1) Beauty. I have a hard time shaping my own experience into something that I feel is as beautiful as a traditional story, with all their deep, ancient, mythological and spiritual roots.
2) Boundaries. Either it's not a very strong memory, in which case, why share it, or it's a really potent memory, in which case I'm disinclined to bare it to an audience. I tend to err in favor of the latter, and then get vulnerability hangover later.
But here's what I've gathered about these two issues:
First of all, it seems that they're kind of bound up in each other. Without at least some vulnerability, the "beauty" part is not going to happen. (This is just as true of traditional tales; it just seems slightly less exposing when it's not your own experience under the microscope.) Of course, boundaries are also something to approach with sensitivity and care for your audience--as David has mentioned before, you don't want them to be more concerned for you than for your story. It's a delicate line. But as he was saying today, it's actually #1, beauty, that really defines where that line is. It's not a question of stating some arbitrary standard of social "appropriateness," but rather a question of value for the listener. What does it give to them? Is what it offers them worth it? Worth their journey, going wherever you take them?
As for beauty and listener-value, while it's dependent on vulnerability, that's not all there is to it. For this question I've been thinking about some Anna Deavere Smith, trying to figure out what it is that makes personal stories--stories built on our own life experiences--beautiful. What makes them art? From her chapters on "Questions" and "Art and Reality," here is the tiny beginning of an answer:
- Questions. She talks about "curiosity for the questions, respect for the questions, hunger for the questions." Personal stories are an opportunity to highlight some of the questions that drive our lives--and if they're of deep concern to us, chances are they're of deep concern to at least some others.
- Economy. Life itself isn't framed, and doesn't have neat beginnings and endings, and isn't a fixed representation. But a personal story can take life and make it these things. In doing so, it both "condenses and amplifies the world." Basically, personal stories can condense human experience, with all its complications and ambiguities, into a digestible piece of art, one that sheds new light on--amplifies--a particular theme, question, or aspect of our experience.
- Resonance. Smith says that someone experiencing art encounters "something about the humanity of the artist that rings with their own humanity." This, I think, more than anything else, is what can make personal stories beautiful. We can highlight aspects of shared humanity.
I think if you combine all these, you get community: people who have experienced the same, (economic) slice of life together, and have resonated with the questions at its heart. And that's pretty cool.
FWIW, Chelise, I think you found the depth yesterday. To share your experience in grappling with reconciling apparent conflicts between friendship, belief, and humanity cannot have been easy - but it WAS beautiful. You clearly opted for "potent", and thanks for that. Hope the hangover isn't too rough.
ReplyDeleteI like what you said about the two being bound up in one another. I'm particularly intrigued about your comment regarding traditional tales (that the vulnerability has to be there, or else "the 'beauty' part is not going to happen."). I guess I hadn't considered that aspect of telling a traditional tale before. As I reflect on that, though, it seems that even the choice of tale is indicative of something "resonating" with the teller. Extended just a little further - and staying with this week's class theme - it's indicative of the teller's assessment of what the audience should hear (or will find beautiful). To follow through on this assessment by offering such a story is risky for the teller. Then to commit to offering the story in a way that lays that beautiful thing out for people to see - and accept or reject - well, I can see how that act would approach the kind of vulnerability that's implicit in telling a personal story.
Thanks for your story - which, candidly, has helped me in my current processing of a similar issue. And thanks for your post - which surfaced another aspect the traditional story's potential for impact on both teller and audience.
Chelise I just wanted to share that on accident, I think, you did one of the most beautiful things that I had ever seen in my life. You were caught in this liminal space between two different moments in your story. You had just told us about your friend's coming out to you and then you knew the next part was to somehow convey your faith tradition's view of the same subject. In that moment there was this struggle that I know was probably completely unplanned. Some "uhs" and "ums" and movements that showed clearly that you were trying to think of the right words to say, the right way to put what you were about to say.
ReplyDeleteOn the day that homosexual marriage was declared legal, my Facebook news feed nearly looked like an even split. Half of my friends were all decked out in rainbows and half of my friends were talking as if the world was going to come to an end. They were angry, upset, emotionally charged to say the least. I want to say I sat at the computer for 3 hours trying to come up with the least offensive post I could possibly think of that no one could be offended at no matter who they were, gay or straight, liberal or conservative. I came up with the absolute most ambiguous post that may have ever been written (probably not, haha, but it felt like it). And I still deleted it after it being online for about 7 minutes at 4 in the morning because at the end of the day, I knew there would be people that could be offended by the ambiguity.
That's when I buried my head in my hands and deleted the post. I had just wasted 3 hours of my life trying not to offend anyone, and for nothing. Even if I posted the Facebook post it wouldn't have mattered. It is after all, just a Facebook post. People would maybe go, "Hmm," scroll down and forget about it as they sip their morning coffee. Why waste 3 hours on that?
But I say that to say I know what that moment feels like. You conveyed in motion and speech how I felt that morning on Facebook but couldn't put into words. Uh... Um... Well.... Whatever the words you said didn't matter what they were. It was really beautiful and touched my heart. Thank you for sharing.
Oh I just re-read my post and I meant, when I said, "whatever the words you said didn't matter what they were" I was talking about the "Ums" "uhs" or whatnot. I can't remember what they were exactly, I was trying to say. But whatever they were, it was that all in combination, with that pause, with that struggle, with the movements you were making, with the look that you had in your eyes, with the words that were starting to come out of your mouth and may make it out or might not make it out. That was the powerful moment I was trying to talk about.
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