"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but really loves you, then you become Real."
"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.
"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real, you don't mind being hurt."
"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"
"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out, and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real, you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."
A small gift of a film landed in my lap today. I found myself feeling melancholy about the loss of my fall position as librarian and caretaker of the stories at the elementary school I have been working at for the past couple of years. Most of the time I don't dwell on it, but with the dreary rain today and the smell of fall in the air already my heart began to break again for the loss of those small wee faces upturned to hear me read to them my favorite stories and to help them find their own.
I can't even re-create the steps that brought me to Moonbot Studios website for morrislessmore.com but I was instantly enchanted. I poked through the site, watched all of the vimeos available and was hooked enough to lay down real money to download the short award winning film. It is stunning and heartfelt. Have not been so moved by film since the first 30 minutes of Pixar's Up.
It begins in New Orleans and tells the story of the hurricane stealing everyones stories. Miraculously no words are spoken but hope is restored for this community as Morris finds his own story again. Watch for the little red head at the end of the film... she too was a keeper of stories, even for a short time.
Please make sure to click through this link to watch a tiny preview - it won't let me embed it here - you won't regret it, promise.
I leave you with Martel’s own words via Beatrice, a donkey accompanying his monkey companion, Virgil, during their walking conversation.
Virgil: I was thinking about faith.
Beatrice: Were you?
Virgil: Faith is like being in the sun. When you are in the sun, can you avoid creating a shadow? Can you shake that area of darkness that clings to you, always shaped like, as if constantly to remind you of yourself? You can’t. This shadow is doubt. And it goes wherever you go as long as you stay in the sun. And who wouldn’t want to be in the sun?
"Beware when you honour an artist. You are praising danger. You are holding out your hand To the dead and unborn You are counting on what cannot be counted.
The poet's measures serve anarchic joy The story-teller tells one story: freedom.
Above all beware of honouring women artists. For the housewife will fill the house with lions and in with the grandmother comes bears, wild horses, great horned owls, coyotes."
Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes tells of a dream of a time she was telling a story. She felt someone tapping on her toe. Looking down she realized with surprise that she was standing on the shoulders of an old woman. She tried to encourage the woman up to stand on her shoulders so she could see and the woman reassured her that no, this was the way. Upon looking down she saw the old woman too was standing on the shoulders of an even older woman and the ladder stretched far away.
I was raised in a sect of faith that tells women that they have no stories to tell in public. Stories are for home, for children and other women. It affected me deeply because I believed them. I believed that it made God happy if I was silent. It restored creation order. So I willingly agreed to keep my stories to myself. I knew in my heart that God’s happiness was far more important than my own.
But then one day I gave birth to the most beautiful, porcelain skinned baby girl and I realized that it was no longer just about my happiness. I had a world to give her, would it be one of silence or one with a voice? Heavily I weighed these things I had been given from such a tender age.
I grasped that there was much that I was willing to sacrifice for myself, but my daughter was not, and should not be, one of those things. She was growing up in a brand new world, a world where the female voice was not only welcomed, but invited. I saw that this silence was taking far more than it was giving and slowly it occurred to me that if I did not tell my stories no one would.
I remember watching my own mother navigate the silence. It was not where she was raised. She came to the silence late in life. She too longed to make God smile. Her heart was good, but her voice was strong. It was a constant battle for her to keep silent and not tell her stories. She had a rich voice and a deep laugh. I remember being awakened in the early morning as she sat at her Smith-Corona letting her voice pour out her fingers and onto scrap paper, her frustration mounting as she tried desperately to find a story that would please the publishers so she could have a voice again. Her silence magnified her sickness. She died at the age I am now. 44. Unpublished and voiceless.
After her death, and the birth of my daughter Alinea, I began to understand that a God that silences half the population of his creation to restore some order isn’t truly the God of creation, but a sad, mean idol created in the image of men threatened desperately as they tried to find their own stories. I found that upon telling my story it restored much, which in turn made God rejoice. This was a full throated God, not threatened by truth or spirit, but one with broad shoulders and warm thick arms to wrap all the stories together.
This was a world where I could raise a daughter, this was a God who was worthy of my service and worship. You see this daughter of mine has a way with the pen, the keyboard and the language. She is the magnification all of the good that her grandmother possessed, and the entire bottled up story that fell silent so long in me. It flows through her so naturally, so beautifully. She stands on these shoulders as I stand on my mum’s. If I could I’d raise her up to stand on my hands. Raise her up as high above my head as I am able. We are my mother’s best dreams coming true.
So I write today, Mr. Miller, Donald, if I may, to ask you to help me raise her up, help me to help her by learning to tell my own story, and live my life fully and provide her with every tool possible to do that in the very best of ways.
If there was any way to get us there I’d do it. Portland was our family destination 2 years ago for a reunion and we adore it. There is just no way we can get from our coast to yours on our own. So I'm asking you to help me. I don’t even know if we’re eligible to win. If it’s residency we are out, you see we live about six blocks from the Maine border in New Brunswick, Canada. But if it’s about social security numbers and being American there is a possibility we could qualify. Either way I knew that I needed to enter to verbalize these things that are birthing in me.
I have a dear friend who makes wishes and prayers and releases them by writing them on tiny strips of paper and then tying them into knots and setting them in a safe place. She said it was a way to dream big dreams and allow yourself to ask for things you’ve always been told you shouldn’t ask for. That was a few months ago, about the same time you announced this event. With hands shaking and skepticism in my heart I wrote my very first (and only) little prayer.
“I want to go to Portland at the end of September to see Donald Miller & Aunt Peg.”
I told no one. It was my little experiment. Then I saw your contest and knew that I had to enter. We meet regularly with some others in our community here to pray and try to figure out a way to create something locally to help people, especially children, out of the generational poverty that has eroded much of the foundation of life away from so many. We have seen that children raised in this level of poverty have no chance at hope and freedom. We have been talking about a Million Miles and the Mentoring Project as inspiration to think far outside regular nonprofit walls to begin to change the direction of the erosion; rerouting the water flow so that it works against the desolation instead of the hope.
Also, because this will be read by people who you care about and care for you, I want you to know that I am truly grateful. You have swamped the well of stories for the church and the old, ugly stories are falling away so that new, more life giving stories can be found. Your humility and ability to engage the soul changes everything and I want you to know I'm so thankful. I know you stand on the shoulders of some truly wonderful people and with your words you lift us all up.
I hope this will allow parents to begin to have discussions with their kids about these difficult topics and that others will see the beauty that can come from pain. So thrilled that Annick Press and Scholastic are standing fully behind him as he finds healing and recovery.
Two beautiful, very different videos on mothering. Absolutely love them both.
The first is an interview from StoryCorps that has been animated into a film short. 12 year old son with Asperger’s syndrome interviews his mum. Having my own 12 year old son I love to hear the way she honors his individuality with such honesty. His questions are so probing and insightful and this peek into their relationship is precious.
The second is for anyone who has ever gone away to camp, missed your mum and given the gift of your creativity in your time away - it's poet Billy Collins reading his poem called "The Lanyard"
Once upon a time there was a pig who spoke eight languages & did sculpture with pieces of wood & rusted metal he found on his travels.
One day he was out in the woods working on a new installation piece & he met a family from a small town in Tennessee. They had been walking for days.
The dad saw the pig & said what are you doing, little piggie? They were all quite surprised when the pig said working with counterbalanced forces using found objects.
They all stood around & looked at the piece for a long time. No one said anything. Finally, the dad shrugged & turned to the mom & said I don't know much about art but I know what I like & then they killed the pig & ate him.
Every day I see or hear something that more or less kills me with delight, that leaves me like a needle in the haystack of light. It was what I was born for-- to look, to listen, to lose myself inside this soft world-- to instruct myself over and over in joy, and acclamation.
Nor am I talking about the exceptional, the fearful, the dreadful, the very extravagant-- but of the ordinary, the common, the very drab, the daily presentations. Oh, good scholar, I say to myself, how can you help but grow wise with such teachings as these-- the untrimmable light of the world, the ocean's shine, the prayers that are made out of grass?
I sent this out on my facebook page, but don't want to forget it or have anyone miss it (Erin) because they are not in facebook.
Donald Miller blogged today about how to create stories around our goals to give them life and to inhabit them instead of having them cause us shame.
He writes:
A story involves a person that wants something and is willing to overcome conflict to get it.If you plan a story this year, instead of just simple goals, your life will be more exciting, more meaningful and more memorable. And you are much more likely to stick to your goals. For instance, rather than saying I want to finish getting into shape this year, I’ve written down that I want to climb Mt. Hood with a couple friends. I have a vision of standing on top of the mountain in May, taking pictures and all that. Now my goal has a narrative context. That’s just a simple story, and I’ve planned some stories that are far more difficult but I only use that as an example. If my goal were to lose twenty pounds, I doubt I’d stick with it. But when you have friends flying up from Texas to summit the mountain with you, you’d better believe you are going to be hitting the stairs. I have to, because it I don’t, my story will be a tragedy. Again, stories give goals context.
Make sure to head to his blog to read the rest of the post and grab a copy of his book A Million Miles in A Thousand Years like I'm going to very, very soon.
One of my bestie blogger friends sent me this link wondering if these words were meant for me. Erin knows my deep places and my story. The fact that she sent them to me with a "thought this might be for you" and a link made me gird up my loins before I read them.
"Most writers, like most children, need to tell.
The only problem is that much of what they need to tell will provoke the ire of parent-critics, who are determined to tell writer-children what they can and cannot say.
Unless you have sufficient ego and feel entitled to tell your story, you will be stymied in your effort to create.
You think you can't write, but the truth is you can't tell.
Provocative thoughts from Donald Miller on his blog this a.m.:
"Many people are moral for religious reasons, stating their morality comes from the Bible or a sacred text (which, while these books can influence morality, are not written with the intention of defining a moral code. If they are, they are terribly written and the authors couldn’t land their point.)"
A young couple moves into a new neighborhood. The next morning while they are eating breakfast, the young woman sees her neighbor hanging the wash outside. "That laundry is not very clean", she said. "She doesn't know how to wash correctly. Perhaps she needs better laundry soap."
Her husband looked on, but remained silent.
Every time her neighbor would hang her wash to dry, the young woman would make the same comments. About one month later, the woman was surprised to see a nice clean wash on the line and said to her husband "Look, she has learned how to wash correctly. I wonder who taught her this."
The husband said, "I got up early this morning and cleaned our windows."
