Tell me a story

I find myself now in a world populated by, friends and family, story tellers. May I be be forgiven for the topic of story telling often entering my reveries? My profession required that I be the listener and not the story teller and I find myself struggling when the request is put to me now. Indeed my one published book, Prairie Tree Letters, is letters by family which tell the story without intrusion from me.

As a child, perhaps because of the variable night temperatures, never comfortable, I often complained of not being able to fall asleep. My mother counseled to tell myself a happy story. It is a tactic that continues to work though I find it more and more difficult to spin the fantastic fantasies of childhood. One of the best was being a major league baseball player, my home run winning a World Series.with no attention being given to my sex or gender roles. (Is it any surprise this was the time I also declared my intent to go to medical school?)

The reason may also have been anxiety as I also recall many times asking Grandma, our mother's mother, to "please! please! tell me a story... a true story."  A wonderful story teller she was. She was the grandmother who brought calm and peace. A lost object or problem missing a solution invariably brought the response; "it will come to me." (The other grandmother, a school teacher, was more into "instruction and education." More on her at another time.)

Dr. Freud was perhaps most brilliant in his observation that one's life is lived through the lens of one's past love relationships. The "cure" came almost accidentally and originated with close associate Dr. Breuer who put the name "Talking Cure" to the ancient habit of story telling.

The human race has certainly benefited from linear reasoning, instruction and education. On the other hand,  one has only to hear how often today the "news" is described as "story"  and presented as such  to recognize that there is a reason for it. Whether politician, preacher or parent, if one wants to be understood the information must come as a story.