The Story Stick

I’m looking at a cedar log and wondering how it’s going to help me make sense of my life.

For the better part of a year, a question has been rattling around in my head – an earworm that just won’t go away: how would you symbolically represent your life? I believe that this topic originated in a discussion with my buddies, Hen and George and has kept me thinking: How would I do that?

The question is both repelling and compelling. After all, it reeks of self-absorption. In addition, perhaps I would not have the energy or skill to do a reasonable job of whatever approach I undertook. Of course, I would like to be remembered, but memories are short-lived. More importantly, I would like to remember – remember the experiences and people that have helped me to be where I stand today – and commemorate that experience.

So, I put it to you – What would you do, in order to render an accounting of who you are, or where you’ve been? I guess the easy answer would be a collection of written memoirs or an autobiography, maybe even a blog like this one. Perhaps it would be reflected through a particular focus, like Stanley Tucci’s book, My Life Through Food. Or maybe, it is simply a series of recipes or other works that speak for you?

I mean, some people paint self-portraits and murals, compose symphonies, sew quilts with personal meaning, construct buildings. Let your mind run free — What would you do?

I’ve decided to give it a shot… that’s why I’m looking at this log, which I mounted on a lathe. For millennia, people have erected monuments to reflect incidents, achievements, boundaries, and laws. These belong loosely to the family of stelae – or stelai if you prefer the Greek. Inscribed gravestones, obelisks, menhirs, and totems all strive to tell a story. So that’s what I intend to do – on a smaller scale – with this log.

I’m going to shape this log so that it is tapered on each end, the thickest part will be near the middle. It will stand vertically on a base. The base will remember my parents and brother and life’s journey will proceed in a spiral fashion from bottom to top. The center will reflect the wedding rings that my wife designed and cast.

The progression of the piece will follow Eric Erickson’s life stages and challenges, representing the development of virtues that are associated with each stage: hope, will, purpose, competence, fidelity, love, care, and wisdom. Let’s hope it’s not too late for wisdom.

When I was eleven, I read The Illustrated Man, by Ray Bradbury – a collection of short stories. It tells the tale of a person covered in body art. Each tattoo represented an event from his past, present – and future. When the man fell asleep, each individual tattoo became animated and reenacted the experience depicted in a short story. Ultimately, the last tattoo foreshadowed his death. I guess I won’t go that far! But significant events reflecting the life stages will be carved or engraved within the spiral, but the top may remain unfinished.

Centuries past, soldiers called aquilifers carried a standard which were emblematic of their particular Roman legion. Many times, these were mythic or fierce beasts. The top of my work will feature a mayfly, representing ephemeral quality of life. Mayflies live most of their existence underwater in moving waters or streams. They emerge and morph into spinners that live for a day or two. This stage is short, because their digestive organs are repurposed for reproduction – they cannot eat; they have no defense and can neither bite nor sting. They can fly gloriously for a brief period, dipping into the surface of water to lay eggs, avoiding predatory trout. When they finally alight, exhausted, on a fragment of grass or window screen, they have a characteristic pose with their front legs raised almost in an attitude of prayer. Somehow, these creatures capture my sympathy. So, a mayfly must be incorporated in my work as a standard, although I’m not sure how to accomplish that just yet. All of this is going to take some time and I’ll report back on progress periodically.

Does any of this get your wheels spinning? Let your mind run free: What would you do?

Wheels, by Lauren Coles ( https://pickmeuppoetry.org/wheels-by-lauren-coles/ )

Wheels can spin in your head,
An idea can spark from anywhere,
The mind is a creative genius,
If people don’t know what the world needs there will not change.

Memories May be Beautiful and Yet… Thank You Barbra

Many people around my age open up the newspaper each morning to the obituaries.  We joke that if our names aren’t listed, we know we are good for another day at least.  Humorous, no doubt, but also a truthful assessment of what life is like.  When I recognize one of the names, I read through the story of that person’s life.  I skim through the part of the “survived by…” and focus on the kind of person he or she was.

More than once while doing this I couldn’t help but wonder from whose perspective this life story was written. That isn’t always the way I remembered that person, cast as a super hero, or a gentle soul, when I remember a situation where that person was anything but.  But we must speak kindly of the dead!  I wonder if one of his kids wrote the obituary or is there an obituary writer who writes the story after a brief interview with the family.  Or, perhaps, the deceased wrote his own obituary.

Of course, our lives are composed of significant events and special people, but also of our character. All of these things made up who we became in our adult life.  But significance is in the eyes of the beholder.  I want to be remembered as a good father, and a caring effective teacher, and if I were writing my obituary, I would certainly include those traits, as well as being an effective caring innkeeper who always tried to assure the guests’ a positive experience at our inn and community.  I want to be remembered as kind and funny, and trying to accommodate the individual needs of whoever I was teaching or giving directions to.

I guess what I am getting at is that if I wrote my own obituary and someone else wrote one about me, would they be symmetrical?  And if not, which one is going to be the one that people remember?

Which raises the question how do I want to be remembered?  Do I want people to remember me the way I envisioned myself or do I want to be remembered the way they actually remembered me?  Scary thought!
Hopefully the amalgam of all my parts will come up on the positive side, but there have been dark times, angry times, and sad times that I would choose not to be remembered for.

Wally is putting significant symbols of his life on a story stick.  He has the ability to carve those significant symbols and include them on his story stick, and Henry’s sister was able to patch together her mother’s life story on a quilt.  Wally’s story stick and Henry’s sister’s quilt can be on display as a constant reminder to what that person’s life was like for all who have an interest in being reminded.  I don’t have the ability to display the important events of my life like either of those.  My symbols have always been in words.  Years of journals recording significant events year by year on a daily basis: the adoption of our kids, our various moves and houses, family happenings, births and deaths, sicknesses, achievements, all the things that happen to most families. But journals are not always visible as a life reminder to those who want to remember what life was like. I am afraid I will have to be content to be remembered from good deeds I did for others over however many years I survive.  I hope and pray that the good deeds far exceed the bad.  I hope my kids can someday look back on their dad and fondly share their memories of him and laugh at his silliness and cry at his misfortunes.  I hope some of the kids who were in my classes over the years will remember their fourth-grade teacher as someone who listened and cared about their well-being and remember fondly some of the activities, conversations and lessons they learned from him.  Maybe a guest or two will remember fondly their visit to Woodstock, Vermont and the late-night conversations around the blazing fireplace of the Deer Brook Inn. with a bottle of wine.  Unfortunately, we will never know what we are remembered for or the answers to these questions. 

Defending My Life

Defending Your Life is a light-hearted 1991 movie starring Albert Brooks, Meryl Streep, and Rip Torn.  It focuses on two unrelated early to mid-life people who died and wake up in a midway place where each, with the help of an attorney-like support person must represent their life before two impartial judges who will determine whether they are evolved enough to go forward or who need to go back to Earth until they’ve reached an acceptable level of worthiness.  This process involves their assigned support person using video snippets of their lives as evidence to support the premise that each was either ready to move on or not.  What an interesting way to represent how we spent our lives and how we arrived at our present state of who we really are.  However, since no one has been filming my life since birth (whew!) I do not have the video data necessary for this approach.

Continuing on with the medium of film to illustrate who we are, I am also reminded of the section of Don Miquel’s book, The Four Agreements.  In his discussion of perceptions, he proposes a scenario where one enters a movie theater to watch the movie, “This is Your Life” as lived and remembered by you.  Then, you go into the next theater also showing the movie of the same title but written by you or a member of your family.  As you watch this one you realize it’s not the same.  In fact, you are certain that many of the events never happened the way they are shown and the meaning behind them are way off or completely incorrect.  Hmmm, what if my choices for what captures the essence of who I am are only my perceptions and not those of my family, friends, coworkers, and neighbors?  Will this graphic collection of renderings of me be valid only to me?  And if so, then, will this representation matter?  I believe it will matter if I accept the notion that the meaning to those who see it after I’m gone, is that this is what I remember experiencing and what I found to be meaningful.

For my 75th birthday, my granddaughter gave me a workbook entitled, “Walk with Me. – a Grandfather’s Story.”  It is a guided journal of my memories with 112 written prompts to include different segments of my life’s experiences and how I felt and acted at the time of their unfolding.  When completed this will be a comprehensive way to address Wal’s challenge but not a consolidated rendering that summarizes my life.

Shortly after my mother died, my sister collected my mom’s unused fabrics and material from her skirts and dresses and commissioned a quilter to create several 3’X3’ square quilts for each of my mother’s children and grandchildren.  The quilt, made from mom’s own clothes and favorite quilting fabrics, displayed coffee cups, flowers, spools of thread, and music notes.  A perfect representation of her love of music, gardening, sewing/quilting, and her morning cup of fresh-brewed coffee!  It hangs in my bedroom and revives fond memories each time I look at it.  I think this is most like the kind of expression of our lives that Wal has in mind.

I wish I could think more simply, just as my sister did with the quilts.  I often bog myself down with too much detail fearing I’ll leave something out or deprive the viewer of the fullness and richness of what I’m describing. 

As I tried to hone my ideas I thought I might proceed with a combination of some of the approaches I mentioned.  One would be to collect items (pictures and objects) that I see as symbols of important times, people, events, and changes that had a significant impact on who I came to be.  I would photograph each item or find or create a picture of intangible experiences and write a brief phrase of explanation below it.  Perhaps I would capture the most significant items from my granddaughter’s book and exchange each section with a photo.  This picture book would be a bound publication that could also be converted to a digital version.

But then I remembered a challenge I faced when I was 40.  When I went north for my outward bound-like Temagami experience, they had us draw a life map representing significant parts of our lives from birth to present day on a round piece of oak tag.  And, in the center, we were to draw a symbol of who we were and who we wanted to be.  I recently retrieved this artifact from a box in my basement.  Partially because of my inability to draw well as well as the faded print and my fading memories, I no longer remember the meaning behind all of the figures.  And yet, this child-like rendering still serves as a clear reminder of my journey.  As I continue to mull over this query, and if I choose to follow through with it, this may very well be my response to Wal’s challenge.