Last week we brought out the Halloween decorations.  I know I told you we already put up the fall things, but there are MORE things that are just for Halloween, and as it is now October, they get added to the mix.  (We really like holidays around here…and decorating for such.)

My younger two took on the task of hanging up all the window clings.  You know those weird gel-like things in fun holiday shapes that look really cool on the window…until they get picked apart by small children and reduced to a pile of disgusting mushy bits?  Those.  We had a bunch of pumpkins and some bats and a few funny monsters.  As their play room is all windows, I just let them go to town while I cooked dinner.  They were deep into it when I heard what they were saying.

“I think we should put all the pumpkins on this one window, because this is the pumpkin patch and they are a pumpkin family all together.”

“Yeah, and this one monster will be right here, trying to get them.”

“Okay, but he won’t get them because this monster will be in his way.”

“Right.  And I’m putting the bats over here.  This one sparkly bat it their leader.”

“And sometimes they’ll all fly over the pumpkin patch and visit the pumpkin family.”

Are you smiling as big as I was?  Probably not, because I was grinning from ear to ear.  These are my favorite parenting moments.  The spontaneous flights of fancy.  The unplanned stories.  My kids weren’t trying to sit down and make up a story about those gooey decorations.  It just happened.  They saw a group of pumpkins and a narrative popped into their head.  They probably didn’t even realize they were telling a story.  But there it was, brief and undeveloped, a lovely little nugget of an idea, and then they were on to the next thing.

This is what it’s all about.  The little stories we weave around us throughout our day.  They aren’t formal, don’t all have their beginning, middle, and end.  They aren’t fancy, with well-chosen words or a moral to tie it up.  They aren’t even all spoken aloud.  They’re just a way of looking at the world.  A way that doesn’t just see a pile of pumpkins, it sees a family.

See this tree?

I like to think that there’s a little field mouse out there who is ready to get married, and every night when it’s safe and dark he creeps out and gnaws a bit more, busily working on a new home for his lady love.

This nearby stump will probably be the dance floor for their wedding.

Can’t you just see it? (Not that they would let us watch, of course.  Mouse weddings are quite exclusive.  No humans allowed.)

The imagination, like a muscle, can be developed.  We develop it by ingesting stories, by reading and watching and listening.  We develop it by pushing ourselves to tell stories, by forcing out words and pictures even when we feel ridiculous.  But even more simply we develop our imagination by taking everything we see around us and playing with it.

Why look at a forest and see only trees when you could see the perfect hideout for a gang of reformed pirates?  Why just pull weeds when you could be naming them (something truly horrible) and laughing at the fate that awaits them in the compost pile.  Why look at your dog and see only one more thing that has be fed when you can imagine instead what kinds of conversations he dreams of having with your cat?

It’s all about learning to think in stories.  To see stories everywhere you go.  What do the leaves feel as they drift down from the trees?  Who could have dug that odd hole in my garden?  What is life like for that woman in line in front of me at the grocery store?

It’s so much fun.  Once you get started, you’ll find you can’t stop.

And if you get your kids started?  Your eavesdropping is about to get a lot more interesting.

Now that I’m alone a good deal of the day, I accomplish SO MUCH more than before, but I have recently realized that the whole time I’m doing it, I’m muttering things. Out loud. Crazy person style.

You guys, I talk to myself.

I’ll be honest with you, this isn’t an entirely new thing, but it’s getting really bad.  It wouldn’t be a problem if I were just trying out dialogue while sweeping the floor or calling my computer names when it freezes up, but the thing is, I also mutter in the aisles of the grocery store and while I’m pumping gas.  I have entire conversations with myself out loud in the Goodwill.  I’m pretty sure my fellow shoppers think I’m nuts.  I’ve tried to stop, but it doesn’t work.  It’s like some kind of switch has been turned on in my brain, and I can’t figure out how to switch it back.

I blame the writing.

For ten years now (!!) I’ve had a little person around me constantly, and they’ve been my audience.  I could comment on the world around us and tell stories both fact and fiction anytime one popped into my head.  Now?  Now there’s no one to listen.  Now I spend hours writing stories down, and let me tell you something, writing and storytelling are NOT the same thing.

Storytelling is an interactive art.  I say something funny, my audience laughs (or at least smiles…or groans or rolls their eyes).  I say something scary, their eyes widen a bit.  If my story has their attention, they listen closely, maybe they lean forward a little or nod their heads.  If my story is boring, they look away, start to fiddle with things, get that vague look in their eyes.

And it’s not just them reacting to me.  I react to them.  If my funny story isn’t making people laugh, I know I have to spice it up a little.  If I’m losing their attention, I throw in something exciting quickly before they’re all the way gone.  I can adapt the story to suit the listener, and I can immediately know if I’ve done a good job.

Of course, that’s what makes storytelling scary.  If your story bombs, there’s nowhere to hide.  It’s just you, right there, feeling like a bit of an idiot.  And you do bomb.  It’s inevitable.  And even if your kids are the only audience, it can make you wish you had never tried.  But when the story is a hit, there is nothing more satisfying.  Maybe it’s just because I’m an extrovert, but the feedback, the glorious feedback, is like Thanksgiving dinner for the soul.  (What? That’s a perfectly normal metaphor.)  And the personal connection, the feeling of knowing your listener and being known in a way you weren’t before, is priceless.

Writing is an expressive art.  I get to think my words through and choose the one that best represents what I’m really trying to say.  I can shape a story.  I can stop in the middle and take time to puzzle out the perfect ending.  When I make mistakes or put something down that isn’t as strong as it should be, I can go back and change it.  I am free from the judgments of others for that time, lost in my own imagination.  When I finally have a finished product, it is mine and mine alone.  No one’s thoughts or reactions influenced it along the way.  It’s all me, for better or for worse.

Then, when a reader picks up what I’ve written and digests it, she is also free to make of it what she will.  She can interpret it how she likes, and I am not there to tell her if she is right or wrong.  She can own what she has read, find herself reflected there (for better or for worse), and react to that experience accordingly.

There is something beautiful about the freedom and ownership of writing and reading.  As a writer, I can find great joy in the pure expression of my own imagination.  It’s like being a kid playing pretend again.  Then I put something out there and let it stand all alone, let the work try to be something by itself, without any further help from me, and there it is, finished and lasting.

Of course, that’s also terrifying.  Because what if it’s pitiful?  What if it’s ugly?  What if it’s weak?  I can’t defend it.  I can’t hide it.  I can’t change it.  I’m exposed.  And anyone who wants to can take that little bit of me I’ve put out there and twist it into whatever they want.  There’s nothing I can do about it.

So here I am, after a decade of near-constant storytelling, with its ever-present affirmation and insults, spending long hours in my own head, dreaming and playing and having a great time but also feeling unconnected and less sure of myself than I’ve ever been.  Here I am, determinedly putting it all into words anyway and sending them out into the world.

No wonder I’m talking to myself.  My brain is trying to provide me with my own feedback.  Not exactly helpful, brain.  So far the only thing I’m gathering from you is that you are getting a little loopy.

Shoot.  There I go again.  Must be time to go pick up the kids from school.

“I wemembew one time, when we wived in Awgentina, and I was weawy wittle.  I was in bed and all the wights went out, and I stawted cwying and cwying, and Mommy held me and gave me my bwankie.  And it was weawy dawk, and the big kids thought it was so fun, but I was so scawed that I thwew up all over Mommy.  And the kids laughed and laughed and said, ‘Lulu puked!  Lulu puked!'”

Oh yeah, Mommy remembers that, too.  Distinctly.  It’s not one of Mommy’s favorite memories, though it is definitely one of theirs.  It was a moment of drama washed over with the safety of two parents competently handling everything.  It was a moment of shared excitement.  It was the moment they learned what the word ‘puke’ means.  Invaluable lesson, that.

The funny thing about that particular evening (because, contrary to what my kids tell you, the puke was NOT funny) is that Lucy was only just two years old.  She doesn’t remember that.  Seriously, she doesn’t remember it.  She’s just been told about it so many times by the rest of the family that she thinks she does.  We’ve actually implanted a memory in her brain.  Now there’s something to think about.

That little darling had quite the gag reflex…or so we’ve told her. 

It’s pretty universally agreed that humans are narrative beings.  We see and interpret the world around us as a story.  We just do.  Neurologists take scans of our brains and tell us that stories activate our brains in a way that nothing else can.  Leadership gurus stress the importance of narrative as a way of connecting and motivating others to change.  Psychologists run studies and find that the stories we tell about ourselves are strongly correlated to the condition of our current lives.

Think about what this means for us as parents.  Our kids, right now, every day are building the story of their lives.  We know this.  This is why we take them to sports practices and make sure they get their homework done and protect them from dangers and feed them vegetables and try hard not to yell too much and worry about their social adjustment.  We want their story to be a good one, a happy one, a safe one, a story with as little baggage to it as possible.

But the story of your life isn’t just what has happened to you, a long sum of actions and events.  Stories don’t work like that.  Stories are selective.  Stories have shape.  They have beginnings, middles, and ends.  They have arcs.  They are broken up into chapters (or episodes).  They have high points, low points, turning points.  They leave the unimportant events out altogether.

The story of your life is no different.  Where you perceive your story to have begun matters in what will happen in the middle and the end.  How you define the arc or trajectory of your story makes a world of difference in how you are defined as a person.  Some scenes are much, much more important than others.  Some are resonant with emotion that stays with you forever.  Some are pivotal in the whole direction of your life. Some fade into obscurity and are forgotten.

As parents, we not only play a big role in what actually happens to our kids, we are a crucial part of how they narrate it all.  What stories are we telling them about their past?  According to us, what role do they play in their present?  Are they a character that is growing and developing and acting or one that is tossed around by their circumstances?  Do we replay the happy memories over and over or do we dwell on the darker scenes?  How important are the other characters in their stories?

I’m not suggesting that I know the best way to tell your kids’ stories or even that there is a best way.  There are a million ways to tell a great story from the same basic facts.  I personally choose to retell the stories that show how many people are in their lives loving them and supporting them, the ones about how many people showed up at the hospital to meet them and how excited we all were, because I want them to know they are never alone.  I retell the funny stories, the ones where they make mistakes and I make mistakes as their mom, because I really want them to learn to laugh at themselves.  I tell the stories of sad times, too, the ones where we have to say good-bye and things don’t turn out as we expect, because I want them to see how even those times brought about the wonder that is now.

I don’t know what stories you should tell or how you should tell them.  I’m only suggesting that we be intentional as parents.  Our kids ARE forming a narrative in their heads about their lives.  What are we contributing to that?

One of the things I started to do a couple of years ago is to write a letter to my kids each year on their birthdays.  I post them over on our family blog.  (These days that’s just about the only time I do post over there.)  As they are getting older, they read them when I post them, but mostly, I put them there for them to have later.  This is one way I tell them how I see their story, and it’s fun even already to see how it is developing slowly over time.

Ellie at 8

Ellie at 9

Ellie at 10

Scott at 6

Scott at 7

Scott at 8

Lucy at 3

Lucy at 4

Lucy at 5

We (and only we) have been there every day since the beginning.  We remember their life from before they can.  We have a treasure trove of material to choose from.  What stories are we telling?