Last weekend during my weekly visit with my mother via my cell phone, we touched on the subject of storytelling. She has told me so much about my grandmother, her mother, and how she used to sit to tell stories to her as well as her brothers and sisters.
My mother was the 5th girl in a family of 12. There were 8 girls and 4 boys. And they lived in an era which was more primitive.
My grandmother was born in 1896, long before homes had electricity or running water or even indoor bathrooms. When she married and started her family, they settled in rural southwest Iowa on a farm. There was no electricty or running water for several years. She used an old wood stove to cook on and even I can remember as a child that she continued to cook on that old stove even after they had electricity. It was a part of her way of life and one that was hard for her to change, but she did eventually learn to cook on a gas stove.
My grandfather finally ran a pipe from the well into the house and installed a hand pump so that they could have water in the house and not have to carry it, especially during the winter months. I can remember seeing that old pump and the wash basin that sat beneath it. It was the only source of water, so pans were filled for cooking, water pitchers were filled for drinking and of course it was the area where we all had to wash our hands and get our faces washed. And of course pails were filled so water could be heated for the weekly bath in the old round wash tub.
But with no electricity, they had no television of course, as it was years later before television came to the area. But they didn't have a radio either. So what to do on those long evenings. During the summer, everyone would go outside and the children could play their games of tag or hide and seek or whatever they decided on. My grandparents would sit and watch and as darkness came and would tell the children it was time to go inside.
Living on a farm, it was the old adage, "early to bed and early to rise." There were chores to be done before school or even play, plus the fact with that many people trying to get ready to go to school, eat their breakfast and get chores done, they had to be up early.
My grandmother would on occasion during the warmer months tell a story, something she had just made up. She never knew what it might be, just an idea or something she had seen and the story would begin with no outline of a beginning, middle or ending. It became a story with its own life as her mind worked and the magic began. Sometimes they were funny stories, sometimes they were scary stories and sometimes they were just stories. But with each one, there was a subtle lesson, maybe not one that everyone noticed at the time, but later they would remember something about that story and knew she was also trying to teach them something about life as well.
During the winter months, it was about the only entertainment they had unless they played cards which was hard with that many around. So her storytelling went on for years while her family grew up. No one really knew where she got the ability as her own mother never was a story teller. It could have been just her motherly way of making her large family of children be quiet and still for awhile, but for whatever reason, she always had their attention.
I remember as a young child, my mother always did a lot of reading to my brother and myself but there were times when all at once she would start telling us a story. Generally it was when we were on a long trip or maybe just a lazy afternoon but it was a bonding time with her as well and we would sit still as she wove her story.
We did have a radio but we still liked to hear the stories my mother would tell us. Later when we got our first television, the story telling got lost as not only did we have the radio, but now we could actually see a picture on the little box in our living room.
So when my own daughters were born, I often found myself telling them little stories, about their pets or maybe about something that one of them had done. Again, without thinking of what I would say, the words would come and again a subtle lesson would be there, just as it had been with my grandmother and my mother.
As my own daughters grew, I began to write down my stories for them. I had always loved to write anyway and this gave me another way to tell my stories but also keep them for the day when they would grow up and might want to read them again.
My mother told me the biggest regret she had was that she couldn't remember all the stories she'd heard, but she could remember parts of them and she wished she had written them down years ago while they were fresh in her mind. She is 90 years old now and can remember some of the stories that she told my brother and I but not all. I am not that old but I can only remember a part of them as well. But I think the biggest memory is sitting with her and listening as she told the story, capturing our attention until we were pulled into it and it became real for a while.
Storytellers and storytelling have been around for eons. It was the only way history could be passed down or for families to know about their ancestors. It is an art, one which I think we all are capable of, but there are a few who can make the art more exciting, capturing our attention and keeping us still while we visualize in our own minds what they are telling us.
I am grateful to my mother and grandmother of teaching me this art. Without their storytelling, I might not ever have discovered my imagination and the ability to dream or just to tell a story for enjoyment and pleasure. To me, storytelling is so rewarding. It is a sharing of events or people and a good story can leave such an impact on someone's life or maybe just a pleasant memory.
I am a Storyteller. I try to tell a story with each of my writings that entertain, inform or question. I also have a subtle lesson, mostly one of family values and the caring and sharing they give to each other. But there is also a lesson of being independent, a desire to succeed and to face life's problems and to survive.
To me, my writing is more than just publishing a book. I am telling a story. There is no beginning, middle or end when I start. I have an idea and the story evolves as it moves along taking on a life of its own, just as the stories that were told by my grandmother and mother. I don't analyze it as to why I write it or compare it to someone else, it is my story and it is the way I tell it. That is what makes storytelling so exciting. We never know what will be said or written next, so it is an adventure. Storytelling can take us away into magical lands or into space or wherever the storyteller goes. We can live in the past, visit the future or maybe just laugh at what we do today.
I hope one day as my own grandchildren grow that they will read my stories and be entertained or give them memories that perhaps might make them become storytellers too.
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