Grandmother Weaving
An oral story telling video plus a little Essay Camp bonus
I am participating in a storytelling class, Cyfarwydd, which, in Welsh, means storyteller and magic. For telling myths and folktales from Europe, a big challenge is how to take a story from the page back to an oral telling. Our teacher, Angharad Wynne, has a pragmatic and beautiful method of finding the eight bones of the story. These are the key plot points that can’t be changed without fundamentally changing the story. Then you use your imagination to fill in the specific details around those bones, fleshing them out. For example, in the telling below, you’ll hear that I imagine a dark cave with jewel toned rugs and pillows, while another participant in my class imagined a brighter, crystal cave.
Later, you take the time to really get to know the characters. The details of that interaction may or may not be explicitly included in the story. Based on your knowledge of the characters you may add in some dialogue. Lastly, you add in a traditional opening and closing.
This story of Grandmother Weaving was one of the three stories that all of us were working with for our first few sessions. Quite a few different versions of this story exist around the world, so you may have heard a similar story in the past. This is my first time telling a myth or folk tale in front of a less sympathetic audience than my children, so please keep in mind these are tender seedlings of storytelling. For now, I’d rather here how the story impacts you rather than receive feedback on my telling. One way of feeding a story and incorporating it into our lives is to reflect upon the question: “Where do I find myself in this story?” I would love to hear your answer in the comments.
My ending got clipped a little in post-production, so I’m going to ask you to use your imagination a little bit more and imagine I said, “And so it was, and so it shall be, until the end of time.” at the end there.
For our next four sessions, we’ll be focusing on a story of our own choosing. I will be working with a German folk tale called The Six Swans. The women in this story, both good and evil are very interested, so I’m looking forward to getting to know them.
This week, I’ve also been participating in
’s Essay Camp. I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how I’ve been able to look at things from a more detail oriented, observant, and less academic or medical angle. This is one of the essays I wrote. It’s a bit different from what I normally share here, so I thought I’d include it as a little bonus today for anyone who would like to read in addition to watching.There is a pile of stuff in front of our bedroom mirror: a laundry basket full of towels, a cardboard box full of placemats and crib sheets and kids’ hats and mittens to go to Goodwill, a paper bag of my clothes to donate along with them. Our swimming bag with kids’ floaties is still there–in November–in Wisconsin.
This pile is aspirational; the beginnings of yet another attempt to finally get organized. This attempt to get organized ends where most of the others do. An interruption occurs shortly after pulling everything out and long before putting everything back. These unearthed items get buried under the rest of life; the first layer of sedimentation in our household fossils.
My mess has been a source of consternation for my entire life. I like to think I taught my mom an important life lesson when she learned to close my bedroom door rather than fret about the state of my bedroom. Roommates and a husband have been caught in the debris of my tornado ever since. Where does the ability to put things where they go come from? Some people seem to have an innate gift for precision, organization, and knowing where their car keys are. I never have.
Have you ever looked at old family photos and found your eyebrows on your grandma? It changes your relationship to your eyebrows. They are no longer the caterpillar unibrow you have been self-consciously battling since puberty. They are a gift through the generations. Is my lack of organization the same way, a shared trait with a beloved ancestor?
If I look at my mess that way, I can view it more gently. I can see the value. In my view of a rich life, a clean house is the last priority. This leaves a lot of space and time for joyful noise. I am never distracted from a daughter's dance performance by dust on the bookshelf or dishes in the sink.
Clearly, I can’t just say, “oh well” and dump my mess for someone else to deal with. On the other hand, there are widely varying standards of tolerance for mess. Keeping a space healthy and safe may just have to be good enough.
A teacher of creativity whom I admire a great deal considers it very important to have a clean, clear organized space so your mind can be clear to create. I’ve come to realize that depends on how much the mess attracts your attention.
Most of the time, the only problem I have with the mess I’ve made is that my husband is uncomfortable having guests over if the house is a mess. Is it more respectful and comfortable to have a clean house for visitors? Of course. Is cleaning your house before hosting a noble pursuit? Indeed, I would say it is. But should I avoid inviting over a beloved friend because I didn’t get my shit together to get my house clean? I would argue no. In fact, I would go further to argue that this compulsion to have a clean house before people come over is a tool for our disconnection. When we can only present a clean house, a well-articulated thought, certainty, then we are left with two options: dining alone or projecting false certainty. If we hesitate to extend the invitation until the house is clean or only share when we are certain, that pulls us ever farther from true connection. I recently spent 10 days with individuals who started as strangers in which we spent focused time discussing our failures and struggles.. After those honest conversations, I feel like I share a deeper level of intimacy r than with all other humans but my inner circle.
At this point, I could rip up this draft and start again, looking at that pile and all of the projects I start and never finish. Sometimes I get down on myself for those unfinished projects, but there is a reason I start a lot of projects. I have A LOT of ideas. My mind makes A LOT of connections. I feel compelled to start things, but not everything I start is worth finishing. Some things are worth exploring and setting aside, just like this tangent in an essay about mess might be.
This year, I’ve been focusing on exploring the light and the darkness of everything. I have always viewed my drive as a gift without recognizing my dysfunctional relationship to rest. As a kid, I was always the “smart” kid, without recognizing how over the years I used those smarts and a gift for perspective-taking to rationalize my feelings away. Interestingly, it’s easier to find the flaws in the gifts than the gifts in the flaws.
I’m starting to realize that being able to sit in a mess gives me the gift of presence, and that not finishing things leaves room for exploring and making connections that others cannot or do not make.
If we look at ourselves—all of ourselves—as gifts from our ancestors, how does that change what we see? What a strange thing that all of these parts of ourselves that we’ve been taught to hate are our inheritance.
Where do I find myself in this story? I find the story a little abstract, which is probably more an indication of how my brain works. But if I had to pick where I fit in the story I would say I am the dog pulling at the strings. If you ask me why I say that I would have a hard time coming up with and explanation.