Our Story

December 29, 2014

Greetings from the echo,

“We are lonesome animals. We spend all our life trying to be less lonesome. One of our ancient methods is to tell a story begging the listener to say — and to feel — ‘Yes, that’s the way it is, or at least that’s the way I feel it. You’re not as alone as you thought.’”  John Steinbeck.

There have been many times, too many to guess the number, where I have told a story in exchange for a place to sleep.  Traveling along two lane roads through farmland or mountain creases or smalltown neighborhoods, stopping at a friendly front door.  Knocking, telling my story, and waiting to see if I made a connection.

In thousands of miles of travel, I have accumulated stories about these stories.  Exhanges of bits of my life for bits of other people’s lives, which became a new thing we both walked away with.  Our stories.

It is a compelling thing, to share a little of who we are by telling about our family, or how we felt on September 11, or the day our daughter was born, or that time when we almost drowned.  We crack open our vulnerability and say what is important, and pray that the listener honors the moment, and perhaps feels the emotion, recognizes it, and empathizes.

We have told stories since the time when they were painted on cave walls.  Stories shared around fires of heroic exploits, or family history, or the creation of the world.  Prophets, poets, actors, troubadours, travelled from town to town to share stories, some of events from yesterday, some from one hundred years ago, some from tomorrow.

And then we put down words, and created theater, and made radio plays and then movies and vlogs and podcasts.  The methods of telling the story fanned out and reached more listeners, in different ways, but at the heart of it is someone with an experience they wanted to share.

The things you remember most clearly in your life are bound in emotion.  The brain most easily brings back images that are tied to strong emotion; love, excitement, fear, laughter, sorrow.  We learn from stories because they connect with emotion for the same reason.  When someone shares a vignette from their own life that is laced with strong feelings, it resonates with us, and it stays with us. 

Sharing the story expresses a glimpse of who we are.  Our attitudes about an experience, what we felt in this moment, during that time, after that intersection in our lives.  Stories come from what we have observed, what we have learned, how we were changed from an experience.

People love to know these stories.  Sometimes for a personal connection, or to help them deal with their own demons.  Some tales are told only for entertainment; the joy of hearing and the pleasure of telling.  Stories can inspire, enlighten, educate, and sometimes they just pass the time when an hour needs to be filled with something other than waiting for the test results.

Our stories are told in how we live our lives too.  Those stories are absorbed by our children, by our friends, our neighbors, the people who work with us.  And the kid you help out of the snowbank, and the woman you hold the door for, and the man you give your coat to.  And then that becomes part of their narrative.

I am a writer, a scribe.  It is part of my nature now to look for stories, to remember them, and to add my own spice and then share them.  It is a passion of mine, some of which I share here.  I love that stories pass through me; my life stories, those I hear from others, some I create that are a mélange of others I have given.  It is an honor to be at the crossroads of so many great experiences, just long enough to write them down and share them with others.  Some are prompted by the thought: ‘You should have been there.  So let me tell you…’

Something in us wants to tell a story.  We need to connect where we have been with what comes next.  We want to bring our ancestors with us.  We need to teach our children about love.  We have to fortify ourselves against a challenge.  We remember, we share, and we are made better for it and so are those who witness.  And then, inevitably, we need to be known.  We exchange the pages of our lives with those who we meet, and we know that they walk away carrying our immortality, and we bear theirs.

We each have a story to tell.  It is how we celebrate that we were here.

Hope this finds you telling yours,

David

Copyright © 2014 David Smith