AT THE MIDDLE PASSAGE
By Walter Mills
Telling Stories to the Friendly Natives
It was a pleasant spring night and there was only a little rain that
came and went, barely enough to wet the ground. My wife and I had been
invited to Foxdale Village, the local retirement community, for dinner,
and afterward I would give a talk to some of the residents.
The Foxdalers are a gracious people, almost like a tribe of friendly
natives greeting 21st century strangers who have washed up on their
shores. Maybe it is their age or their upbringing, but they have learned
the lost art of setting people at their ease. We should send a team of
anthropologists to study them and learn what we can do to improve our
own uncivil society.
We ate dinner with the Yeagleys and the Palmers in the dining room, and
then I gave my talk. I told them about the game my older daughter had
created at bath time when she was four years old in which she would say
“Tell me a story about when you were eleven.” And I would have to
remember a story from that year.
I didn’t have a chance to tell the people of Foxdale everything I wanted
to say about telling stories that night. I wish I had told them that
each life is like a story, and if we don’t tell it or write it down,
then there is a chance we will never understand it.
I might have said that telling a story brings out our innate desire to
make sense of things. As we go through our days, life seems to be just
one random incident after the other. We seldom have the sense that there
is an author shaping the plot of our life. I could have said that we
expect stories to be different, to have point and purpose. That as we
compose our story in our heads or on paper, we will begin to look for
the meaning hidden in the random events.
I recall telling my daughter the story about the year I was eleven and
my family moved to Key West, Florida. How I would take the bus downtown
to the library on Saturdays and then spend the afternoon until early
evening at the movies. As I told her the story I began to see that young
boy again in my memory, the first time I had thought of him in many
years. It all came back clearly – standing outside on the causeway
waiting for the bus into town; gazing at the shelves of books in the
science fiction section of the library; standing in line at the ticket
window for the first matinées.
The images all arise from the depth of memory trailing seaweeds of
emotion. The library is a bubble of pleasure, joy almost. The movie
theater brings back a wave of eager nausea as the older kids make out in
the dark. Later, as I sat at my desk and wrote the story down, I began
to understand this character, this younger version of myself. I saw him
stepping out into the world for the first time, slipping free of the
safety of his family, entering the larger world of adulthood. On the one
hand he is stepping into the great freedom of ideas, of books and
knowledge. On the other he is approaching with dread and fascination the
mystery of sexuality and the burden of having to learn about the
opposite sex.
After the talk was over and the questions answered, we talked awhile at
the doorway before we stepped out into the night. It was cool and
pleasant outside with only a few drops of rain. I was only sorry there
was so much left unsaid. I wished I’d had the chance to tell the
audience that I think there is a meaning to our beginning and our
ending, and that our memories are the secret clues to unlock that
meaning. But there wasn’t time enough for everything. There never is.
(The above column originally appeared in the Centre Daily Times and is
copyright © 2009 by Walter Mills. All rights reserved worldwide. To
contact Walt, address your emails to awmills@verizon.net ).
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