A Story Like No Other

Zestful Blog Post #169

I hope the title of this post made you do a double-take, because of course every story is like no other; every story is unique to some extent. Not every story in the world, to be sure, is terribly interesting or even worthwhile, which is the point. If you’re a friend of mine on Facebook—or Facefriends, as my brother, who does not have an account there, gamely refers to it—you might have seen my post the other day about my YMCA buddy Chuck. I’ve copied the post below, after the picture.

Of any post I’ve ever put up on FB, this one has received the most likes, comments, and shares. I’m not terribly active on FB, so to me the following stats are remarkable: as of this writing, 197 likes, 29 comments, 5 shares. I have 1,087 friends on FB, though almost all of my posts are public and I think anybody can like, comment, or share. People have been moved to tears by the post. It’s a story about a guy who got a tough break and who is working his damnedest to overcome it.

My point today is to reinforce simply this: People love stories. People learn from stories. People get inspired by stories. People NEED stories. If you tell a story from your heart, with love and truth, you will succeed. What is success? It’s reaching readers, even one, with something meaningful to them. If you are a storyteller, you are a core asset to this world. Tell it plain, tell it fancy. But tell it.

Took this selfie yesterday while chilling for a few minutes with Chuck in the snack room.

FB post:

So. This story. Last year while lifeguarding part time at the local YMCA, I met a guy named Chuck. Middle-aged, scrawny, disabled from a stroke. Used a base-line manual wheelchair, shoved himself along mostly with one hand and one foot. Had much trouble making himself understood, but I learned he'd been doing rehab for months. I operated the lift to get him in and out of the pool, where he regularly, doggedly attended water exercise classes. Made a point of calling him by name and cheering him on.

Last summer, a few months after getting to know him, was driving past the bus stop near the Y and saw him sitting in his chair in the hot sun waiting for the bus. The bastard was using THE BUS to get to and from his water exercise classes. How much easier to just stay home and vegetate in front of the TV? How much easier to just say, "I can't; (it's too much trouble)." How much easier to say, "I don't have a helper; I can't." Solo, he was helping his own crabbed-over, big-black-glasses-wearing, buck-toothed, determined ass.

After my six-month stint lifeguarding, which ended last December, I didn't see him as often, but I did see him. Yesterday, when I was swimming my lengths, I saw him in the water exercise group and waved. Later, as I was leaving the building, I saw him WALKING along the sidewalk outside. Using one arm-cane, big brace on his leg, glasses held together with a walnut-sized wad of Scotch tape, slowly, slowly, he was walking on his two feet.

Ran up to him. "Chuck! You're walking!" He smiled and nodded, and that was a hell of a great moment. A hell of a great moment. A hell of a beautiful sight. [end of post]

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Lost & Found

Zestful Blog Post #78

Today let us speak of the things around the edges of life. Lost things, detritus, discards. Everything tells a story—or could, in your hands.

We can't give everything in the world around us our deep attention every minute; we're constantly making thousands of conscious and unconscious choices as to what to pay attention to. But a way to develop as an author—or artist, craftsperson, inventor, human being—is to be open. That is, to give some consciousness to the stuff around the edges.

Something catches

your eye. You can categorize it and move on, like especially if you're running late for a therapy appointment. Or you can pause and let that edge thing register a bit more deeply.

My friend Sandra Moran, a prizewinning author, routinely stops and photographs interesting litter. At first I thought, "That's cool," then I decided it wasn't, because maybe it makes you keep your head down too much. Plus litter tends to be dirty, and who likes looking at dirty stuff all the time?

Then, recently, I was walking through a parking lot and noticed a lost baby sock on the ground. I stopped, looked, and took a picture. Actually

I took two. Because somehow I saw potential, even apart from the purely visual aspect of the composition of the soft baby sock lying on the rough macadam. My heartbrain was stimulated, I saw story, I saw possibility.

There's the story of the sock itself—spun and woven in a mill somewhere, according to a pattern devised by some baby-sock designer, then mated with an identical twin, packaged, shipped, shelved, and purchased.

There's the story of the baby, the mother and father, the family. Is the family poor, and will this lost trifle cause hardship? Did the baby kick it off or did a small sibling pull it off for the hell of it and throw it? Was the baby wanted? Was the sock wanted? What else might be missing in that baby's life?

Do you see how there is story everywhere?

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5 Good Reasons to Make Up Stuff

The summer I was 15, I was fortunate to go to the National Music Camp at Interlochen, Michigan, for intensive instruction and performance. (I played clarinet.) Because I knew no one there, I felt a sense of newness and freedom. I must have blossomed somehow and become more outgoing and interesting, because one night after lights out in my 12-girl cabin, one girl said, "Elizabeth, tell us the story of your life."

#1: It's fun.

On the spur of that moment, lying on my back and talking into the dark, I began telling my new friends about my early childhood in Iceland, including many convincing details such as the local species of ant that built large hills on the plains us children had to cross every day to get to school.

#2: It gets you into a creative state.

In winter, I recounted, the hills froze hard, and if you didn't watch out, you'd fall over them, which I frequently did. (That got a sympathetic laugh.)

['The view from my bedroom window in Iceland.' photo by ES]

#3: It entertains and challenges your listeners.

I don't remember a tenth of the stuff I made up that and subsequent nights, but it enchanted my camp-mates, at least until one of the faster girls started talking about sex. I never did reveal that I'd lived in Michigan my whole life; I wonder if any of those girls remember my crazy tales.

#4: It's good exercise for your storytelling muscles.

Since then I've done countless similar things, most recently explaining to a roomful of patients at the physical therapy office that my arm was in a sling because it had gotten torn off in a terrible car wreck, but the doctors had reattached it in a grueling 17-hour operation. (In reality I'd had outpatient arthroscopic shoulder surgery.)

#5: It's a test of guts.

The thing is, I never just volunteer such information; I wait until somebody asks or gives me a wide opening. In most cases I tell them I'm kidding after a while. But I get a charge out of my quickening heartbeat as I brazenly launch into some dramatic story. Makes my day a little spicier.

Have you told outlandish tales to strangers / friends / enemies?

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