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“We tell our stories in order to
live.”
By: Anne Hartley Pfohl, MSEd, ABD
 Have you ever thought about how much story telling
you do on a daily basis? Even in answer to simple questions: How are
you? How was your day? Can I help you? – we respond and a piece of our
story comes out. We tell stories to describe, explain, and remember who
we are. We share stories to know and be known. Story telling is an
intimate act. What will I share? What will I see? We show ourselves in
the stories that we tell, and we see ourselves in the stories we hear.
And in the act of telling, we renew, remember, recreate, and reconnect.
Others tell stories about us, and these are their
interpretations of who we are. Some stories told about us are not
terribly flattering. Some, we feel, are just flat out untrue. Perhaps
stories don’t always reflect an exact truth. All stories contain the
perception, the sensibility of the teller who spins the narrative. In
telling stories about others, we expose parts of ourselves at the same
time.
I like to tell my nieces and nephews stories about
when they were little. The words I use conjure the threads of life and
love that connect us to one another. My stories say “I know you. I
changed your diapers. I rocked you. I took you to a baseball game. I
made you pink bunny milk (translation: Strawberry Quick). I’m watching
you grow.” What I do tells them who I am – loving, grumpy, funny, a
know-it-all – and they read my actions like a story book. “Once upon a
time there was a woman named Anne who lived with two dogs and her
partner, Kate…” Our stories help to give context to the present and
shape to the future.
There are stories that are difficult to tell.
Stories we fear that, in the telling, will leave us lonely,
disconnected, or dismissed. We may tell them only to ourselves. We
relive them quietly, internally. We may record them privately in a book
or a computer file. We are shocked and surprised when, as if trying to
burst from the cage within, little pieces of our hidden stories spring
free, slipping out on the words of another intention. Like ships tossed
on a stormy sea, our stories need safe harbor, a place to rest in the
security of understanding and hospitality. Sharing stories and listening
are gifts that sustain and heal us. It is the way we touch and connect
to say, “I know. I remember. I can imagine. I’m here.”
When we meet and greet at the Pride Center – to
play games, to attend group, to volunteer – we bring and share stories.
When we march in the Pride parade, attend services in our faith
communities, vote, go to town meetings, and talk with our neighbors we
share our stories. We are known and come to know others through a lived
narrative that we enact and speak every day. Tell your story.
[I
can’t attribute the quote that serves as the title to this article. I
know I’ve heard or read it somewhere. If you know where it came from,
please email me
and tell me. In spite of the fact that I don’t remember who said it, I
have experienced the truth in that statement first hand. I am a story
teller. I am a listener. So are we all.]
For more information, call Anne at 852-7743 or
email
ahartleypfohl.
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