The stories that make us who we are

We each have stories unfolding every day.

Do we sometimes slow down enough to recognize that?

Isn’t it so cool WE are the authors?

Right now Lucy is in the deep process of authoring the story of how her first class of TENTH GRADE is unfolding over at the high school.

(Yep, school started today here in the desert.)

I don’t know how that happened so fast, and there is a whole new story blossoming about all that led up to this big day.

But I’m going to wait on that story and tell you some others today.

Because I was reminded of the incredible value of stories this week.

We were studying this talk by Elder Gong in Relief society. (written version HERE)

And something inside me just fell in love with stories all over again.

I love that our stories connect us to the past as well as to the future, all intertwined like a tree.

And in telling a story ourselves, it helps us work through feelings about it, good or bad (one reason why therapy is so beneficial).

Do we tell our stories enough?

All that talk in our class reminded me of a post I wrote about stories back HERE. I am reposting here because it may make you think like it made me think all over again:

Last month we read Cold Sassy Tree for book club. I had read it before, but I liked it even more this time around. It made me want to shout out a bunch of “boy howdy”s and talk about “dohickies” and things like that…I love the southern-talk in that book. She’s such a great writer.

Anyway, what caught me most this time around is how great the story telling was back in the day. Man oh man are there some great stories the main character tells in that book. And it makes me sad we don’t have that much any more, at least not around here.

It made me think of the hot summer nights we spent at Bear Lake growing up. My brothers and sisters and I stretched out on our nifty fold-out-from-the-wall-hand-crafted-
by-my-dad beds on top of our foam mats. It was hot…our faces beet red from a day at the beach, our bodies aching from our “summer job” of carrying rocks up from the beach to line our rustic front patio. We’d lay still, in hopes that the warm breeze from the whir of the big fan in the window would make it’s way in our direction.

But it wasn’t the heat we were thinking about. It was what sort of imaginative and crazy story my Dad would come up with to tell us that night. He’d sit in the red chair in the corner and spill out the most glorious tales full of all kinds of adventure. There was this boy named after a combination of all my brother’s names who would save the world all the time. There were adventures of that other family that looked just like us in “Mirror Land.” Always so creative and chock full of stuff to keep us hooked. He’d get to the most intense part, and then he’d say…”we’ll have to find out what happens next tomorrow.”

Oh how I hated those stories to end.

Part of our wonder with them was that my Dad is the greatest story-teller of all time. Part was the fact that we got to stay up a little longer to hear the adventures. But mostly I think we liked to hear the smooth, soothing sound of our Dad’s voice so close to us as we went to sleep.

So this book made me think I just don’t do that enough. I’m not a story-teller. I don’t have a great imagination. But I realized I DO have a lot of great material. Not only is it interesting, but it’s true. It’s about me. It’s about my grandparents. It’s about my parents. And when I tell it in story form my kids LOVE to listen to it.

I told them the story of the family with nine kids who camped up in the mountains of Oregon for a month one summer. They lived in a couple tents and a tee pee while they built a log cabin.

They went into town once a week (two hours away) to “bathe” at the local swimming pool. The cold spring was their “refrigerator.” They somehow packed in an old wood burning stove so their one daughter who couldn’t go without making chocolate chip cookies for a month would survive. (Ok, and so they could cook something other than tinfoil dinners once in a while.) Their mom read them the best books around the campfire each night.

That was my family. And you probably guessed that the girl who had to make cookies in the middle of the wilderness was me (lots more details about Oregon HERE).

I told them the one where this little boy and his brother got SOO scared in a hotel room one night because they thought they heard a lion. It turned out to be a man snoring in the next room.

That was my Dad.

I told them the one where a little girl got to drive a big huge tractor when she was only 12 because she lived on a farm. And how her amazing mother taught her to work so hard.

That was my Mom and her Mom.

And while I don’t have a picture of her driving a tractor when she was little, I do have this good portrait of her beautiful fake hairpiece that was all the rage back then.

I told them the one about a girl in sixth grade who couldn’t close her mouth because she had such a huge overbite along with braces and head gear. And how she hated it but she was so glad she went through it when she finally got her braces off.

That was me again. (And I hope I can come back and post a funny picture if I can ever find it!)

I told them the one about this brave boy, the oldest of five kids, who lost his Dad to cancer when he was fifteen.

This one makes me cry every time I think about it. His widowed mother was so strong and took care of so much by herself. And that boy had to kick in and sort of be a “Dad” to his younger siblings at such a young age. Although they both had to go through so much heart ache it made them into such extraordinary people.

That was my Dad and my Grandma.

I told the one about how this one girl’s family pulled her out of her beloved high school when she was a freshman and whisked her off along with her eight siblings to live in England for six months. She about died because she missed her friends so much and she had to wear a very ugly brown school uniform to her English school there. But when it was all said and done boy oh boy she wouldn’t trade that experience for anything in the world!

That was me again.

And I can’t forget the one about how this very handsome boy took his girlfriend on a hike up to a waterfall. He got really nervous and shaky as he pulled a diamond ring out of his sock (yes, his sock), put it on her finger and asked her to marry him. She said “yes” with stars in her eyes and knew that her life was going to be one great adventure with this man by her side.

That was Dave and me.

I realized I do have SO many stories! My kids adore hearing them and they know more about their parents and grandparents along with being entertained. I never tell them who the story is about until the end, but sometimes they’re pretty quick to guess.

Now I’m off to study some serious ancestor stories to put in “story” form for them.

There’s nothing like a good story.

Ideas to share our own stories

Grammie Camp

(my mom is so good about teaching all the grandkids the stories of ancestors)

“The Ancestor Book”

(stories of our ancestors in a big, fancy book we got to help illustrate as kids)

Mirror Land

(hard to describe “mirror land” so just check out the post:)

Story Worth

Such a great way to help your parents (and YOU if you want) to record stories