Sept 30, 2024
Greetings from the joining,
We are surrounded by people, almost always. Most everyone that we pass in a day, we don’t know. These people, like ourselves and everyone we will ever meet and never meet, have stories.
What stands between any of us knowing any of us, is sharing these stories.
You may shrug at this. It’s simple enough math to say we can’t know everyone, practically speaking, and perhaps don’t really need to. So, start there and it’s a good default to keep to yourself and the acquaintances you have. Except all of us want rich, fulfilling lives, and quite often all that stands between us and that purpose, is held in the lives of the people around us.
There are many ways to expand your world. Books provide us one avenue, theater another, perhaps travel or education or origami. But there is nothing like a conversation with another human, where you trade your story for theirs, and you both walk away changed in some way.
This weekend we held a celebration of this idea, called Passages.
We staged it in the small lobby of a twenties-era hotel, The Berridge. It’s loft apartments now, but the main floor is a cute little charcuterie market. The lobby space is lined with wine and things you need for a special occasion, but they cleared everything away and filled the room with an eclectic collection of seats. Benches and settees and high back chairs, desk chairs, bar stools.
The room filled with the curious, the accidental, a few devoted fans, and the storytellers. In just a couple of hours, we changed everyone into someone a little different. Some people knew each other, but most did not. When the evening ended, each of us knew something about everyone.
I’ve read about how a whole generation of people feel isolated and lonely, almost as a norm. Covid made it worse, technology made the worse possible, and within a blink, a cultural shift has happened. Experts parry back and forth for the cause and the solution, but perhaps one of the easiest paths forward is right in front of us.
I’ve been going to the Moth story slams for a few years now. At first I was interested in the performance aspect of the thing, but before long I realized that it filled an important need for the storytellers, and for the listeners. The longer I watched this unfold, the more powerful, and necessary, I saw it was.
So earlier this year I created Passages, patterned after the Moth program. From the first gathering I could feel the possibility of it. Each time we held an event, there was a little different personality to the night, but every time I saw the power of stories change people.
This month the theme was ‘Magic’, and so each storyteller shared a true slice of their life under that umbrella. If you pause right now and try to think of a magic moment in your life, I suspect you will feel a story forming. Your first child, meeting the love of your life, a near miss, a miraculous coincidence, a moment of redemption. Magic.
We gathered in that funky, friendly place, and one by one the first five storytellers came up, and I could feel the room grow closer. At the break, the people in the audience refreshed their drinks and began talking to each other. I could feel the energy change, the room grew noisier and warmer, and there was more laughter.
We had four more stories coming, but I almost hated to interrupt the people getting to know each other, nested in this magic moment. I could see it happening. A few people had told real, personal stories from their lives, shared them in such a way that they touched the others in the audience. The people in the crazy hodgepodge seating got to know something about the person on stage, that was important. But it also was a doorway, an opening. It made it possible for everyone in the room to say something to their neighbor.
The stories told were just the jumping off place, the inspiration to look to your left and say something to the stranger next to you. A few people came that night not expecting to tell a story but got swept up in the passion of the others, and almost suddenly they were doing what they never thought they could. It was a treasure to see them say what was on their hearts. I watched the audience leaning forward, holding their breath, laughing, sighing, nodding, a few crying. Yes, they were saying, I see you, I know, I get it, me too.
The storytellers join a community of sorts, but it is not exclusive, it has this enormous veranda for everyone to sit on, sip a cup of coffee or a glass of wine, link arms with the stranger next to them and be part of the experience. When Passages ended on Saturday night, we had filled the hours with true stories from some beautiful people. And those stories made it possible for a few dozen other people to blink away the things that can separate us.
I don’t know that this simple little event can have a huge impact on the challenges of today’s culture. I do know that simply saying that it’s hard to connect, or focusing on the division in our world, is not doing anything to make life better. I am convinced that what can bring us closer, and give us a way to know and be known, is to find a way to share an authentic slice of our life with others, and hear theirs.
Hope this finds you telling your story,
David
Copyright © 2024 David Smith
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