Becoming Story People

How are we to gather and nurture stories? How can we begin to infuse our lives and replenish our planet with robust, fulfilling, satisfying stories? I think we need to become story people, or perhaps more accurately, draw forth the story-impulse we already have inside of us. We need to train ourselves to spot the glimmer in the eye of a nearby senior or the wiggle in the body of the closest kindergartner and recognize the story waiting to spill out if only we open the floodgates with the magic words: "Tell me..." We need to look and listen attentively, seeking out the words and sounds and images--whether provocative, joyful, serious, or sad--that take us to a deeper place, a more alive place, and when we find those words and sounds and images, we need to share them.

My older daughter Maggie crackles with the story-impulse. All through her school years, you could barely get "How was..." out of your mouth before she was off and running with her tales of the day, ranging from from the absurd to the profound. These days, as a graduating college senior, more often than not, her phone calls begin with the words, "Guess WHAT?" and again, she is off and running. Maggie seems to take delight in human nature (and animal nature, too, for that matter), and therein lies the potential for amazing stories. From junior high, when she passed on her classmate's hilarious rendition of how he broke his arm by reaching for a Twinkie, to her college-years recaps of her ultimate frisbee and broomball games (the amount of laughter directly proportional to the number of times she slipped, slid, or fell down), Maggie has passed on--with great enthusiasm--the stories she hears and the story-moments she participates in.

Throughout junior high and high school, Maggie volunteered at the Humane Society, bringing home--and sometimes writing down--stories of the cats she worked with, each unique and individual to her. When she was a high school sophomore, she made the decision--despite the fact that none of her friends were going--to attend a school-sponsored summer mission trip to Pine Ridge Reservation. After a week of working with children who swarmed all over her and being open to all that she saw and learned and witnessed, she and a few other new-found friends/volunteers took an early morning hike on their final day. They hiked up a ridge as the sun was rising, full of the profound experiences they had shared over the past week, and, on the other side, came upon a herd of wild horses. The awe-inspiring moment resonated with Maggie in a profound way, and, as she told me her stories upon returning home, I knew the moment in particular and the trip in general had changed her life. Over the years, she has talked to, listened to, and shared stories with a nun in Honduras who works with young girls who live in poverty; an elderly woman in Georgia whom she met on a second volunteer trip; and special needs friends she has developed through two different organizations she has worked with during her college years. She even developed a bond one summer with tree frogs, which she saw everywhere, believing them to be a form of communication from a high school friend who had passed away.

One of Maggie's stories is quickly becoming the stuff of legend. Last year for her birthday, Maggie was in search of the perfect dress for her party. She went into a store where, she said, the least expensive dresses are generally about eighty dollars. She found the perfect dress, but unfortunately, it did not have a tag. She looked around, but it was the only one of its kind. A similar--but not nearly as perfect--dress nearby was eighty dollars. She put "her" dress back at first, but then picked it back up and took it to the register, figuring she had nothing to lose. The sales clerk had to look up the untagged dress in the store's inventory and gasped. Though it seemed impossible, the dress was marked in the inventory as only five dollars! With nothing else to go on, the clerk had to charge her what was marked in the inventory. What an amazing early birthday-present! But the story didn't end there... Maggie decided to look for new shoes at a different store. Maggie found the perfect shoes to match her dress, but, despite her recent good fortune, she decided that $40 was probably more than she should spend on shoes considering she already had a pair that would work. Later, when she went out to her car, she looked down on the ground and found, by the tire, forty dollars! She went back to the shoe store, bought the perfect birthday shoes, and related the story to the sales clerk. They decided that the "angels" wanted her to have those shoes.

When I say the story has become the stuff of legend, I do not exaggerate. On a recent evening out, Maggie--who is a kick-your-shoes-off-and-dance kind of person--got tired of carrying her shoes from place to place. At one point, she actually was prepared to just leave her shoes behind. Her friends, aghast, said, "You can NOT leave behind the angel shoes!" and carried them FOR her the rest of the night. Not only that, but among the people I have shared the story with, the idea of "angel shoes" has come to symbolize great abundance and good fortune. My friends have been known to say things like, "It's time for the Universe to bring me my angel shoes!" or "I think I just received my angel shoes!" As fun and funny as it is, the "angel shoes" tale seems to have created a sort of bond between all those who know the story.

Earlier this week, Maggie announced she has accepted her acceptance into the Peace Corps. She asked, "Do you want to know how I made the final decision?" She said she had been reading Leaving Microsoft to Change the World, a book my sister had given her, and I Will Not Die an Unlived Life, a book I had given her... another example of Maggie's being willing to be touched by story. When Maggie goes to Africa, her region of choice, she says, "I don't want to go as a representative of my culture... I want to go to learn..."

I believe she will do just that, and I believe she will have many stories to share when she returns.