she was ever able to get gifts under the tree.

She was the epitome of stretching things to make ends meet. While I never saw her reading books, I always saw her studying the Bible, our church books, and praying. She read those periodicals voraciously. She was adamant that we all read well and, while I do not remember when I started to read, I rarely got in trouble for staying up to read with the flashlight. She must have known that one day I would figure out that I could either get sleep and feel rested or not and pay for it the next day.

While I do not remember my mom pushing me to read, I think she gently encouraged reading and knew I escaped into a book often as a kid. My home life was not the greatest place, and somehow I would jump into the plot of a book, and I could transport myself into a whole different realm. We were her guinea pigs while she was getting her Masters degree in Education. We would read excerpts and have to answer questions and I absolutely HATED the reading comprehension tests she made us take for her classwork. I hated it just as much on the SATs. I like reading, but I hated regurgitating it later with a list of questions.

As I think about storytelling, reading, and the passion I have for stories, I have a smile on my face. My brother-in-law makes up stories for my 2 month old niece and I know that she will have the adventure of story in her life. While I will not make her take practice reading comprehension tests, I know she will carry on the tradition of voraciously reading, like her mom and my mom. Stories let us live an entirely different life, if even for just a few moments.

My mom was a badass. I only wish she knew it. Maybe she did, I will never know.

We tell the stories of our lives to remember, laugh, and ponder where we have been and where we are going. We learn from each other, grow, and try not to make the same mistakes. Stories enrich us. We hear how someone else moves about the world, how they interact with their family and friends, and how they endure the good times and the bad. We laugh with them, we cry with them, and we relate in ways we sometimes cannot imagine.

I just finished reading: “If It’s Not One Thing, It’s Your Mother” by Julia Sweeney. If you are not familiar with Julia, she was “It’s Pat” on Saturday Night Live. Her book is a memoir and heavily focuses on her experience adopting a daughter from China. She is a blunt and humorous writer. I appreciated reading her book. It is just raw, real, and to the point. Her comments about telling stories resonated with me:

“I think my urge to perform, and specifically to perform true stories from my own life, is my way of coping. Just like alcohol is for some people. But the storytelling urge is not particular to the Irish. It’s in everyone. In fact it’s how our brains, every single one of our brains–not particular to any ethnicity–makes sense of the world. We tell ourselves how it all went, how this happened and how that happened and how it could happen in the future.” page 238

Is that what storytelling is for each of us? A litany of events, dates, and experiences that we tell as we make sense of the world? Yes, and so much more. I often write to make sense of my world. As the words come out of my fingertips I often connect thoughts and ideas and have aha moments. I realize what bothers me, find solutions to problems, and feel gratitude for the good parts of my day.

For me looking back at my past, at the stories of my life, help me to better understand myself and how I tick. Since both of my parents have passed on, and my grandparents are gone, I am on my own to put the pieces of my past together. I have asked my sister or brother how they remember an event, and yet their memory is much different from my memory of a specific event. That makes sense, as we each look out from our own perspectives. Since I cannot call my mom up and ask her about my first words, or how I handled a specific event in my life, I have to rely on my own memories. They may be flawed or off from the actual details but in the end, it is still the story I remember that has molded me into who I am today. As biased as my perspective might be, the feelings I had in each experience shaped how I handled future events.

Our story, our view on the world, is how we make sense and process who we are. Keep telling your story.