Telling Stories

Good Morning -

A friend of ours does a program called Odyssey Storytelling in which she works with volunteers to tell a 10-minute story in front of an audience around a certain theme. For instance, one of the recent events was around the theme of the 7 dwarfs and she had 7 volunteers who each told a story from their lives - one was happy, one was grumpy, one sneezy, etc., etc.

The volunteers are set a month or so in advance and then she does a practice session with the group before the big night. All the raconteurs are amateurs, and it's fantastic to watch these people light up for 10 minutes on the stage.

Last night's theme was "Help Me - the Coach Show" and had storytellers running the gamut from a pet psychic to a person who worked in assisted suicides for the terminally ill. Like always, some of the stories were funny, some of the stories were sad, but each painted a brief color portrait of these brave strangers who took to the stage to share a bit of their lives.

My partner was one of the participants last night and told a great story involving her experiences with basketball coaching - both as a high school and college player and as a junior high coach. I've heard these stories of hers before, but seeing her up on the stage and hearing the audience respond was so delightful.

Afterwards, a woman in the audience told her that she had also attended the small state college in PA where my partner did undergrad. Another stopped her to say that she had come last night to laugh and my partner had provided that opportunity. In one, 10-minute expression of self, she touched and connected with people she may have never connected with before.

She didn't exchanged contact info with either woman. There were no promises to meet again and deepen the connection. They may never cross paths again, but that doesn't matter. By being open and sharing a bit of her authentic self, my partner had a moment of shared humanity with these otherwise strangers - each walking away from the exchange a little lit up, a little more connected.

This may seem silly, but think of how often we move through the day without ever connecting with another, without ever exchanging a positive moment of shared humanity with someone outside of our circle. I'm feeling just this side of a preachy, cheesy, mass email forward complete with animated glittery angels, so I'll stop here after I say just one more time how powerful it can be to open ourselves up to connect with another without ideas of longevity or extended relationship. Just a brief moment - person to person.

Stories are such a powerful way to create these connections. Whether it's recorded for the StoryCorps project or just experienced through open communication with the cashier in the 60-seconds it takes to get rung up at the grocery, sharing our stories invites others to do the same, creating connection. All you have to do is remember a moment of loneliness you've had to understand how important and powerful these people-to-people connections are.

So - that's our Virgen - the cover of the program last night, a bit of red hotel bag for color, two stone heart-shaped beads from the great beads my partner brought me back from Flag, and a nice border to create intimate space. My words are clumsy this morning (I think my brain is still draining off the mojitos I soaked it in the other night), so here's hope you manage to walk away understanding the power of story.

Be brave. Open yourself up. Exchange stories with strangers. Do your bit to shake some dust of this web of shared humanity. What better work is there?