Heads or Tales

The Dowd Center

Beverly Comer and I sat across the table from Gale Hacker yesterday in the central big room of the Dowd Center. The three of us were discussing bringing our group, Columbus Story Adventures, to Gale’s homeless kids at the Dowd. Gale has been involved with that center for a whole lot of years and, in addition to providing an enriching learning environment, has transformed the building from a dark, rundown warehouse to a vibrant building full of light and art. A huge mural about peace filled the back wall of the big room. The newest mural, located just by the front stairs, was filled with kids learning. Each year, an artist helps the children plan and paint a new mural.

“I want Columbus Story Adventures to come from September until, at least, December, “ Gail said.
Every week? I asked, my eyes widening. “CSA usually comes for six-week increments.
“Oh yes,” said Gale, “we have money for that. If we can get more grant money, I want you to come through the spring and the summer.”

I had to pause and allow delight to find good places to settle in my body. Gale knows the power of the oral story, and she was acting on it. We will have a chance to build a story relationship each week with her group of 60 k- 5th graders over a long period of time.

The homeless population is changing, Gail told us, as she walked us to the door. She said that it’s growing. When she started working as director of the Dowd, 33% of homeless people consisted of families with children, but now it’s up to 66%. “I wish I could help them all,” she said, “ but I can’t. I can only take care of the ones who are with me.”

I’m so glad she’s bringing a regular diet of oral stories for the children she has in her care. So many good things will happen when the children and their teachers sit down to listen. Leo Botstein in his essay in A Light In Dark Times says that “What the arts do is create something that does not already exist, that is not predictable or entirely rational, which forces us to talk to ourselves and to other people in new ways.” We have been working with Gail and the Dowd Center for two summers. Now we’ll be coming every week. I can’t wait.

Stories By Hand

When I go to a school, I love to tell a few stories by hand. That means that I use string or tell one by folding paper or drawing a picture and telling the story as the picture unfolds. String stories work best with elementary age students and older. Sometimes, the resulting figure is too abstract for a preschooler, but folding paper stories and drawing stories are just perfect for them. One story I tell to almost every first time audience is The Table. It’s a folding story that involves some cutting. A few years ago, I told this story at a men’s prison for a family Christmas party. I unwittingly carried in a pair of scissors, which weren’t discovered until I exited. That caused quite a stir among the guards, and I wondered if the oversight reflected badly on the woman who hired me. After that experience, I just tear the paper to tell the story. The Table is the story of a grandpa who makes a larger and larger table for the grandma as more people say they are coming to their house for Thanksgiving. When I tell the story, I adapt it to whatever holiday is nearby. If no holiday is coming then we talk about what an anniversary means. The source for the story and how to tell it is Paper Stories by Jean Stangl, published in 1984 by David S. Lake Publishers. I picked that book up on a whim, but I’ve used it so often that now the cover is falling off. The stories inside are great for a younger audience.

Here are some of my favorite “by hand” resources

The Story Vine by Anne Pellowski—This is a mixture of string stories, drawing stories and even Australian sand stories.

Drawing Stories From Around The World- Anne Pellowski- I’m so glad to find this book again. I haven’t looked at it for a while. It’s a collection of about 40 drawing stories with a few handkerchief stories thrown in.

Stories to Play With by Hiroko Fujita- This Japanese author provides the how-to and words for a variety of hand made stories involving paper and puppets to be told in informal settings.

Cat’s Cradle, Owl’s Eyes” A Book of String Games – Camilla Gryski. This book doesn’t have stories in it, but the figures are so well explained. You can make up your own stories

The Gingerbread Boy Takes a Bike Ride

Yesterday, I spent a few hours at the Columbus Neighborhood Clinic. They were doing bicycle safety, and Betsy Jacobs asked me to come up with a bicycle related story. Initially I suggested Squeaker and sent her my cd, but she said that a safety emphasis was more what they needed. After some thought, I suggested a new twist on the old Gingerbread Boy story. In this version, when the grandma bakes him, she also bakes up a little bicycle. Every creature who stops him, as he takes his fast ride to an unexpected end in the fox’s stomach, tells him a little about riding safer, but he still, as we all know, never does get the good sense he needs. Betsy had gingerbread children made up, and she handed them out to all the news agencies in a bicycle helmet, as a press release. She said that no bakeries had any gingerbread because it's summer, so these were made especially. Take a look and click on their pictures.

Unfortunately, the heat index was about 102 degrees, so children were in short supply, as were the news groups, but telling that old story a new way was really fun. I gave that Gingerbread Boy a song to sing to the animals and children who wanted him to stay behind and play with them:

“I’m riding. I’m riding and you’re going too slow. I’m riding. I’m riding. You can watch me GO.”

By the end, of the story kids were singing right along, and that always feels good.

Practice

This week I was lucky enough to go to a preschool and share stories with very little children. The first group was 2 years old. I was nervous. Two year olds have to be the toughest audience on the planet. I worked hard to be ready, but it was hard to practice and get a good feel about how best to bring the stories that I had in mind to those littlest ones. Practice remains, for me, a stumbling block. In the best of all worlds, I would like a test audience every day. Often my husband, Nelson will listen, but I have to use him sparingly.

I started Speak Easy, the open mic night that runs from January to June, with the idea of practice in mind. Speak Easy, with its ten minute sign up format, is a good place to try out new stories, but it’s not enough for me because, luckily, there are lots of people who show up with new stories to try. I also belong to a group of writers who meet once a month, and they let me come to the group with oral stories. I even used to be a member of an online critique group. They were also writers, and, for awhile, they let me send oral stories by e-mail.

My main method is to close my eyes and tell the story in my head. For me, the whole thing starts out as a kind of meditation. Sometimes, the words start coming out of my mouth, and those are usually the good ones. Those are the ones I write down. The truth is that, even after a lot of practice, the first telling of a new story is always a little rocky, so I always try to do it somewhere where I can work the kinks out. I’ve thought about telling stories on the corner downtown and about telling stories even at the open market in the Short North.

I am scheduled to tell stories at a local coffee shop for free this month. I’m thinking that that might prove to be a good spot to try out new stuff, but, still, not a place to practice it. People practice instruments in solitude. Practicing a story in solitude feels a little like it’s defeating the purpose. It does get the nuts and bolts down, and it allows me to open up to the story, but it doesn’t get the part that helps connect to the listener. Too much solitude sets the story in concrete and excludes the listener. I guess I wouldn’t like to practice with a test audience every day. I would like to practice with a test audience every other day. That way I could have time in between for reflection and improvement.

Here are some great quotes. Two are about music, and one is about dance but I like them.

"… You cannot achieve speed by speedy practice. The only way to get fast is to be deep, wide awake, and slow. When you habitually zip through your music, your ears are crystallizing in sloppiness."

Quote About Slow Practice from Larry Kranz' flute pages

… Pray for the patience of a stone cutter. … Pray to understand that speed is one of those things you have to give up - like love - before it comes flying to you through the back window."

“Practice means to perform, over and over again in the face of all obstacles, some act of vision, of faith, of desire. Practice is a means of inviting the perfection desired.

Martha Graham