Stories pervade our lives; we are as much creatures of story as we are creatures with a wonderful adaptive thumbs and large, amazing brains. Not merely our waking lives, but also our sleeping hours are rich with tales and legends, often yet to be told aloud. It is our nature as we age to tell or share our stories more and more often, for in this way, we can both teach and learn without the trauma of hard experience. Nature built into us an admirable tool to help newer generations to remember, and perhaps avoid, the mistakes of the past both large and small.
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| Poppy. Taken in my own front yard. (c) 2000, by RLMT |
Stories are our lives. We are stories in the making. We carry some stories within, often thinking of personal shame or error, and yet our actions tell stories we cannot free our tongues to speak.
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| A tiny cholera graveyard in eastern Kentucky. (c) 2000, by RLMT |
Writer's block (a catch-all term for an assortment of causes writers often claim forever stops the telling of stories) is in itself a mythical creation. If one can talk or communicate in any way, there is no such malady. To live is to be and tell a story.
Writers who claim total block will sit over a cup of coffee or tea with a friend and continue to spin tales of their pet, an elderly relative, or a child's antics ... without pause. Without a hitch. The story loops, be it a broken flower pot or a death by possibly unnatural causes, comes from the root of all evolution: life. There is no hesitation in the telling; the whole rigamarole, though laden with speech errors (ah, hmm, er, erm...) rolls out smooth and easy, perhaps too much so in some cases.
Writers who claim total block will sit over a cup of coffee or tea with a friend and continue to spin tales of their pet, an elderly relative, or a child's antics ... without pause. Without a hitch. The story loops, be it a broken flower pot or a death by possibly unnatural causes, comes from the root of all evolution: life. There is no hesitation in the telling; the whole rigamarole, though laden with speech errors (ah, hmm, er, erm...) rolls out smooth and easy, perhaps too much so in some cases.
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| My mother's childhood home on Spaus Creek, in Powell County, KY (destroyed by vandals several years ago). (c) 1995, by RLMT/RLT. |
Stories both hurt and heal, forever moving us forward, for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health. We are wedded for life to an environment we cannot divorce. It is a marriage of need, not merely convenience or of love.
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| A painting in progress, still unfinished today. (c) 2001 by RLMT |
Love your stories. Let them breathe with their own life, let them grow! Create, sharing experience with a change of perspective inherent in each one. Embrace that storied self, for the stories cannot be separated from who you are and what you are, or from all you live for and among. There is no block if you choose it to be so.
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