After considerable effort, I identified four stories to choose from. I mean Considerable Effort. It was not easy for me to come up with four stories that a person would need to know if they wanted to truly know me. I initially thought of telling my story of attending a three-day silent Meditation Retreat. The story of going to a UCLA basketball game with an uncle of mine when I was in high school is another one worth telling I think, and it dovetails with a lot of my life being wrapped up in sports. The story of my son Andrew's last game pitching in Greensboro is another of my sports stories worth telling, as is the story of my eldest son's time in the neonatal intensive care unit when he was born. A train trip story in childhood -- the family bombing across the country from Los Angeles to Chicago on the Santa Fe El Capitan, then on to Pennsylvania on lesser rides, but no matter, all in all a fun adventure and a worthwhile story. And a relationship story, the one with Joyce in particular, could be important to clueing someone in as to who I am. Or the Gayla Medley party punch story. And -- the one I ultimately chose -- the story of The Burnished Letter.
Interestingly, it was relatively easy for me to choose my top story from the above list. My criterion was to pick a story that had a clear multi-level structure, such that the it could mean one thing and be interesting on a topical level (just the facts, what happened, the plot, etc.) and yet could also be a story about something deeper, and then also about something else altogether. I am clearly drawn to the idea of a story that reveals more than it covers.
Today I discovered a couple useful resources to expand my story along narrative inquiry lines. My Burnished Letter story peels back to a reveal of the trauma I felt in losing my dad when I was eight years old, and up until just now I had not really made the connection that he was very likely traumatized by participating in WW2. My dad got a Bronze Star and Purple Heart in that war, in the Pacific theater, which makes the trauma part likely to the point of certainty I guess. Anyway, a BBC article online I found is one called The Long Echo of WW2 Trauma. And... my friend Corey sent me a link to wonderfully insightful interview on the syndicated public radio program "On Being." The interview is with Bessel van der Kolk, the founder and medical director of the Trauma Center in Brookline Massachusetts, and the title of the piece is How Trauma Lodges in the Body So this storyline of generational trauma is the type of thing that can enrich, expand, and deepen my Burnished letter story.
Interestingly, it was relatively easy for me to choose my top story from the above list. My criterion was to pick a story that had a clear multi-level structure, such that the it could mean one thing and be interesting on a topical level (just the facts, what happened, the plot, etc.) and yet could also be a story about something deeper, and then also about something else altogether. I am clearly drawn to the idea of a story that reveals more than it covers.
Today I discovered a couple useful resources to expand my story along narrative inquiry lines. My Burnished Letter story peels back to a reveal of the trauma I felt in losing my dad when I was eight years old, and up until just now I had not really made the connection that he was very likely traumatized by participating in WW2. My dad got a Bronze Star and Purple Heart in that war, in the Pacific theater, which makes the trauma part likely to the point of certainty I guess. Anyway, a BBC article online I found is one called The Long Echo of WW2 Trauma. And... my friend Corey sent me a link to wonderfully insightful interview on the syndicated public radio program "On Being." The interview is with Bessel van der Kolk, the founder and medical director of the Trauma Center in Brookline Massachusetts, and the title of the piece is How Trauma Lodges in the Body So this storyline of generational trauma is the type of thing that can enrich, expand, and deepen my Burnished letter story.
Comments
Post a Comment