Being Ordinary

 

Tell the Story

“Just trust yourself,

then you will know how to live.”

Goethe

          As I am approaching a weeklong writer’s retreat, my head is a blank slate. I am not clear in the least what I will write or whether I will write anything at all. Lately, I am struggling to write this blog I’ve been posting every day for more than eleven years. I feel as if I’ve run out of words; all the words I know have been said multiple times and are not in need of repeating. Some people call this writer’s block, but I think of it more as a door half-open. The desire to write is there, but I don’t know what’s behind the half-open door, so I wait for it to reveal itself.

          I went to a concert yesterday featuring the Birmingham Boys’ Choir and stand-up comic, author, and musician, Sean Dietrich, aka “Sean of the South.” Sean told a funny story about himself in the fourth grade. He was apparently a husky, ginger-haired, country boy with a crush on a very pretty girl, who didn’t know he was alive. His uncle suggested he give the girl a gift, so Sean bought her a tomato from a farm stand as a gift—an heirloom Cherokee purple. He managed to weave into the crush story a more poignant one about the death of his father when he was very young, spreading his father’s ashes at Pike’s Peak, roller skating at a birthday party in too-tight jeans, and finally, meeting the woman he would marry and sharing tomatoes from a farm stand with her while sitting on the ground at Pike’s Peak. It was a story about ordinary people, doing ordinary things. We’ve all lived through fourth grade crushes, being humiliated by rejection, and eventually, growing into ourselves so we can laugh about such things. The funniest part of Sean’s story was watching the boys in the choir sitting behind him on the stage. They ranged in age from 8 to 18, and they were laughing their heads off. If I could relate to his story at my age, they were living it. Some of them were bent over laughing and red in the face. It was precious.

          You don’t have to make up other worlds like Tolkien or fantasize about dystopian futures like Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games to be a good writer. Every single human being alive, or who has ever been alive, has a story, both unique and extraordinary, from their own life experience. If it’s written with enough humor and detail to enable the reader to see themselves in it, even better. Our stories are what we have to offer, and that’s enough. Maybe not as tasty as a Cherokee purple tomato, but close.

                                                  In the Spirit,

                                                  Jane