Many of my stories are about myself and my family. Often people will tell me, “I feel as if I know you.” Once, at a National Festival, someone said to my daughter Sarah, “So you’re The Sarah.”
                      
Listeners are sometimes surprised by my candor, but to me telling stories about my life seems perfectly natural. Maybe it’s because my mother could go to the grocery store and turn it into an opera. She’d use voices and motions to turn a simple trip for groceries into an epic journey. She made everyday life important.
        
Growing up, my two favorite writers were William Saroyan and e.e.cummings. Both saw the importance of everyday life. Saroyan wrote, “In the time of your life, live—so that in that wondrous time you shall not add to the misery and sorrow of the world, but shall smile to the infinite delight and mystery of it.”
                     
Saroyan advised young writers to “Try to learn to breathe deeply, really to taste food when you eat, and when you sleep, really to sleep. Try as much as possible to be wholly alive, with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell, and when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough.”
                      
Cummings echoed these sentiments. In an introduction to one of his volumes of poems, he wrote, “We are human beings; for whom birth is a supremely welcome mystery, the mystery of growing: which happens only and whenever we are faithful to ourselves. You and I wear the dangerous looseness of doom and find it becoming. Life, for eternal us, is now and now is much too busy being a little more than everything to seem anything…”
                        
Many of his poems celebrate that “now.” Here’s the start of one of my favorites:

i thank You God for most this amazing day:
for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;
and for everything which is natural which is infinite which is yes

My work follows in the steps of my two heroes. My stories celebrate life in all its joy and sadness, in its wisdom and folly. It’s a great treat to create and tell these stories. I have a scrapbook filled with the stories of my life. I’m sure that many of these moments would have disappeared had I not captured them in a story.

It’s an even greater treat to hear my audiences laugh or cry. This happens when a story transcends the personal and touches a universal. When people say they recognize the truth in one of my stories, it’s as if they’re saying, Yes, I’ve been there, too. “ And that recognition is the greatest reward I can receive as a storyteller.

Because I often tell personal stories, I am regularly asked “Is that true?” This is a difficult question to answer for a storyteller. If I were on the witness stand (or being interviewed by Oprah) I would say “no”. But that wouldn’t be true either. “Kind of” would probably get me a contempt of court charge. So would “true enough”, or “what does it matter?”

For a storyteller, truth is a slippery thing, and we all know it. I have spent enough time delving into my past to know that memory and what really happened are two different things. Recent studies in the nature of memory show that memory changes to accommodate a person’s view of themselves. Really, memory is the story we tell to explain how we got where we are.

For a storyteller, the most important thing is to serve the emotional truth of the story – we’re trying to touch on the commonality of the human condition. The truth is that our lives don’t work as stories very well – it’s rare that events present themselves as a narrative form with finely drawn characters, plot development, climax and resolution. It’s the storyteller’s job to fashion events into that structure. And we need that structure to keep an audience’s attention and highlight what is important. So I will rearrange the order of events, change names, conflate characters, and just, well, lie sometimes to get to the heart of the story. But almost all of my stories begin with an emotional moment I want to capture.

Here’s a story about the truth – or what really happened:

I hated junior high school. Hated it. It was big and impersonal and I got lost in it. I wanted to capture everything I hated about it in a story and so, using a few people from my memories of junior high school and a few situations, I created a story, “Locker Boy”, about getting locked in a locker on a Friday afternoon and left to suffocate over the weekend. It was a good metaphor for what happened to me, but I felt a little guilty that I had really made this one up.

But maybe not. At the Hoosier Storytelling Festival several years ago, the sound man came up to me and said one of his friends had gone to junior high with me. I recognized the friend’s name, and we talked for a little while. Then he said, “I’m supposed to ask you about the time you got locked in the locker. He said it was hilarious.”

Yikes! Talk about recovered memory! If I was locked in a locker, I’ve blocked it from my memory. Or kind of, since I’m very happy to lie about it.

So – are my stories true? Completely. The more I tell them, the truer they get.

After the birth of my son in February, I updated all the beneficiary information on my will, retirement accounts and life insurance. Obviously, Evan is my greatest legacy, but completing the paperwork gave me an opportunity to stop and think about the kind of mark I’d like to leave in my community.
   
I have been a volunteer and sponsor for Storytelling Arts of Indiana performances for many years, and even if I am not here to write the check myself, I’d like to ensure that my favorite performance art continues to live on and touch the lives of others.

I have designated a percentage of my retirement fund to the Storytelling Arts of Indiana Endowment Fund. It’s only a small percentage, but I know that every little bit will help. The money is carefully managed by the Central Indiana Community Foundation and distributions are approved by the Endowment Board. These funds help offset costs of programming, special events or outreach to underserved audiences.

I haven’t designated a specific purpose for my donation, but I’d like to think that my investment growth will be big enough that I could endow the Storyteller’s Theatre series. I love wide range of topics, experiences and backgrounds that we get to experience each season. What would you want your gift to fund?

I hope that you’ll take the time to consider your estate planning and designate a gift – whether it’s a percentage of your estate, or a set amount – for the Endowment Fund. Join me in the “Epilogue” donor group, helping ensure that storytelling has a long and healthy future in Indiana. Contact Ellen Munds, executive director at Ellen@storytellingarts.org, to make a pledge or if you have questions.

Beth all geared up for renovating

Beth Horner
Storyteller
bethhorner@earthlink.net

Over the past few weeks, two trains of thought have been readily present and whirling around in my brain: house renovation and love. I am in the midst of renovating a 1939 old style brick row house (see photos!) AND looking forward to being in Indianapolis to present my favorite program Love Lost, Found and Fumbled. It occurs to me that house renovation and love are very much alike.

First comes the initial twinkle, spark and magnetic attraction to the object of love. After endless dates with realtors, on a fateful day, one walks into a house and just knows that it is THE ONE. One twirls from room to room crying out, “Oh, look at the light streaming in through this bay window! Oh, this circular staircase is divine! Oh, don’t you just LOVE this decorative doorknob!” Before you know it, downright lust and obsession have taken over. “I can see spending the rest of my life in the warm embraces of this house. I MUST have this house. I cannot live without this house!”

And so, from the heights of cloud nine where one does not concentrate on silly realities such as the asbestos and mold that have to be removed, (Oh, I’ll just fix those things later.), one gleefully signs paper after paper after paper after paper after paper after paper after . . . and at last is in full possession of the object of love.

Then, the honeymoon ends. One begins to notice cracks in the foundation, water leaking in around the bay window, an uneven floor, paint peeling behind the door with the decorative doorknob. After falling down the circular staircase one day, one realizes that there is going to be some work involved. Consultants are consulted. Budgets are budgeted. There are long meetings, heart to heart talks, compromises, pleading, tears, exhaustive work. Days are spent scraping old paint off ceilings, painstakingly removing layers of ancient vinyl, patiently pulling up over 1,000 carpet tacks, staples and nails. One often sags in frustration, weeping, “Why did I get myself into this mess? How did I think this was going to work? What was I thinking?” The sparkle of lust is a dim memory.

As one struggles on though, surprises and little joys creep in. Slinging the sledgehammer to knock down the wall between the kitchen and dining room is not only good therapy, it opens up the house in a completely unexpected way. Beautiful hardwood floors are revealed beneath the old carpet. An old letter is discovered in the attic uncovering part of the house’s history.

Super Woman

As time goes on, one realizes that some things are fixable and some are not. However, because of all the work, one grows to appreciate (or at least tolerate) all aspects of the house and falls in love with it all over again – in a much deeper way. Lust is grand, but true love is life sustaining.

Most of these thoughts are based on my own experiences in house renovation. I have yet to get to the life sustaining part. However, through the work I’m doing, I am coming to love my house in a whole different way. Of course, my contractor has become a part of my life. One day, when we were both extremely frustrated with the plasterer who had clearly NOT listened to my instructions, my contractor ran out to the cab of his own truck and returned with a copy of one of my CD’s featuring a cover photo of me holding an ax. He held the CD to the plasterer’s face and yelled, “You see this! You see Beth wielding this ax! This is NOT a photo-shopped photo! Don’t mess with Beth!” I was unaware that my contractor even possessed one of my CD’s or had heard any of my stories, but the action was effective.

As I look forward to telling stories of Love Lost, Found and Fumbled , I also think of my parents. I called them the other day and my 90-year old father said, “I just brought your mother breakfast in bed, but she’s mad at me.” “Why?” I asked. “Well, she feels that our honeymoon was second rate. Says it could have been in a zippier hotel.” “Wow,” I said, “67 years is a long time to hold on to something like that.” Then, I heard my 89-year old mother laughing in the background . . . and my father began to laugh as well . . . and I began to laugh. Laughter is essential when fumbling through long-lasting love.

Speaking of laughter, I am excited about one of my new additions to Love Lost, Found and Fumbled. It is a tale of adventure that addresses that burning question “Are carob chips just as romantic as whipped cream?” Find out this Saturday. Hope to see you there!

Dancing

Ever since I started interning with Storytelling Arts last October, I have attended various storytelling events, but only for the last two months did I go to Jabberwocky, and what an experience I had missed out before.

The theme for February was “Enduring Love Stories,” which instantly piqued my interest. I am such a lover of romance, and I couldn’t help but also feel that giddy optimism when I heard the couples share how they met and grow in love with their soul mates. You see and hear love everywhere – in movies, on TV shows, on the radio, in those teenagers holding hands as they walk down the street – but it’s quite a different experience to listen to a love story from the lips of the lovers themselves. It’s an experience that’s rich and personal. Their faces just sparkle as they recount the twists and turns they went through before getting to the place they are now. Their love story is one that does not conveniently fit into a 3-minute song or a 2-hour movie; it is a real, unique one that still goes on.

In celebration of International Women’s Day, the March Jabberwocky flaunted “International Flair” as women shared their global journeys to Indiana. Each woman’s story was different – each had its fair share of challenges and hardships, and yet, there were still moments of accomplishment and contentment. Their stories showed me that patience, courage, perseverance and openness to growth and new opportunities will carry you through times of change.

This Jabberwocky made me think of my mom’s immigration story. I know the basic facts: After my parents were married in the Philippines, they came to live in Indianapolis because much of my dad’s family was already settled here. But what I don’t know was how my mom felt flying across the globe pregnant with me. What was her first impression of America? How did she cope with living in a foreign world, where she had to adapt to a new job, a different language, new customs and even snow? Plus, it amazes me to think she was only two years older than I am now when she first came here.

One advantage of being a young adult who attends storytelling events is that I can benefit from the wisdom from other people’s stories and that I should constantly seek out stories, especially those from the people who are close to me. I have learned that life does not have a straightforward, predictable path. No matter how much you hope and plan, life is full of surprises, and that is the beauty of it. You never know who you are going to meet or impact or where you are going to be until you live that moment.

What I love about Jabberwocky is that these stories are real. They are about real people in my community. They are filled with real events, emotions and insights. This furthers illustrates that all people – the person in the car next to you, the cashier who rings up your groceries, your parents and even you – have a story worth sharing. Will you join me at the next Jabberwocky, Tuesday, April 12th beginning at 5:30 p.m. at the IndyFringe Theatre, 719 E St. Clair St in Indianapolis?

My dad used to have a state-of-the-art alarm clock, and I feel old describing it to you. It would play music AND wake you up, and it had an incredible feature called the sleep button. You could hit it, music would play, and 29 minutes later, it would actually turn off! It was amazing! The problem was, you had to wait the whole 29 minutes to see it work its magic, but that wasn’t too bad, because you could watch the numbers change on the clock, and I mean actually change. Each minute of the hour and every hour itself was its own little plastic tab that actually flipped down or folded over the other number, an interior dial of time perpetually flipping forward, clicking, keeping perfect rhythm, lit by a little light, just bright enough to see the numbers themselves change.

For some reason, in my young mind, it was endlessly fascinating to watch the numbers flip, time flipping forward, and wait for the sleep button to magically shut off the music.

I loved sitting in my parent’s room, listening to the music that played on the only station my dad listened to before bed, WJBR, Just Beautiful Radio. In those days, it played only classical music, 24 hours a day. My dad would hit the magic sleep button, the music would start, and I would watch the little plastic tabs click off the time until it was time for bed, but hopefully not before the sleep timer did its thing. My dad every now and then would stand, transfixed in front of the radio. I always thought he was looking at the numbers as well, but he would close his eyes, sway very slightly and say, “Mi’jo, can you hear that?” Mi’jo means my son. I would strain toward the radio. “What?” I would ask.

“That, right there, and there again? There, right on top of the piano, the violin?” I couldn’t hear anything. “And now, the clarinets, and the drums rolling in the back, like thunder over the hills? It reminds me of Cuba, can you hear that?”

(If you like the feel and the sound of this story, attend Antonio’s performance in Indianapolis on March 12 at the Eugene and Marilyn Glick Indiana History Center.)

I have a confession. In 2005 I was introduced to what, honestly, seemed like the best-kept secret in town – The Storytelling Arts of Indiana.

Fresh out of college, having studied both Communication and the Performing Arts, my discovery of the Storytelling Arts of Indiana opened up a completely new genre for me to explore. What was most profound, for me, was witnessing how the art of storytelling allows the teller to embrace all the gifts and talents he or she has developed over the years. As a result, I have witnessed storytellers utilizing a variety of musical instruments, mime, dance, theatre, and even audience participation to bring a story to life. From the outset I was blown away. I had no idea that storytelling at this level actually existed.

Over the years, my involvement with this incredible organization has actually allowed me to explore and develop my own storytelling talents. For example, on the third Wednesday of every month, at the Indianapolis Glendale Library, amateur and seasoned storytellers alike are encouraged to develop their skills at the As I Recall Storytelling Guild – which I have been a regular attendee for the past three years. Furthermore, this past October I participated in the first annual ghost story contest and am currently working on next year’s selection.

What my time spent with storytelling has taught me, more than anything, is that not enough people know about it. That is why I have made it my personal mission to educate as many people about the Storytelling Arts of Indiana as possible. I honestly believe that once people realize what an amazing performance experience storytelling actually is more will want to get involved.

I want to encourage all of us within the storytelling community to help bridge this education gap. If you’ve ever attended a storytelling event please talk to your friends, neighbors and colleagues about what storytelling actually is. Invite them to attend an event with you. Join our Facebook page. Post comments on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter and re-tweet our tweets. Do you realize that most people think storytelling involves a librarian sitting in a wing back chair telling stories to children? It is most unfortunate that more people don’t understand that storytelling is a viable performing arts experience for adults. Help us bridge this education gap. Respond to this blog and share one of your favorite storytelling moments as a listener.

As a recent college grad, I have sat in many class lectures where I listened. My short-term objective was to listen so I could comprehend the material for the next quiz or exam. For some classes, this was definitely a challenge, like human biology. However, I enjoyed school because of my long-term objective: to listen for the bits of wisdom I could apply to my future career or life in general.

Last week, I attended my first As I Recall Storytelling Guild event at the Indianapolis Senior Center, and I experienced how powerful and gratifying a skill listening is. Listening can serve as the portal to limitless learning. When I listened to each of the storytellers, I felt like I was listening with more than just my ears. I absorbed the flow of the words, sounds, pauses, emotions, facial expressions and gestures and how these and much more comprise the storyteller’s tale. Storytelling is an extraordinary experience, one that is both engaging and entertaining. Both the teller and the audience member are in the moment, when each passing second reveals a tidbit of a past experience.

When you first meet someone, usually you start off with these kinds of questions: What’s your name? Where are you from? What do you do? However, through storytelling, the audience gets to know the storyteller in a way that does not usually come across in a typical conversation. In a single story, the storyteller shares a part of his or her personality, insights, experiences and past with the audience.

Just as every person is different, every story is different. A story can be short or long, humorous or heartbreaking, or a detailed description of one event or a collection of several moments that illustrate a bigger picture. However, what I appreciate most about storytelling is how they keep memories, people, and experiences alive.

I can’t wait to listen to more stories.

I’m thinking back on the gifted storytellers I have had the honor of hearing over these many years of performances sponsored by Storytelling Arts of Indiana. The number is substantial. Would I be as attuned to the significance of Story in my life without these men and women who have shared and inspired and guided me (and countless others) with their artistry? I doubt it. Yes, Story is woven into all of our lives on a daily basis — but so is traffic, so is weather, so is news, so are a hundred other things we all swim in but somehow develop near blindness to. These storytellers sensitized me to the presence and the value of Story.

When Ellen and Nancy and I started this storytelling Odyssey, both my mother and father were around to see its birth. Both kids of the Depression era, they were suspicious of the efficacy of such an endeavor. To them it looked to be a risky business. If the Depression years taught them anything it was this: Don’t take unnecessary risks. Security of any sort is much preferable to a fling with the arts.

The flirtation with the arts is now over twenty years old (as is my own work as a performer / storyteller). Alas, both my parents are now gone. The best of them that I get to keep with me is now … their stories.

Jacob Marley’s chains, forged of the ungenerous acts he committed over a life-time, both shackled and trailed behind him even in death. But one needn’t be a Dickens character to know that not just egregious deeds stick to one like fly paper. Deeds of all stripes trail behind us in life. As do our possessions.

When my father died last September it triggered a need for me to settle his estate. If there is a more bitter-sweet obligation I cannot think of it. We winnowed out many of his (and my mother’s) possessions earlier, upon her passing, and again when he moved into an elder care facility, but rooms filled with the items of their life together at the (now vacant) house still remain.

Walking through that house and sifting through those keep-sakes is like reading a book of short stories in which I am sometimes a major character, but just as often not. The “stories” – recorded in objects and photos — flit forwards and backwards through time, willy-nilly. One moment my dad is a winsome lad in a U.S. Army uniform, bound away for Africa in 1942; the next moment he is six years old with ears that stick out like ping-pong paddles, posed in front of his house on Orange Street in the old south-side Indianapolis German neighborhood of 1923. Suddenly a picture looms of both mom and dad, and they are surely newly married, a flush of potential and possibility wreathed about them, radiating in their mutual smiles as they stand together in front of a fishing cabin in Michigan, the fish they’ve caught on their getaway vacation held proudly on a stringer before them.

I finger an ancient and handsome silk scarf I remember my father wearing (and which I wore as a small child, trying to mimic him), and see it has gone to pieces, eaten by hungry moths with no regard for keepsakes. Here is the porcelain bull I gave my dad as a birthday present when I was maybe five. It has a hollowed, open side in which he kept his billfold and loose change for the next 53 years – and which I now use for the same purpose. There are the German beer steins, highly decorated, which belonged to his father before him. Next to them a stack of Afghans my mother crocheted, hand-blown art glass from Elwood Indiana, fishing poles, tools, letters …

Stories of every hue and shade and emotion cling to these various objects like the skin of a grape – tightly fit and virtually inseparable from the items themselves. Without their stories the objects pale to insignificance, become mere ciphers. The stories provide the context which confers the meaning and emotion. Some objects are mute, their stories lost to me. But for most part I can look and feel and know the connections that make them sing.

That I am not just moved emotionally by the artifacts of my parents lives – nothing uncommon in itself – but highly attuned to the patina of Story that ennobles them … is for me a great good for which I am deeply thankful. That my children have been raised in and about this storytelling endeavor and seem to carry this sensitivity with them as well is also a comfort right now.

In this regard let me also opine this: Here in central Indiana there are hundreds, even thousands of other folks, who have become attuned in like manner to the richness and possibility of Story in their lives. Such has been the harvest of dancing with the arts in the risky business of storytelling. Do you feel the same way? If so how?

When I first joined the board of Storytelling Arts of Indiana in 2000, I had no idea exactly what I was getting into. But since that time I have served as treasurer and president, and I’ve learned the following:

• Storytelling is everywhere. Everyday people tell stories.
• Storytelling is the one of the very first art forms of our ancestors.
• In times of stress and discomfort, people feel better when telling stories.
• Storytelling can be part of a person’s immortality.

My father was a very busy physician, often getting home at night around 10:00 p.m. On those special occasions when he would return home before I went to bed, my siblings and I would always convince him to tell us a bed time story. He would tell us a story about himself and his life experiences such as growing up, going to medical school, and meeting our mother. As children, it was the stories about his life that we cherished most. We learned about our particular past as well as life lessons that I still use today. These stories have been passed down from generation to generation and give us the ability to remember who we are and where we came from.

I have used storytelling as well to help people in time of need. For instance, last year, I met a young man named Jimmy. That evening, he received a telephone call that one of his best friends had been killed in a tragic automobile accident. Jimmy was overwhelmed with sadness. I started asking him to tell me stories about his friend. As he was telling me the funniest stories he had, I could see in his face that he was happier. He began remembering all the good times he had with his friend and realized that those times will always be a part of him and his memories. His friend will live on through all the stories that Jimmy and those who knew him will tell.

In the last decade, I have been a significant supporter of Storytelling Arts of Indiana’s programs for two main reasons:

• Storytelling is a basic need that everyone has.
• The organization is small enough that any contribution you make will go a long way.

So keep telling all the stories you know, support Storytelling Arts of Indiana and, remember, the story always continues. Now, tell me how have you used storytelling in your everyday life?