It might just be time for me to get some new and more exciting stories.
It became painfully obvious to me over the holidays that at some point in your life you stop telling new stories and just start recycling the old ones. And I'm convinced I'm going to need a much bigger bundle of stories than my mother has.
My mom's stories are so familiar to me it's like they have been made into a major motion picture and I've watched it no less than 17 times. I can recite all the dialogue, and the characters are vivid and clear and nuanced in my mind. I could step in and finish every one of my mother's stories after less than five words. In fact, I can name that story in three words. Go ahead. Test me.
It does absolutely no good to say anything once the story has begun. That story is going to get told all the way to the bitter end unless the house catches fire. Even then, my mother would still be finishing that story as we shiver outside with the glow of the burning house on our faces.
My brothers have started taking pieces from all my mom's stories and mashing them together to form an epic, crazy, no-good-very-bad-day kind of story. Much like those inane mash-ups on the radio where some juvenile disc jockey has the brilliant idea of mixing a Barry Manilow song together with Dr. Dre, the result is a nonsensical, jumbled mess that doesn't in any way resemble music, or in this case a story.
We find it hilarious how the pinnacle five words of each story fit together into some less-than-harmonious whole. But my mother just waits for the story mashing escapades to die down and gamely continues with her story as if nothing out of the ordinary has happened. "And then your uncle Laurie Whitney said..."
I guess at some point her stories will become my stories and I will pick up the storytelling where she leaves off, because on a remote farm in Idaho there may be no written record, and the only way to keep these stories from dying from the earth is through crushing and unyielding repetition.
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4 comments:
Well, just make them more lively when you retell them. Like I always say, Never let the truth get in the way of a good story!
I agree with KL. My Mister was just criticizing my blog because it is (at times) less than truthful. I told him I'm under no obligation to ensure it is acurate, only that it's good reading.
You are a wonderful story teller Wendy! About the movies you listed, are any of them better being seen in a theatre or would they be just as good at home?
Frost/Nixon and Doubt would probably be just as good at home.
Benjamin Button needs all the help he can get. It's really long and may be helped by a pause button.
Seven Pounds is kind of a toss up. I loved it on the big screen, but I like most movies that way.
Slumdog, however, should really be experienced in a theater. The dramatic footage of the slums of Bombay (Mumbai) and impactful scenery will be better in the dark with great sound and a huge screen.
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