This week: 'Talking Story' Edited by: Fyn More Newsletters By This Editor
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Of course, it's the same old story. Truth usually is the same old story. ~~Margaret Thatcher
The human species thinks in metaphors and learns through stories.~~Mary Catherine Bateson
Storytelling is the most powerful way to put ideas into the world today.~~Robert McKee
Storytelling is our obligation to the next generation.~~Laura Holloway, Founder & Chief of The Storyteller Agency
The purpose of a storyteller is not to tell you how to think, but to give you questions to think upon.~~Brandon Sanderson
Stories have to be told or they die, and when they die, we can't remember who we are or why we're here.~~Sue Monk Kidd
A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead.”~~Graham Greene
Those 'old pictures' are the building blocks of who we are.~~Carol Wimberly Connally
I'll tell you a secret. Old storytellers never die. They disappear into their own story.~~Vera Nazarian |
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Writers, authors, poets, playwrights -- what we are, are storytellers! Whether we pull them from real life or snatch them from a passing moment of inspiration, we tell our stories to inform, entertain, amuse, or make a point. Once upon a time, our histories were told in story form, passed down, generation to generation, memorized because the stories of who we are and where we came from were far too important to forget.
This is every bit as important now as it ever was. Just because we take a gazillion pictures on our cell phones does not mean that we don't need the stories behind. Have you ever dug through a box of old black and white photos in an attic? If you didn't recognize the people, or no one had written who and when they were on the back, they become just captured moments without context or even, a nameless individual. Quite possibly, if just one of those nameless souls photographed (usually at great expense back in the day BECAUSE they wanted to be remembered) you or I or someone you love would not exist.
An example of the 'history behind...'
My husband grew up in a centennial farmhouse on the farm that went back to the mid-1830s. His great-great-grandmother became the first schoolmistress of the 'Hannaford Schoolhouse' after it was built in the 1860s. A classic old schoolhouse, with a bell up above with a long rope she would pull on the ring the bell calling the area children to school. In time, her daughter and granddaughter all taught at the school. And they all lived in the same farmhouse my husband grew up in. We have great-great-grandmother's handbell that was also passed down over the years.
When my husband was in high school, his folks having had to make the decision o either go really big with their dairy farm or sell out chose to retire as neither of their kids seemed likely to want to farm. The folks who live there now are massively into the history of the place as we have shared stories, artifacts, and pictures with them. On the day we went back to the old 'homeplace,' we were surprised to see the bell from the old schoolhouse out by the end of the driveway. When we mentioned it, they told us how when the old schoolhouse was torn down, they rescued the bell because no one else wanted it and it was from around that area.
You can imagine their smiles when the full story was revealed and that now the bell that several generations of the Theisen/Moyer family had called kids to school was at the end of the driveway where the schoolmistresses lived! Circle complete.
Hawaiians call it 'talking story' because keeping family histories alive is so important, so vital to them. We need to keep the stories of our grand and great-grandparents alive and moving forward! They are intrinsic to who we are. Everyone wants to be remembered. Don't you? I sure as heck do.
Talk to the older generations and write down her or his story. Write down your own! I can already hear some of your voices echoing -- I haven't done much of anything. NOPE! NOT TRUE! Our life is a succession of things we've learned, accomplished, and sometimes regretted. We've been places, done things, and experienced things our elders might have only dreamed about.
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| | Trunk (E) True title is My Grandmother's Grandfather's Trunk #947871 by Fyn |
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Turkey DrumStik writes: This newsletter made me grin. I like using less common words in my journal. That environment gives me a chance to experiment with them prior to breaking them out in my stories (novelettes). That said, one of my favorite words to use in my works is "scurry"...to describe human action. Some people have said that it makes them think of animals, which is the effect I am aiming for!
Quick-Quill says: Great newsletter. I enjoyed reading the responses to your last NL. Especially Bikerider’s. I too took Percy’s class with him and learned so much.
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