lessons in escapism.
storyteller, potion seller
Stood in front of a cottage with her two dogs, one potted tomato plant, and the advice her mother had given her.
“Don’t look back. Start, and then start again if you have to.”
A bittersweet beginning to a life of solitude. Hope swelled inside her as she took a hesitant step through the entrance. The next was interrupted by a furry frenzy.
…
Sprawled in front of the hearth, she rolled to one side and received a quick wet kiss across her forehead. One dog, a vegetable garden, and the hermitic embrace of wooden walls.
Podcast
When I was young, my dad told me a story.
There was a man who went to the edge of the world. It was bitterly cold, and he could barely breathe with the frosty winds nipping at his face. He knew he would not survive long, so he took an axe to the side of a mountain, hacking away, trying to make a hole big enough to crouch in. But as the winds howled, his vision faded, and his skin turned purpley-blue. The mountain cracked and crumbled, a pile of rubble scattered across the ice sheets. The Earth shook. ‘The force is too great! The Earth will tip, and we will surely fall!’ He had doomed the world. Crouching in contrition, he waited for the inevitable, the end of it all. Soon the dust settled, the winds continued to howl, and miraculously the world kept spinning.
An awkward confession outside a classroom left my insides crumbling in horror. I told one of my classmates I liked them. ‘Thanks, but I like someone else.’ I had gone out on a limb (and my friend told me they liked me back!), but it wasn’t meant to be. Lamenting my eternal solitude I wandered back inside the classroom. My friend reached over and grabbed my pen. I grabbed it back. She smiled, I smiled back. The world kept spinning.
I was fired from my job. ‘Actually that doesn’t work for me.’ An icy glare shot in my direction. ‘See me after the meeting.’ A quick fire back and forth, each word from my mouth hacking at my reputation until his words became my undoing. How would I pay my rent? My roommates are going to be so mad. ‘Don’t worry,’ said my dad. ‘The world is still spinning.’
After years of uncertainty and confusion, I landed my first paid writing role. ‘I’m a writer! It’s official!’ I stood up, spun around, and the world spun with me.
The above was complete fiction. This tale was never told, and these happenings never occurred. But for a moment, you lived with me in this world, a co-created construction in our imaginations. A point of collective understanding suspended in real time. A mutual understanding of the message relayed in the narrative. A way to express something when we don’t have the exact words, the layers gently peeled back, revealing meaning between the prose.
Story plays a part in its own telling, that of a companion riding alongside us, whispering in our ear. ‘This is the part in the story when…’ And so everyday happenings become fantastical retellings. A remnant of us, a part of our personal legacy. A past that becomes the present moment, a fond memory, a story told around the dinner table.
Our world, our collective human experience and knowledge come together through our individual stories,1 joined hand in hand across the globe. We are welcomed with words, invited in with common ideals. Only in those moments do we all exist together, connected. Through joy, fear, mystery, and hope, we can find honesty and mutuality.
To return to connection, to sensation, to past, to present, all we have to do is return to the story.
a plot twist I did not see coming
A photography exhibition, a boxing match, a film, a ballet, a song. What do they have in common?
Story encapsulated in words, movement, images, sports, music.
What is the artist trying to say with this? What influenced them to make this? Who are they? The final piece is the story within their story.
You can piece together an entire life from fragments.
Night after night, I listened to the same Greek myths, the voices warbling in places where the tape had worn thin. Their foolhardy adventures are forever seared in my memory. I continue this nightly ritual, mostly listening to YouTube videos by someone with a soothing voice talking about nothing in particular. I have a very excitable brain, which means I have to satisfy my its urge to think (but not too much) to fall asleep. So I turn to stories. They are a place I can park my thoughts. A chance to step outside of my own world and into someone else’s.
the trials and tribulations of trying to get the fabric store with manon (manonmarguerite)
Non-fiction is where we’re told to look for answers. At one point or another, many of us have succumbed to the self-help section, myself included. But thinking about where my learning first began as a child, it wasn’t nestled in between Malcolm Gladwell and James Clear. I devoured books on complex topics like identity and discrimination, guided by the wise hands of Malorie Blackman, Jacqueline Wilson, and Michael Morpurgo, knowing that we eventually grow up and become part of a semi-functional society. Children’s literature is instrumental in the formation of a child’s development; they don’t have much life experience to draw on at that point. Plus, they don’t listen to their parents, so books have become a creative solution.
To get lost in a novel is to connect with another realm, another self, another perspective. Fiction isn’t all fantasy and fairies. In every story these is something that the author wants you to know. A feeling they want you to settle into. A message they want to project. The world is entirely their own construct, but truth is based in realism.
I’ve often said, I find myself in other people’s words. It is a pleasure to feel understood. Little by little, line by line, we gain access to our inner world. A place so often hidden from us in everyday reality and consciousness, only accessible via creative prose. It involves sitting with oneself to gauge deep meaning from everyday circumstances and words, something we don’t often do in our fast-paced lives. Stories are an invitation to hold stillness and understanding for ourselves and the world. By exploring the consciousness of those existing on the page, characters of our own creation, we are able to enter our own psyche and extract further knowledge of our internal self. Are these characters functional servitors given the form of our deep-held beliefs and woes?
Our history, our culture, our collective and personal legacies are very much shaped by storytellers. Historians, politicians, documentarians, and biographers deal with actual events and people, which they must weave into an intricate tale to capture our attention (interestingly, the idea of the unreliable narrator applies here too). The only difference between a historical documentary and an episode of Game of Thrones is names, dates, and camera angles.
Myths and folklore never went away. We are folk. What we create is folklore; the living embodiment of our collective existence. We are living folk heroes, the ones of tales told of times gone by. Hercules was just some guy once. We mythologise living human figures. Give them the power and reverence of Zeus. A sports documentary is a mythology in living colour.
And so it’s up to the storytellers of today to keep us alive. This once grand title was entrusted to custodians of knowledge whose role was to serve and enrich the community, and give a voice to the culture. These stories taught community values, soothed worries, and provided spiritual guidance. The story does more than recount events. Through this person, you can directly contact your heritage and ancestral legacy. You are both the recipient and actor in this tale.
The role of ‘Storyteller’ still exists, albeit within the ranks of PR firms and advertising agencies, tasked with spinning stories and coming up with brand concepts. The world’s oldest job now relegated to a corporate job title. But in the crevices of the arts and the far reaches of the humanities, the storyteller is alive and well.
I believe everyone has a story to tell. Their own or perhaps someone they want to give a voice to. Choose your medium, harness your mannerism, and showcase your world.
Tell me a story.
Thank you for reading.
chloé.