Julie Seedorf, Something About Nothing

Are you a storyteller? I would have answered no to that question. I think of a storyteller as someone who spins yarns and weaves words that capture our attention and create visions in our minds. I think of a storyteller as a person who has a great tale to tell. I think of a storyteller enchanting children with their words.

Recently I started reading a book titled “Making Sense of Scripture” by David J. Lose. It is a book meant to help us understand the Bible. However, I only made it to page 12 before it made me stop and think about stories. Lose captured my attention on page 12 when he said, “People, all of us tend to make sense of our lives through stories.”

I had never thought about my life in terms of a story. Yes, people have said, “You should write a book.” My response was, “I have no story to tell.” According to Lose, we tell stories every day. Our life is made up of many different stories.

Those comments tweaked my interest. Those comments triggered a rewind of all of my conversations of the previous day. I had heard the stories, but I didn’t recognize them as such. When I decided to think about my conversations with other people in terms of stories it gave me a new interest and meaning to those conversations.

In one day I heard the story of a remote control that was out of control and would not display any television channels. I heard the story of a broken modem and the quest for a new one and the antics that occurred installing it. I heard the story of a cut phone line and the chaos that occurred because of it.

I heard stories of joy at hearing from children and stories of the mischief of grandchildren.

Thinking about my previous day I could recall story after story. It changed the way I looked at the previous day in my life. It changed the way I looked at the people I encountered. My day became more interesting, less stressful and more imaginative. My previous day that I had thought was humdrum and boring became interesting and alive. In every conversation there was a story.

At times I view my life as one long path from the beginning to today. Looking anew at my life I saw the stories weaved throughout the years.

Our life might be one long biography, but there are many short stories that never get told. We might think biographies are only for the rich and famous, but I happen to think that the person who might blend into the background probably has stories hidden in their life that need to be told.

Recently, one of my granddaughters found in my home what we thought to be an empty diary. She asked if she could have it to use for her dreams. As my granddaughter was looking through that diary she found two entries from 1987 that told a story. The story: “Here I am, with chicken pox, feeling awful, wondering what to do because it’s almost Christmas. Why did this happen to me?” The next entry says: “Here I am again, my grandma is here. I still have chicken pox. My mom went shopping. It’s not that bad.”

Those two entries told a story to my granddaughter about someone who felt bad that she was sick and was afraid she would miss Christmas. But the storyteller was OK because she had the love and care of a grandma and a mother who would see that Christmas was special even if she was sick with chicken pox. We found a tiny, little, important story in the midst of that empty diary.

I love to read. I love the gift of words on a page that teach us, make us angry or sad and tell a story that changes the world or our perception of an event or a person. I love the gifts of words that tell a story that someone has used their imagination to create. We read those words, but never imagine that we could be the person telling the story. But we are.

We tell a story every time we talk to someone. Sometimes our stories are interesting and sometimes our stories might bore everyone to death. But they are our story. They are who we are. They are our lives.

Are you a storyteller? What stories do you tell? Take the time to listen to the stories you hear in your next conversation. Look at your life and write down the stories that piece together the timeline of your life. There are going to be good stories, sad stories and bad stories but looking at those stories somehow made my life seem richer and I hope yours will too.

I do want to warn you, a conversation will never feel the same again.

Wells resident Julie Seedorf’s column appears every Monday. Send e-mail to her at thecolumn@bevcomm.net. Her blog is paringdown.wordpress.com. Listen to KBEW AM radio 1:30 p.m. Sundays for “Something About Nothing.”