Stories
No regular reader of these rambling thoughts woven into what are loosely called blogs will be surprised with fact that this morning I was listening to the May 30, 2019 podcast of On Being with host Krista Tippett and her guest, the poet and retired English Professor at the University of Virginia. Mr. Orr’s books include How Beautiful The Beloved and The Last Love Poem I Will Ever Write. As is true for many artists, Mr. Orr’s poetry was born out of necessity as he learned to live with the terrible tragedy of accidentally, at age 12, killing his younger brother while hunting with him in upstate New York.
So often it seems music, paintings, sculptures, poetry and other creations arise out of the ashes of a tragedy which seem too much to bear. Yesterday I happened on the Facebook post of a lovely man I know who is overcome with grief over the death of one more friend from a drug overdose. Over breakfast I read of the arrest and charges of an 18-year-old young man for murder. If, in fact, the young man is guilty the killing was directly or indirectly related to the sale and use of illegal drugs.
Mr. Orr quotes a poem by Robert Hayden entitled “Those Winter Sundays” which tells the story of living in a home where chronic anger and kindness resided; the story of an angry man who got up early on Sunday to stoke the fires and even polish the shoes of his son. The poem ends with asking what the son knew of “love’s austere and lonely offices?”
Last night I attended a performance of a production of the play “Marjorie Prime” by Jordan Harrison at the Public Theater in Pittsburgh. The author uses holographic recreations of first the husband of Marjorie and later of her daughter and Marjorie to challenge the individual stories which memory creates of humanity and love.
We are all the stories we tell ourselves and we are the stories of our intersection with the lives of others as experienced, interrupted and told by each of those individuals and each of the observers of those intersections. Each story is the reality the keeper of the story creates. In “Marjorie Prime” Marjorie is the person or persons who exists in the memory of her daughter Tess, her husband Walt, and son-in-law Jon just as Tess is a chief character in the story in the memory chip of Jon and Marjorie. In a strange way the holograph creates a new story and thus a new version of the person for whom “they” are the prime.
The 18-year young man who is charged with murder, the deceased young man who was murdered, the young man who died of a drug overdosed, each of those grieving his death, and both the son and the father in Robert Hayden’s are the characters in many stories. I now create them anew in the story I internalize for each of these.
Each story creates the reality of a life. Gregory Orr quotes or paraphrases Isak Dinesen, the Danish writer, “Any sorrow can be borne if it can be made into a story, or a story can be told about it.” We exist only if our stories exist. As I recall some Native ancestors suggested that we are our stories. Each of us is many stories to many people. We are not “a story” or “the story”. The young man who is charged with murder has a story which begins with a birth, the wrapping in swatting clothes, the experiencing the first smile, the first step, the first word, the first grief. How does his parents reconciled their story with the accusations presented in the story in the morning newspaper? What story will we tell of the young man? What story will be tell of the man who got up early on a Sunday morning to make the house warm for his family and to polish his son’s shoes? What stories will our life create for others?
Jimmy F Pickett
May 31, 2019
coachpickett.org
No regular reader of these rambling thoughts woven into what are loosely called blogs will be surprised with fact that this morning I was listening to the May 30, 2019 podcast of On Being with host Krista Tippett and her guest, the poet and retired English Professor at the University of Virginia. Mr. Orr’s books include How Beautiful The Beloved and The Last Love Poem I Will Ever Write. As is true for many artists, Mr. Orr’s poetry was born out of necessity as he learned to live with the terrible tragedy of accidentally, at age 12, killing his younger brother while hunting with him in upstate New York.
So often it seems music, paintings, sculptures, poetry and other creations arise out of the ashes of a tragedy which seem too much to bear. Yesterday I happened on the Facebook post of a lovely man I know who is overcome with grief over the death of one more friend from a drug overdose. Over breakfast I read of the arrest and charges of an 18-year-old young man for murder. If, in fact, the young man is guilty the killing was directly or indirectly related to the sale and use of illegal drugs.
Mr. Orr quotes a poem by Robert Hayden entitled “Those Winter Sundays” which tells the story of living in a home where chronic anger and kindness resided; the story of an angry man who got up early on Sunday to stoke the fires and even polish the shoes of his son. The poem ends with asking what the son knew of “love’s austere and lonely offices?”
Last night I attended a performance of a production of the play “Marjorie Prime” by Jordan Harrison at the Public Theater in Pittsburgh. The author uses holographic recreations of first the husband of Marjorie and later of her daughter and Marjorie to challenge the individual stories which memory creates of humanity and love.
We are all the stories we tell ourselves and we are the stories of our intersection with the lives of others as experienced, interrupted and told by each of those individuals and each of the observers of those intersections. Each story is the reality the keeper of the story creates. In “Marjorie Prime” Marjorie is the person or persons who exists in the memory of her daughter Tess, her husband Walt, and son-in-law Jon just as Tess is a chief character in the story in the memory chip of Jon and Marjorie. In a strange way the holograph creates a new story and thus a new version of the person for whom “they” are the prime.
The 18-year young man who is charged with murder, the deceased young man who was murdered, the young man who died of a drug overdosed, each of those grieving his death, and both the son and the father in Robert Hayden’s are the characters in many stories. I now create them anew in the story I internalize for each of these.
Each story creates the reality of a life. Gregory Orr quotes or paraphrases Isak Dinesen, the Danish writer, “Any sorrow can be borne if it can be made into a story, or a story can be told about it.” We exist only if our stories exist. As I recall some Native ancestors suggested that we are our stories. Each of us is many stories to many people. We are not “a story” or “the story”. The young man who is charged with murder has a story which begins with a birth, the wrapping in swatting clothes, the experiencing the first smile, the first step, the first word, the first grief. How does his parents reconciled their story with the accusations presented in the story in the morning newspaper? What story will we tell of the young man? What story will be tell of the man who got up early on a Sunday morning to make the house warm for his family and to polish his son’s shoes? What stories will our life create for others?
Jimmy F Pickett
May 31, 2019
coachpickett.org
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