This last weekend was the Library of
Congress Book Festival weekend, a second time around for us at an incredible
annual gathering of authors and bookies. The capitol mall was filled with
giant tents, each presenting a different author every hour for two days!
A reader can get punch-drunk on the delight of it all. Visit
www.loc.gov/bookfest for a run down of the fun, and get out here next year -
third weekend in September. You can stay at our house.
I was able to attend because Dwight
and my dear friend Libby, here from Madison to take care of me, pushed me
around in a wheelchair (and, I will add, Libby and I successfully navigated the
handicap facilities of the Metro and a taxi to get to dinner at an Ethiopian
restaurant and home).
Maybe it was the particular authors I chose to hear, and maybe it was the message I was listening for, but I heard a recurring theme about the power of story. Power to help us see different realities, power to help us understand ourselves, power to motivate, power to harm, and power to heal. It's a favorite theme of mine -- story -- for teaching, sharing, and making sense of my own life.
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| Can't wait to read her book! |
Allison Hagy, an author previously
unknown to me, spoke about the essential ingredients of story as the triad of
Beauty, Community, and Mystery. She told of her newest book, Boleto,
about a young horse trainer in Wyoming, and how she sought to express the
meaning in her character's life through the lenses of these things. As
she spoke I pondered the necessity of love in my life, and its expression
through beauty, community and mystery. And then my mind wandered to the
realities of suffering, faith, and even how I create my home, all seen through
that essential triad. Thankyou, Ms. Hagy, for offering this elegant
framework.
Katherine Paterson, author of many
essential stories for older kids/young adults, was so genuine, so engaging, so
much like the best friend we all want to be to our dear friends. Her
stories about her stories reflect a time of life and a sense of place at the time
of their writing, all with a connection to the developing soul of the author
and the reader. Special story: The Bridge to Terabithia was
written when she lived in our town, Takoma Park. Neighborhood lore had it that
she lived in our house when she wrote the book. My special status
as a wheel chair gal won me a private audience with Ms. Paterson (be still oh
my heart!) where she, sadly, debunked the myth. "No," she said,
"I lived on Albany Street. If I were a nicer person I would come to
live with you for a couple of days so you could truthfully say I lived in your
house!" I don't think she could be any nicer - and I say that in the
deepest Soul-Sister sense of the word.
One More: Juan Felipe Herrera,
Poet Laureate of California. How could I not attend a session with
someone from my part of the world? He is a Central Valley native, someone
who, like me, holds the beauty of spring blossoms, the prickly heat of July,
and the mystical tule fog in his marrow. Juan Felipe and I have a friend
in common, and it was a balm to connect with him. His poems tell many
stories, often of pain, violence, injustice - a startling contrast to his
gentle and playful demeanor.
People who study memory tell us that
our memories are not reliably recorded from our senses to our brains.
Rather, memories are something we construct and reconstruct as we move through
life, using those stories from our past to create meaning and inevitably
changing or omitting details, suddenly remembering a lost moment, reframing an encounter,
connecting the dots of our experience.
What happens if take my own life
story and reconstruct it through that triad of Beauty, Community and
Mystery? How different would that be than if the construction was done
through a lens of Striving, or Independence or Certainty? What if I sought to
tell my story in a way that might contribute to the development of my own soul
as well as the soul of any listener I might have? What if, even when
facing the hard stuff of life, I could hang on to some playfulness?
Sometimes I'm much too hard on
myself (as many of us are) and wish I could see myself with the same generosity
of spirit I try to extend to others. My story, I must remind myself, has
value because (like everyone else) I have value.
Eckhart Tolle says, "You are
here to enable the divine purpose of the universe to unfold. That is how
important you are!"
Heady stuff. I like this from
Dr. Seuss, too:
Today you are YOU, that is truer
than true. There is no one alive that is Youer than
You."
You."
