Now that I think about it, my love of stories and storytelling has many roots in my life.
*When I was little, my favorite activity was reading--both being read to, or sitting and staring at books even before I could read.
*I used to beg my Mom to tell me stories. (Tell, not read. Read-alouds were a given.) She didn't make up stories much, but I have two vivid memories of when she did actual tell stories. One is this mysterious memory of her making up a story about pirate treasure. I still have this vague sense of a lost story out there, because she could never tell it again when requested and I've forgotten the tale. And the second memory is of the first time I heard the biblical story of Esther. My Mom was braiding my hair for church when she began the story. I followed her around for the next half hour while she put on her make-up, got dressed, and dressed my brothers all the while asking questions about what happened next.
*In Africa my class loved a missionary who had grown up in Liberia and learned tons of Liberian stories. Most of them were animal tales, and he was a great performer. We invited him to join our class on our senior trip just so he would tell us stories at night.
*For my college senior thesis paper in history, I chose The Heptameron as my primary text. It's a 16th century collection of 72 stories similar to the Decameron. The format of these books is people telling stories to each other.
*When I was a teacher, my favorite unit to teach was my folktale, myth, and legends unit. I started teaching this because I was given no books, and these were the easiest texts to photocopy for my students. But it grew into a unit I taught every year, and over the three years I taught it, I probably collected over a hundred different stories that I liked and brought into the classroom in various ways.
*My favorite thing to do in the classroom is read-aloud. I love the feeling of shared community that can be felt so keenly when we share a story. I love, love reading aloud to the kids I tutor. I love reading aloud to Eric. It's just magical.
I don't really know what all of this means, per say, but it is interesting to look back and notice it. Especially the more recent developments.
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I came across two quotes about stories recently that I think can be coupled to comic effect:
1) “In seeking truth you have to get both sides of a story.” --Walter Cronkite
2) "It takes a thousand voices to tell a single story."
--Native American Proverb
This made me laugh out loud. I think it's so funny that there is this noble gravitas assigned to the work of getting a second perspective in American journalism: two sides equals truth.
And then you read that Proverb and you think: Keep on going, Walt! Ya still got 998 more to go just to tell this single story. I have no idea how many stories you have left to go before you can lay claim to "truth."
I admire people who can describe what it was like being a kid. Yesterday I remembered this embarrassing story about myself (which I'm apparently in denial about now, because I can't think of it) and was wishing I knew how to story tell it. Like your earlier post, there seems to be more grandiosity to everything through kids' eyes. Or if you're a firefly. ;)
Do you currently have a favorite story or storyteller?
As a kid, it seems obvious that there is so much to learn, which I think contributes to the feeling of constant mystery. It's interesting how that feeling fades as an adult, maybe because we spend more time supporting ourselves rather than learning. It's like we get to a certain point where we start to fool ourselves into thinking that we basically know a lot of stuff. Or at least, I feel like there's a way I do that unconsciously.
And yet, I think we all answered the Doubt survey by saying we believed knowledge is infinite. So there's no reason the sense of mystery should be lost. Or maybe that's why the sense of mystery is lost. Maybe children think knowledge is finite, and with each new fact feel closer to solving the mystery. But once it sinks in that knowledge is infinite, it takes a different kind of energy to keep pursuing it, knowing there's no solution to the mystery.
Also, regarding being able to describe what it was like being a kid, I wonder if I really know. Memory is such a trickster. Though I spent a lot of time as a child consciously planning how I would remember the experience of childhood. I went through my childhood with a sense that the world is fundamentally unjust toward children and does not respect or understand the child point-of-view. So I made countless vows to myself to NEVER forget.
I don't have favorites yet. I feel like I don't even have a personal definition of what storytelling is. And I'm working on figuring out which stories I want to tell. It's a very personal process, and one that feels like stumbling through the dark.
More on mystery...by Robyn.
I was thinking about what Loba said about seeking mystery as an adult and I was thinking about how every time I learn something new, I don't experience mystery through it. But there are times I do. It seems I need to already have a good understanding of the topic. Like learning how baking soda, which I use as leavening in my cookies, also can scrub my tub. I get excited about that kind of stuff. I feel a sense of wonder. But when something else new is explained (like when Eric talks about math in a new way...which he has taken time to painstakingly explain to me) I feel interested, but not really with sparks of wonder. I wonder if it was because I didn't have enough prior knowledge to understand the depth of what he was saying, or if there was an element of "will I need to know this/use this later" that stole away the wonder.
I'm sure as kids we had similar experiences of things above our heads being met with blank stares on our parts. I think actually that would characterize most of my childhood (I was the youngest and it seemed like everything was over my head). But then there were those flittery feelings of the wonder of learning something new too...
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