Tell Me Something Good

Pregnant with Story Ideas by Sandi Howlett

While working on my repertoire of stories, I was gushing with creativity and energy.  One idea led to another and another and another followed by my organizing them into logical and distinctive categories.  As I wrote brief descriptions for each story, it was as if I was ‘reliving’ the stories much in the manner of a life review.  Time and space melted away and I was fully immersed in the experience of remembering these personal stories.  The more I worked, the more I wanted to work.  Some writers have called this ‘being in the flow” as it felt like the stories were carrying me rather than me carrying them. 

 

Another way of describing this is a sense of being pregnant with story ideas.  While some of these stories are full term and in fact, already delivered, others are very much in various states of the gestational period of reflection, nurturance and growth.  I am certain they will tell me when they are ready to emerge to the outer world.  The labor pains will be an impatient insistence to be shared, to be told, to be heard.  In the meantime, I both eagerly and patiently await their arrival as I continue to provide the most optimal environment for their development.

Here's the description that accompanied the image, found here:

 http://www.adpunch.org/entry/pregnant-with-ideas/

If you do not think that the process of delivering ideas is a ‘laborious’ task, see this print advertisement. It has been created for The West Australian Newspaper by Marketforce Australia, to announce its support for great advertising and genuine creativity. The Caxton Awards. The PADC Wet Fellowship and Creative Champion Awards, and The Campaign Brief Award for Best Print Campaign... The newspaper has so many proud things to announce to the advertising industry. Well, comparing the process of conceptualization to pregnancy is not a new one, and the plain visualization of this beaten idea makes the ad come below an average mark. However, the message is conveyed with ease. CREDITS Advertising Agency: Marketforce, Australia Executive Creative Director: Andrew Tinning Art Director: Andrew Chu Copywriter: Ryan Albuino Agency Producer: Catalina Clema Photographer: Allan MylesRetoucher: Madeleine de Pierres Account manager: Silvana Visinoni Via: Ads of the world

Burning Down the House by Amy Bird

I got back last week from visiting my daughter in Portland, Oregon for the
first time since she moved there eight months ago.  Just before I arrived, she and two friends had finally left the basement of another
friend’s family home where they’d been living all that time and had signed a lease to rent a house of their own.  So I got to see it.

The shelving in their living room is made of two wooden paint-splattered ladders with boards laid between them.    Patio lights dangle festivelynear the top.  If you want to sit down you can choose a worn yet magnificent green plush sofa in the living room or the floor or someone’s bed.  There aren’t any chairs yet.  There are rollers and brushes and cans of different colors of paint in each room: purple; deep green; plantain yellow; pale, pale pink.

Seeing my daughter in the midst of moving into her new house brought to mind some of the many places I lived in my twenties.    One of them was a three-room suite consisting of a bedroom with one tiny window, a fairly disgusting bathroom and a screened-in storage porch at the back of a good-sized bungalow where the landlady lived with her two teenage kids. My boyfriend was the one who actually rented from her first; over the next few months I moved in bit by bit and hoped no one would notice.  One day I finally brought it up with the landlady.  “I'm not stupid," she said.  "I figured that out a while ago." She told me she was glad to have me and asked if I’d be willing to pay $25 on top of what my boyfriend paid.  Not long after that he went back to Texas where he was from and I ended up staying another year.  When I moved out I scrubbed the bathroom until it shone.  I barely recognized it when I had finished and I wondered why I hadn’t bothered to clean it like that before.

The last place I lived in California was a two room sublet in a third floor flat in the Mission District in San Francisco.  The room that faced the street had big windows and a green-tiled fireplace.  Every Sunday I bought myself a different color gladiola stalk, set it in a tall vase in front of the fireplace, and watched all week as the blossoms opened one by one.  To this day I like buying flowers for myself more than I like receiving them.  My last night there I woke from a dream in which I smelled something burning and realized the house was on fire.  Moments later I was on the sidewalk with my housemates and the neighbors, watching the flames rise into the fog.  I was hardly dressed and shaking from the cold, and then someone set a lovely wool coat on my shoulders.  When I turned to say thank you, he or she was already gone.

I lived in more than a dozen different places between twenty – my daughter’s age now – and twenty-seven, when she was born.  I wonder what stories she will tell about where she is now and all the places that will surely follow.

 

So Long as One Remembers by Sandi Howlett

One of my all time favorite movies is “Out of Africa”. The opening scene of this contemporary classic shows Robert Redford sitting at Meryl Streep’s feet, imploring her to “Tell me a story”.  The movie is the true story of Karen Blixen, a strong willed woman who runs a plantation in Africa around 1914. The movie is a visual feast but equally engaging are the Blixen’s stories as told by Meryl Streep.  While this is a usual request from a child, there is something innocent and engaging to hear an adult say, “Tell me a story”.

I use stories in my work.  When working with a new corporate client, I interview multiple employees in the organization to hear and collect the stories they tell.  This helps me understand their culture and values so I can better tailor my services to their needs.  Some of the stories are inspiring and some less flattering though equally telling in the overall climate and mission.  With the recent death of Steve Jobs, many people are posting memories and stories pertinent to him that often paint a larger, more engaging personal picture than the PR spun news releases.   There are sure to be biographies emerging in the coming months with even more stories of his achievement and means to an end.

I teach and volunteer for hospice.  The most interesting part of my volunteering is hearing stories from patients about what their life included prior to their current health circumstances.  They share the most amazing memories about family, career and life experiences.  While this is engaging and interesting for me, it also can serve as a life review for them.  I also visit patients with my therapy dog  Pearl , a black lab, shepherd, cattle-dog mix.  They often ask about Pearl – how she got her name and other questions.  I say she’s  been with me for three years and that she was rescued from euthanasia from the dog pound on her last day and came to me on the birthday of my dead dog Bunny who is a close look alike!  Pearl has been ‘working’ for a year and a half.  This invariably leads to their telling me about the dogs they have had and what made each of them so special.  It also gives me the opportunity to let them know that their family is welcome to bring pets to visit them in the in-patient facility which is very comforting.  When people are telling stories about their life, they almost always relax which means, less discomfort and more connection.  I LOVE hearing what they tell me and Pearl enjoys all the attention and petting that she gets plus an occasional treat!

There are stories everywhere, even at the end of life.  I am also an 11^th Hour volunteer which means sitting with patients who are unconscious and actively dying.  Usually I am alone but sometimes family is there.  They almost always want to talk about their loved one and share memories and stories.  This too, is part of a normal life review for the family and helps to bring people together for the times ahead.

So long as one remembers, the story continues. 

 

The Golden Baseball by Maya Jones

Most of my family history is lost. My parents did not share the stories of their childhoods and my siblings and I did not know any of our relatives, so we know hardly anything about our roots. I see how that lack of connection with our roots has deeply affected my family. We are pretty disconnected. I think this is something that is shared by a large majority of people living in the US today and I have to wonder how much it contributes to the loneliness, isolation, and depression so many people seem to experience. I have noticed that as I have been crafting personal stories, I am feeling more grounded and connected to my parents and to myself. I feel not quite so lost. So I have been wondering how to get back our lost family stories.

Recently my grandson, Lukas, handed me the key to this puzzle when he asked me for a story about a search for a golden baseball. His dad loves baseball; I've always turned my back on his interest, dismissing sports as frivolous and a waste of time and energy. Lukas' request presented me with a dilemma – how to give him the story he wants and stay true to my own storytelling interest. You see I want to talk about topics I deem to be important, such as environmental caretaking or social justice. Not interested in something as “trivial” as sports.

I knew I would have to put this story together in a way that would have value for me; otherwise, I would never be able to craft an interesting, lively story for him. As I thought about the story, the idea of the Grail quest popped into my awareness. Then it occurred to me to ask the resident family expert on baseball, my son and Lukas' dad, D, to share with me everything he knows and loves about the sport. If nothing else, I reasoned, it would give us something to talk about besides the law.

Through those discussions, our relationship is taking on new dimensions and lots of memories are being evoked – my Dad's love of baseball, how I enjoyed going to spring training games with him, the time D and I tried to sell his baseball cards in Manhattan, our trip to the Baseball Hall of Fame, my Dad taking D to games, how pleased Dad was the day D took him to a game.

And then came the key to the lost stories: one night I was researching the Red Sox, my Dad's favorite team, and came upon a piece written by a man who grew up during the Depression. He wrote about his experience of listening to baseball on the radio, playing ball in a vacant lot, using makeshift equipment, wearing knickers – all things I now remember Dad talking about. And I realized that I can take what little I know of my parents' lives and conjure up what they must have been like based on stories of other people who shared cultural history with them. It may not be exactly what my parents experienced, but I noticed when I read that article how close I felt to my Dad. It was as if someone had just shared a piece of his life with me.

I am seeing through this study that baseball is so much a part of American culture that I can use it to look at some issues I am interested in exploring – racism, greed, feeling compelled to live up to  contrived images of ourselves, political corruption, addiction. And it occurs to me that I could take any topic and turn it into a fascinating study of whatever I want to bring forth in my storytelling. I could probably study fashion, or architecture, or the Civil War – maybe even cockroaches, and relate them to whatever storytelling topic I want to develop. 

And so the quest continues – how to combine baseball, family stories, mythology, and my love of the Earth into one story – a search for a golden baseball. I know for sure that this quest has brought me back to life.  I have not wanted to live since D's incarceration. Suddenly I have a compelling interest that makes life worth living again.