Asking for Stories, Part 2

Somewhere in my study, I have a once-crisp envelope, now worn soft and gray. It has a fold in the middle from all the times it has been carried in a coat pocket or stuffed in a purse. The envelope and the letter inside it bear my mother's elegant script, written--as always--with an ultra-fine point pen. (This was always a difference between us: with some accounting experience in her background, she liked pens that wrote with clean, precise, fine lines--perfect for her sophisticated handwriting--, whereas I have always liked to press hard with my pens and roll across a page with a bold, sometimes smudged, looping script.)

My Mom's letter is written on an ordinary 6" x 9" writing tablet, the same one she used for grocery lists and things that needed to be done in preparation for a holiday gathering or vacation. She wrote on the fronts of three pages, and then the backs, something I always found curious. (How did she know when she was halfway through the letter? How did she know when to switch to writing on the back sides of the sheets?) One of the pages of the letter is ripped in half, just from being folded and unfolded so many times.

I had written to her first. I was a freshman in college, questioning my life's purpose. More accurately, I had wailed on paper in melodramatic fashion about how no one seemed to understand me and accept me for who I was. I had cried out in my letter, "Why? Why me? Why am I different? Why don't I fit in?" I begged for validation, for understanding. I begged, without realizing it, for the story of who I was, and, while I knew my mother would write something back, I know I did not expect the extremely eloquent, moving, grace-filled response that came in the mail several days later.

My mother's response-letter is one of my most treasured possessions, although I often don't know exactly where it is. I tend to bury it in the clutter of my books, files, bills, papers, and assorted memorabilia, and I like it that way. I like losing my mother's letter every once in a while because I like rediscovering it, which is, perhaps, a summary of my relationship to all my best stories.

When it comes right down to it, I'm sure I inherited my love of stories from my Mom, a woman who treated library cards as sacred objects that were meant to be revered; a woman who set the pattern for my "book binges," returning from any library trip with a huge stack of books that she'd devour in a matter of days; a woman who could never be convinced to spring for one of the plastic toys at the supermarket, but who somehow always found a way to buy books, fund educational field trips, pay for dance lessons, and purchase over time a set of World Book Encyclopedias. My Mom was my partner in crime in my adolescent years, when I became fascinated with classic movies. She would check out the TV Guide and tell me what movies I "needed" to see that week. She had no problem with my napping after school and waking up at one in the morning (even on school nights) to watch a black and white movie on the Late, Late Show. (In fact, she would often watch with me!) Mom would spend hours in discussion with me over the books I was reading in school, and she was not afraid to let my sister and me watch controversial but thought-provoking films and TV shows... provided, of course, that we did think--and discuss--afterwards.

Mom taught me, too, to be attentive to the stories of the people right in front of me. She taught me to suspend judgment and look below the surface. I absorbed her story about being snowed in at a lodge with a bunch of stranded travelers and sharing stories through the evening with a woman who worked as a prostitute--a woman, my devout Catholic mother said, who was more beautiful on the inside than some people who went to church all the time. I absorbed her story about Roderick, the little boy who always ran up to talk to her when she volunteered on the playground of our elementary school in 1960's and 1970's Detroit... and who wondered if she (an older white woman) remembered him (a young black man) when he ran into her many years later in a supermarket parking lot. She did, and he hugged her and made her day.

In her letter, my Mom told me the story of me. She shared what she knew about me from her perspective: specific examples of my gifts and talents, specific examples of the social pains I had suffered. She had heard; she had seen; she had witnessed. When I needed it most, she reminded me--on paper, so I could read it over and over again--that I was a person of value. Without having any concrete answers to give, she managed to teach me one of her many lessons about our life-stories: "You know how a puzzle has to be fitted together," she wrote of my questions and confusions, "piece by piece until the whole emerges."

Asking for Stories, Part 1

One of the most amazing methods I have discovered for bringing powerful, transformative stories into my life is to simply ask for them. Some of my story-requests were accidental--more like rhetorical questions--and I didn't actually expect the responses I received. As time has gone on, though, I have become more bold in asking for stories and, while such requests don't always produce meaningful results, I can attest to the fact that sometimes the most profound, extraordinary things happen when you ask for the stories you need.

Once when my daughters were little, I was browsing in a bookstore and leafed through an astrology book that described the characteristics of children born under each sign of the zodiac. The description for my younger daughter Katerina's sign (Pisces) was so accurate to my experience, it made me grin ear to ear. The book said something like, "Your Pisces child is the type of child you can place in her playpen and tell her she is watching a circus, and by the time you return from putting in the next load of laundry, she will be able to tell you all about it." That fit my imaginative little one to a T.

"Katie" (as I called her then), I might say, "Tell me about life on your planet," and, without any hesitation whatsoever, she would launch into a rambling description of a different world. "Katie!" I might call from my room at bedtime: "There is a monster under my bed!" From the darkness of her room, she would giggle, ask what kind of monster it was, and give specific instructions and as to how the crisis should be handled. So perhaps I should not have been at all surprised that she would have an answer to the most profound question of all, but I was.

When Kina (as she prefers to be called now) was four years old, my sister and I--with Kina in tow--were driving from the midwest to the east coast for a family reunion. My sister and I were at places in our lives where we were looking at where we had been and where we were going. We were determined that, in addition to the festivities and bonding of the family reunion, this trip would give us insights. To that end, we were bringing personal growth tools (our journals, self-help books, tapes and cd's with lectures and meditations on them, etc.), intending to carve out some reflective time for ourselves. It was from this position of "seeking" that I asked my happy-go-lucky little four year old THE question. Her response was short, yet it spoke volumes.

We had stopped at a Burger King at around ten or eleven o' clock at night. My daughter and I were already seated across from each other in a booth, and my sister was still at the counter waiting for her food. "So, Katie," I asked, half-joking and half-serious, "What's the meaning of life?" My four year old reached across the table top and pressed a chubby finger to my lips. "Shhhhhhhhhhh," she said. "You have to be quiet so you can hear the song..." Then she paused, took a bite of her cheeseburger, and added, "And if you drop your song, pick it up!" I was stunned, stopped in my tracks by what I had just heard. My sister, arriving at the booth, took one look at me, and asked, "What?"

I have gone back to Kina's four year old wisdom-story again and again, returning to her words many times as, in the busiest seasons of my life, I have struggled to hear "the song" underneath the chaos and disorder.

I have gone back to her words when I have found myself longingly searching for my song, knowing I had dropped it somewhere along the way.

I have passed her words on to other seekers, hoping that they, too, benefit from them.

As with many of the most powerful stories I know, Kina's spontaneous response resonated deeply for me when I first encountered it, and it continues to resonate deeply for me now. My understanding of her message has evolved and expanded as I have grown and changed. I have gained volumes of insight from this one tiny story moment... and to think: all I had to do to receive such profound wisdom was ask!

A Half-Million Stories

If we are to believe the media, statistics, red flags, and warning signs, we are in trouble... and have been for a long time. We need only look around for proof of danger, chaos, and upside-down thinking. We know our actions--and often lack thereof--have threatened our planet, putting the survival of various species and even whole ecosystems in peril. We know our attitudes and habits--and sometimes lack thereof--around money, food, and relationships have created crises for our bank accounts, bodies, families and communities. We see a world of violence, oppression, intolerance, and war, and we know--if we look at the headlines we would prefer not to see--that each day, somewhere, countless numbers of our human brothers and sisters are suffering and dying from disease, starvation, injustice, and genocide. We know that somehow we have veered off-track, and we fear that we (as individuals and collectively) may never get back to a place of stability, health, and balance.

What's more, it all seems so overwhelming! Where to start? With poverty? War? Disease? Greed? Intolerance? Crime? Our children? Our parents? The homeless? In our communities? Our country? Halfway around the world? One could easily give way to depression, cynicism, fear, anxiety, or hopelessness.

Except that there's more to the story...

We also have countless examples of individuals (and communities and cultures and whole civilizations)--from the past and in the present--who have faced adversity and triumphed, who have overcome obstacles, who have solved problems large and small, who have had the most amazing comebacks, who have saved lives, who have inspired others, who have made life-changing contributions and had awe-inspiring achievements, who have persisted and had a breakthrough, who have endured darkness and survived to see the light, who have struggled and sacrificed and won, who have created breathtaking art and new paradigms, who have lived lives of grace and dignity, and who have touched others through their love, compassion, courage, insight, imagination, and heroism. We need to tell those stories.

Einstein told us that we couldn't solve problems from the level on which they were created. We need a different vantage point. Powerful stories can give us that. Powerful stories can give us insights, solutions, models, guidance, and wisdom. I submit we need to make a conscious effort to re-story our world. I think we need to generate a frenzy of story-sharing. We need our stories to flow in an abundant circle of give and take. We need personal stories and family stories, histories and biographies, fictions and poems and works of art. Powerful stories can bring us together. Powerful stories can help us learn and celebrate. Powerful stories can give us hope. We need to tell those stories.

How many shared stories does it take to heal wounds, solve problems, create breakthroughs? How many shared stories might it take to right wrongs, bring change, save us?

In William Gibson's play The Miracle Worker--itself a story of persistence and problem-solving, of overcoming obstacles, of hope and triumph--Annie Sullivan tries to break through the communication barrier between Helen Keller and the world at large by teaching Helen sign language. Annie spells into Helen's hand constantly, hoping to give her the key to language and thus communication. Helen's mother watches the process and asks how many finger-spelled words it will take before Helen "knows." Annie's reply is "Maybe a million." Kate Keller then asks to learn the sign language letters, so she, too, can spell words to Helen. Working together, Annie and Kate only need to spell a half-million words each.

We have a story-model. It only takes one person to begin. It only takes one to join in. Our efforts matter, and, as in Helen's case, when the breakthrough occurs, the whole world changes.