Stories We Share

“Ha! #47. That was a good one,” we’d laugh. That is one of the jokes my siblings and I throw out when we surround a kitchen island, sharing stories. We loved and still do, telling and listening to our repeated funny stories, especially if a newcomer enters the circle. But if it were just us, we’d joke we’d only have to say a number, like 47, as if we all knew what story it was and would all chuckle. 

Yesterday, I checked in by text with an old friend I had not spoken with in decades. He was, is, a writer and someone who inspired and encouraged me to write my first and only published essay, twenty-something years ago. After a few back-and-forth pleasantries, I asked him if he was still writing and if he had a website for his writing I could go to. I texted that I hadn’t been inspired to write in a while but that I had a writing blog, that I’d search for the link, and send it to him. Once I found it, dusted it off, so to speak, and sent it to him, it was right in front of my eyes. So, naturally, I scrolled it as if it were him scrolling, just to check that there wouldn’t be anything too embarrassing to share with him. And then there it was. The piece I wrote in his published volume one of several published volumes of essays, poems, photos, and sketches. I immediately second-guessed how copyright works and if I violated some rule by adding it to my collection of essays. 

Resuming my work day with a feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach, I worried: 1. He would be reading my dusty writing blog, find the piece, and either be, A. so pissed at me or B. delighted to see it. And 2. Should I just delete it so he doesn’t see it and talk to him about adding it, as I probably should have asked permission in the first place? I arrived home from the day’s work and decided to just call him and tell him what I did and if I had, in fact, done something wrong. He said I did nothing wrong. Thank God! We talked for an hour more, and my stomach no longer was weighed down with trepidation. 

It is morning now, and I am curious about how he may digest my essays. So, I am reading them all. And this is where I am reminded of the #47 joke. There are times I enjoy revisiting my own writing. If I visit too much, I can become critical and disgusted with myself. “Can’t you write about anything else but yourself?!” But visits now and then are like visits with a friend I haven’t seen in a while. A friend I love dearly who doesn’t get enough air time with me. She usually causes a tear or two or ten, listening to her talk. When I finish reading one, and my eyes are watery, what I am really saying is, “Ah, yes, that was a good one.” And the reading of my writing has long since been about reading through anyone else’s eyes but my own. 

Around the kitchen table, I am the listener. And happily. On the page is where my stories come alive. One of the essays is about creativity, and what Elizabeth Gilbert says about writing is such a good reminder for me. Create (or write) for yourself, and if it happens to touch another in some way, that’s great, but don’t write for that. Write for you. To anyone else, I have no idea how any of it lands. But for me, the page is my empty stage that I love to revisit with new and old stories. 

On a recent Zoom call with some of my siblings, my brother referenced a #47 (or whatever number) story I had not heard. We all begged him (and did not need to beg very hard) to retell it. It was the one about him back in his college days, a passenger in an old tank of a vehicle that was in mid-air, turning upside down and about to land on top of itself. A vehicle so old it had no seat belts, in a slow-motion twirl with knuckle-brain guys he’d be embarrassed to die with. He had two thoughts in the one to two seconds of being in the air. The first was, “I'm going to die, and my family is going to be so mad at me for being in this car with these characters, not even my friends, causing my senseless and stupid death.” He went on to describe the cast of characters, which added to the humor. The second was, “If I live, this is going to make a great story.”  They all miraculously survived, thankfully, and another good story was created.

"Ah, yes," one of my siblings said. "That was a good one."