I don’t consider myself a story ‘teller’ per se. I’m a writer and an editor, and paper (or electrons) is my medium, not breath. I can tell a shaggy-dog story (ask me about the one with St Jude), but campfire stories and flashlight-enhanced ghost stories were never my thing. And I’m no actress: though I can sing lyrics to a song and remember the movements of a dance piece, the thought of memorizing a spoken part in a play was enough to make sure I stayed behind the scene in assorted drama clubs.
So I can only attribute my willingness to put my name in the speaker’s hat at this week’s StoryOly storytelling event to its — for me — compelling topic: death.
Also, this particular event was run in collaboration with Windowseat Media’s Inhale/Exhale project, of which my friend Larisa spoke very highly. And I was writing a piece I hoped to submit to the New York Times for its occasional Rites of Passage column (a sometime-companion to the more famous Modern Love)…
My topic would be Timothy’s last days in critical care. I so wanted to bring the wonder of what happened in that hospital room to a wider audience, I was willing to put all those hesitations and excuses aside to see if I could do that in his memory.
I wrote out a version suitable for speaking in under eight minutes, and practiced a dozen times over the weekend. The cats must have thought I was mad. Then, on the day of the event, instead of having a proper 1:1 meeting with her, my boss was pressed into service listening to a final run-through against a stop-watch. I went home to feed the cats and to change clothes — not necessarily because I needed to look jazzier, but because I was in what the Brits call a muck sweat of nerves all day.
It may be gin-free January (Tim called it that, even though he was cutting out vodka post-holiday season), but a stiff gin-and-lime from Rhythm & Rye’s genial barkeeper doused the nerves and doubt. Even if I didn’t tell the story perfectly, I would tell it well enough that people would know how much I loved Tim and that I did my best to give him the music that might ease his passage from this world to the next.
I guess all this mental gyration (and gin) worked. I didn’t freeze, I didn’t miss any beats. And the judges thought enough of the story to award it top marks of the night. Timothy, I think, was watching from the top-most gallery, and I believe he approved.
Photo by freestocks.org from Pexels