Stories

I hear a lot of them.

I find myself more entranced and fascinated and just wanting to listen to people talk until I fall asleep.  The words and images continue to roll inside my mind, through my dreams.  But after a while, after hearing the story so many times it becomes part of me in a way.  Of course I also want to include stories that had me laughing so hard my sides hurt.  Laughing so hard my face muscles couldn't laugh any more.  This isn't to say that I am looking for something to alleviate a possible notion of emptiness I might be feeling.  I just like to listen.

Stories.

We are a culture that thrives, on stories.  The heartbreaks, the adventure, the mystery, the horror, the comedy, the sadness, the anger...something in the way we all tell them, hear them, feel them, are them...it is an underrepresented complexity that makes me wonder about how often they are really felt and listened to.

And that's not to say that every story we tell means that we are that story.  What I mean by that is...sometimes the stories we tell are to give people an idea of where we come from.  Who we are now by no means represents or defines our character as it has been crafted today.

So many times I have heard friends and families tell me stories of where they began, where the middles appeared and thankfully I almost never got to know the ends of those stories.  Because my friends, and family, are still crafting more today.  And in a way it's almost disheartening that the stories I remember most are the ones filled with more tragedy than comedy.  More strife than smile.

But at the same time there is that automatic thing we all do when we hear "those stories."  We compare who they were to who they are.  And we realize that through what happened before can now be considered laughable, for some.  What was considered strife was really a forging of strength.

It sounds cheesy, but this is one of those quiet times where it hits me square in the chest that, Damn.  I know some powerful people.

And I know I've got my strengths too.  I know I've got my stories as well.  But like most folks I know, it was just a thing that happened.  At the time it felt big.  And sometimes when we look back we see how big it really was.  But mostly it isn't about trying to show you how big it is, or was.  Most folks, including myself, aren't interested in making what happened their life.  Some of course choose to take what they experienced and turn it into something for the better to help those who have had the same sorry stroke of luck.  Or wonderful blessing.  Some people choose to keep it a conscious part of remembering where they've been.

Others, myself included, keep gentle reminders of the stories we bear.  Written in journals, drawn in pictures, held within the malleable recesses of our minds.  Because after a while you stop making those stories the focal point for everything you do.  You stop screaming into the bullhorn.  Some people never pick one up to begin with.  You saw it, you met it, you dealt with it, and you move on to the next stage of your life that requires most if not your full attention.

I am a lover of stories.  I developed my passion in books, and gradually moved to develop my passion for people which had me falling in love all over again.  Part of me knows that what I remember is only meant to be held inside my memory until it gradually fades away.  Part of me wants to never forget what I heard.  To record everything and hold it tight against my body.  Wrap myself in rainbow twine, each color representing a new person and story that loops itself around me, until I am a massive ball of string, made of tales of joy and woe, anger and terror, mundane and adventurous.  I want to be able to just float in space, a massive ball of twine, spinning ever fervently, ever forward (wherever "forward" winds up being), collecting more and more stories as I go.

Human beings are so amazingly complex I just want to revel in their gloriousness.  Smarts and stupids and all. Skin smoother than a baby's ass and warts on warts on warts.  I revel in you, fair storytellers.  And marvel at your tenacity.  Even if it is as mundane as opening your eyes, cursing the fact that it's Monday and finding out someone ate your favorite cereal.

The bastards.