Tell Me a Story
“The universe is made of stories, not of atoms.” Muriel Rukeyser
We all have stories - go-to stories, anecdotes, used to entertain, to make a point, to make an impression. We have stories that we pull out only for certain people or certain circumstances, familiar and practiced, strategic and pointed. We have stories we tell on first dates, and those that we tell on fifth dates. There are tiered stories that we tell to people who unlock levels of trust with us - “leveling-up stories.” We have stories we tell at work, antidotal and easy, and then we have stories we only tell under the bright lights of the last-call at a hotel bar, rushing past or lips despite ourselves. We have stories we present to convey power and others meant to reveal softness. There are stories that we love telling, a hit of endorphins coming with each word. These stories make us proud and warm and excited. There are other stories that we hate telling, painfully pulling blood, ripping open old wounds with each syllable. These stories make us ashamed or sad or embarrassed. There are stories we embellish, freshen up, or alter for an audience. There are stories we tell for attention. There are stories we tell with conviction. There are stories told with so much truth it’s hard to bare. There are stories we tell ourselves to make ourselves feel better, and one that we tell ourselves to feel worse.
We don’t just use words, the written and verbal, to tell these stories. Even more powerfully, we use long pauses or well timed glances. We place a hand on a knee, tap a toe against the wood floor, click of a pen in a conference room, insert an emoji with a history. We wink, shift our bodies, tilt our chin. We emphasize or whisper, changing tone to change entire moods. We make direct eye contact, or avert our gaze away.
We use stories to convey who we are. And, fact or fiction, we tell stories to shape who we want to be. If we tell a story long enough and with enough conviction, can we make is true? Joan Didion said, “we are the stories we tell ourselves.” Is this true? Are we the stories we tell ourselves, or are we the stories others tell about us? Or, further still, are we some Frankenstein stitch up of all the stories that have ever been told of or by us?
We wield power when we tell stories - and what a power it is. I usually like to fancy myself a sea witch, or perhaps even a moon witch - but really … I’m a word witch. And even in the times where I’ve rejected or downplayed my love of words and the incredible impact I can have when I yield them just right, I’ve always known this. It’s why I’ve only ever managed to untangle my thoughts through stories. It’s why my house is overflowing with fiction, a thousand different universes living right under my roof. I love stories - the true, the make-believe, and the some-where in between.
But most especially, I love the hum of an never-before told story. I’ve mentioned this before, but I can’t force my writing. People ask me often why my blog seems random, why I don’t write more consistently. The truth of it is that I simply can’t. Of course I could string words together about anything and press post. Easy enough. But to me, the words I choose to send out into the world are important. They are my magic, and I refuse to wield it casually. Because, reader, I do wield it. And for better or for worse, I know what I'm doing. So I wait. I wait until I feel the hum. Sometimes it’s a slow build up, a soft burning excitement. Sometimes it’s an overwhelming, crushing chaos. But either way - I know. I know when it’s time.
Recently, with parallel timing that confirms the universe is always up to something, I told two very familiar stories of my own to two very unrelated people. The stories were as divergent as their audience: different depths, different purposes, different emotions evoked, different reasons I pulled them out.
Both times, my audience completely flipped the narrative on me. Both times, they denied the truth in my story, which seemed impossible because it’s my story. Should I not have ultimate control over it? It was unnerving how easily my own facts could become fiction with new perspective. The stories I told were true. But then, suddenly, somehow, they weren’t as true as I thought they were. The truth shifted right beneath me.
And I think as a now self-proclaimed word witch I have been missing a rather big point. Magic isn’t one-way. In fact, the most basic thing you need to know about magic is that it is about balance. But I have to admit, I haven’t really been thinking about what’s been coming back to me. I haven’t really been thinking about your perspective, reader.
The reality is that once we put our stories out there, they are no longer just ours. It’s a tale as old as time, right? All of our stories, once they leave us, once we choose to put them out there - no longer belong to solely us. They become open to interpretation, adaptation, miscommunication. We loose control of the narrative. They become folklore. And while this can be incredibly frustrating for the author (me), I think it can also be incredibly insightful. Because as I take a step back, to examine those two particular stories, in awe that I couldn’t see what my audience saw, I realize that I am no longer the Alex that I was when I originally wrote those stories out. The stories are true - they are factual - they happened, but they were only so in that moment (or in some cases, many years of moments).
The line between a story of who we are and the memory of who we were is a thick fog, too easy to get lost in.
“Memory is often our only connection to who we used to be. Memories are fossils, the bones left by dead versions of ourselves. More potently, our minds are a hungry audience, craving only the peaks and valleys of experience. The bland erodes, leaving behind the distinctive bits to be remembered again and again. Painful or passionate, surreal or sublime, we cherish those little rocks of peak experience, polishing them with the ever-smoothing touch of recycled proxy living. In so doing—like pagans praying to a sculpted mud figure—we make of our memories the gods which judge our current lives.” Tress of the Emerald Sea
“Beyond that, memories have a way of changing on us. Souring or sweetening over time—like a brew we drink, then recreate later by taste, only getting the ingredients mostly right. You can’t taste a memory without tainting it with who you have become.” Tress of the Emerald Sea
Memories, stories, fact, fiction - I realize I’m weaving in and out of much more complicated topics than I have any right to in a single blog post. What a tricky thing memories are, right? They fade and flow through time, popping in when unwanted, fleeing when we are desperately searching. Memories and stories are often two sides of the same coin.
But it’s crucial that we are able to separate them, or we’ll become the unreliable narrator in our own life.
To get to the moral of this story, within hours of each other, two people turned my own stories into something bigger, better - and more exciting. They reminded me that stories can die, and when they do, they become memories. Memories are to be studied, respected, and examined closely - carefully - because the attached emotions remain shiny and compelling, fossilizing - but they aren’t breathing anymore. New versions of us have bloomed from the dirt, allowing us growth, redemption, opportunity - and maybe more importantly - new perspective.
If that’s not magic - I don’t know what is.
“Stories matter. Many stories matter.” Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie