Storyteller Katherine Conant
First published in in the Spring 2009 issue of “The Museletter” of the League for the Advancement of New England Storytelling
My initial entry into the storytelling community took place in the early 1990s when I attended a Connecticut Storytelling Festival. I was stunned by the impact of people standing on a stage stripped of scenery, wearing street clothing, yet captivating the audience with a wide variety of stories. It was as if a door had been thrown open so I might hear of the wisdom and foolishness, humor and joy of humanity.
Within a few years I was brash (and naive) enough to attempt to produce an outdoor festival in my hometown. As I scrambled for funding, I was advised to approach the William Caspar Graustein Memorial Fund in New Haven. Assured that my idea was interesting enough for the Fund to consider contributing, I set off to make my case. Riding up in the elevator I silently said a prayer they would understand importance of storytelling. The doors opened and on opposite wall I saw a painting of a Storyteller Doll and the quote; “The storyteller figure symbolizes the values of the Memorial Fund —educating, supporting and inspiring our children.”
It was the visual answer to my prayer. The Fund did indeed contribute to the production of the Doggone Storytelling and after reading the history of the Fund’s creation it made sense to invite Bill Graustein, the senior trustee and son of the man who founded the Fund, to tell a story.
Bill accepted my offer and, in a demonstration of great daring, this geophysicist-turned-philanthropist told a Sunday morning audience the story of his father and a Harvard classmate, Amos White. His story was both powerful and touching but it was only later that I realized Bill had recognized the potential of storytelling to fuel genuine community change and connection.
During the past 16 years and Bill and I have forged a working relationship that I deeply value. He has used his position in the nonprofit community to provide those in agencies and organizations opportunities to learn stories to both sustain themselves and inform the world of their work.
Not the least of his projects is the creation of the Community Leadership Program, a year-long journey of discussion and study to fuel new ways of supporting healthier communities and families. Based in New Haven, CT, it has attracted, but is not limited to people working in the area, including government and secular agencies. The core value of the program is learning to tell and listen to stories as an avenue for addressing issues such as social disparity, race, and economic inequality.
This year will is the beginning of the seventh group, Cohort #7, and it will meet one afternoon each month until May of 2009. The group is small, numbering about 20 people with a variety of backgrounds, races and ages. The common theme is seeking to better know each other and share support for their organizations.
Membership is open to anyone working in nonprofit or government work, with an application process to assure a mixture of representatives. I was fortunate to be accepted as a member of Cohort #5. I was one of the few not employed by or leading a non profit agency, however, my work often brings me into that world and I was eager to lean which issues the most are challenging.
Being a part of the Cohort gave me the opportunity to hear about the stresses and successes of the agencies face. As a storyteller it was a monthly opportunity to watch individuals discover their stories and learn how they reflect their lives and the work they do in the world.
Most storytellers are born with their tongues hinged in the middle and I sometimes struggled to not use my ‘storyteller voice’ to point out metaphors, illustrations and connections. The stories were nascent, tender and tightly budded, coming from deeply rooted experiences and told by a person often astonished by the memory that suddenly clamored to be heard.
Unlike what I experienced in storytelling guilds these people were not working on material for performance or recording. It was their initial foray into a world set free of goals and results, using thoughts unleashed from careful editing. Sometimes it would be almost a fully formed story, but more often a tendril of memory needing protection and cultivation. The process was multi-layered; learning about how and why stories work, and where their own stories fit in the development of who they have become.
As the months passed, our group began to be aware that we needed to talk about issues of race. A few older African American members shared extraordinary stories of such bitterness pain and fear that they were difficult to hear. They described worlds that I had read of, seen depicted, but never knew on a personal level. The tellers and listeners alike staggered under the weight of grief, anger and a genuine bewilderment as to how change might ever be possible. Finally there was a moment when a white person gave voice to a question that had hovered over us for weeks; what did they want from us?
It felt as if the very air in the room evaporated. An African American woman stood ramrod straight and said, “We want you to know. We don’t want you to feel guilt or pity. We want you to listen and recognize that even if some things are better in lots of ways it is the same. There are so many times when a look, a change of position, a tone of voice carries a message that there is no trust, there is no respect and there is no sense of believing us fully human.” In an instant we were collectively forced to consider just how conscious were we, really? When might we might have stepped forward to be counted but did not? It was painful and raw for everyone, but beneath the weight of the sorrow and confusion the we instinctively leaned against our shared personal stories to withstand the explosive impact of her words. For me it was a revelation, completely changing how I move through the world. My perspective has shifted and I strive to ensure the tone of my voice, my position, and my presence reflects my respect and trust because that is the right thing to do, for all of us.
Because the foundation for our Cohort was the telling of and listening to stories we were collectively able to acknowledge both our differences and our shared desire for change. We had all witnessed each other plumb the depths of personal experiences and paint pictures on personal maps where life and spirit intersected. In doing so we created the collective courage and the patience to address the issues that are most critical to the world we all strive to see become real.
It has been two years since I shared that time of stories and learning. I feel it was one of the most intense examples of story in action I have ever experienced. Our connections endure tangibly and spiritually. The work the CLP supports is a genuine illustration of how stories and their capacity to support change and understanding.