 BLOGS FROM CAROLYN STEARNS Mansfield Ct. 2009-10 just catch my blogs online by clicking on them. www.carolynstearnsstoryteller.blogspot.com This is my blog with info and updates on where I will be and what I have been doing. Sometimes just my thought or a day entered there. www.lanesrepct.blogspot.com This blog is for the LANES ( League for the Advancement of New England Storytelling ) Connecticut page lots of places and people and happenings in the Ct. Story world to catch there! The Intersection 2-4-10 Up the road is a four way intersection. No main road here but two well traveled country roads Mansfield City Rd. and Brown’s Rd. There at the intersection they meet with all travelers having to stop. How many look about and note the two house that stood on their respective corners for 200 years or more, or the other two houses one nearly as old. They have watched the intersection change from the cart path traveled by oxen and horse to the busy short cut between two main roads and the shortcut from one University to the other. Zoom, Zoom, Zoom! Cars race through barely hesitating. I stopped the other day third driver to arrive nearly simultaneous but I was paying attention and waved the other two on in succession and began to think. This intersection is a lot like my life. It is busy with all kinds of traffic. It goes from one place to another always connected but never going anywhere. Well that’s how it feels many a day that I am the hamster on the wheel and running the same circle. Some parts of me feel rather old, some invigorated and fresh like the bright new siding on one of the four houses. I work at four different jobs and more if you count barn chores at home and a family, which is plenty of work there is just no paycheck for, it pays in heart dividends. Then I have my storytelling which is a growing business and I am working very hard to make it successful. I have my random days of subbing in the local high school, often in the Agriculture Education dept which is like going home. I am the town cemetery sexton which is a interesting job that pops up in a as needed basis. I do some announcing jobs too, they are more seasonal and always fun. I realize I need to come to the intersection take time and stop and look around, not blindly pass through. Finish one project and take that moment, evaluate and appreciate before stepping on the gas and moving onto the next. I plan to use that intersection as the physical reminder to stop and slow down and enjoy each day and project. The rat race only sucks you up if you are willing to race. Blog for June 25, 2009 Carolyn Stearns Storyteller Storytelling Is Like Play-Doh I have made my weekly trip to the library and carted home another bag of storybooks. Always in search of new material or different views of presenting old classics I pour through the children’s section savoring memories and new treasures. Twice a year our library holds a benefit book sale and towns people donate books from their collections and a garage fills. Come the appointed weekends it takes traffic control police to orchestrate the buyers in to some semblance of order as they arrive in mass at the sale. Here I procure more gems for my collection. This spring at the sale I filled my box with so many treasures and at fifty cents a paperback and $1.00 a hardcover my budget is happy. Over time I draw out the purchases and look through each one. I had a small paperback in the bottom of the box that was left for awhile as a scanned more hefty volumes. At last I cracked the cover and released the stampede from within. This was the treasure of the lot. It is a very simple story from the Savannah of Africa with three characters. Rabbit the instigator, Elephant and Hippo who fall for the trick and end up in a day long Tug of War. It is wonderful in the Beverly Naidoo rendition and I read and reread it quickly. On line I found the many other variants of the story to read. Soon the character of rabbit became a voice in my head and the sounds and the images of the characters began to develop. I began to make the story my own. I told it twice to try it out, once to children and once to adults, both age brackets loved the story, each taking something away from it that suited them. I had a feel for its flow and began to think of new ways of tweaking it. The last few minutes of the day as I lay in my dark room ever so close to sleep I was thinking still of rabbit. My day list had run and my mind was left with only rabbit to think on and in the absolute stillness of night the real rabbit began to emerge. His thumper foot pounding out a beat, the wiggle of long fine whiskers, the body language, this was the mischief maker of my story. Yes, there was the story rabbit in his well defined self. Now that I could see him in my minds eye more clearly telling his story would be so much easier. That is when the thought crossed my mind. Storytelling is like Play-Doh! A new can of Play-Doh is a wonderful delight. Snapping off the lid, it is the aroma that hits first. I think in a blindfold test anyone born after 1950 could identify that smell. Then color and texture as the wad of doh plops onto the table in its original can shape. That is how I found the story in the book in its original shape. Soon temptation overwhelms and we dive into the doh squeezing, forming, ripping of bits, smoothing places and a entirely new shape comes from it. My story is the same. Taken in the raw form from the book and other versions it was there, bright, engaging and delightful to look at and read. With my mind and voice and body I have shaped, molded and characterized the story. I tore off bits, I added others. I rolled and smoothed shaped and personalized the tale. In some parts it was as if I, (sorry to those purists of Play-Doh) I mixed the colors! Well my creation is finished and it resembles in some way the book “Great Tug of War” by Beverly Naidoo (publisher: Francis Lincoln Children’s Books,2006,London) but in many other ways it is a different story. It is alive, breathing, colorful, a living creation of several renditions. Of course in performance I always have the option to squish it like doh into something else. © My Blog: Sky Racers 5/9/09 I went out walking tonight as one storm was chased from the sky on the steeds of another. I paused at the gate to the meadow and watched. There across the western horizon monstrous black clouds mounted and with their golden rims sparkling, went skittering northeast as if in the great derby itself. The rest of the sky presented a fanfare to the riderless clouds and mounted great banners across the deepening blue. These Cirrus clouds waved uneven yet majestic as they heralded the winning cloud home. Then great beams of late light reach straight toward heaven and I knew I was watching this painter’s sky as if I had never seen sky before. The birds sang in triumph as the sun slipped lower and lower and the clouds became a darker curtain and I knew I must turn homeward soon. I grew sad at leaving the spectacular show. I was reminded of a night as a child when on my way to bed I paused to gaze into the night sky from the upstairs hall window. There, as if just for me was the Aurora Borealis in all its color and grandeur and I shouted for the family to come and see. Tonight’s sky reminded me of that view of the Northern Lights and how I wished they would wave their curtains here once more, it was a rare sighting in Eastern Connecticut’s sky. I walked on toward home and looked up when I heard the screeching of a bird high above me. I stopped, looked for the owner of the voice and finally found him perched in the branches of a huge Hickory. The Hickory stood there in the dim light, a black outline. Great vines grew up and bound the tree’s arms as if the chains of slavery. There it stood confined to the stone wall, the corn field, and the edge of the road, watching the world go by. The bark of the tree bore scars of winter damage by snow and plows and vehicles who didn’t gauge the distance well and scraped by. I am sure it shook clear to the roots but managed its firm hold on the earth with the help of the vines. Why had I not noticed the tree before when walking? It has grown here along the road to home longer than I have been alive and it has been invisible to me all these years. Tonight I took the time to pause and notice it at the beckoning of one of the many birds who call the graceful arms home. Home at last and the final rays of sun are gone the darkness gathers around the house and the lights from within glow out over the porch and spill onto the grass. Another day has passed, only the stillness of night remains. I come in and settle to write and pause to remember what a fine day it was and how glad I am to have taken a few minutes to appreciate what is given for free every day. © As Ships At Sea Raising children is a precarious business. I have found great challenges in the everyday and amazement in their far reaching capacity. Always teetering the scales of life, whirlwinds come to batter and we attempt to keep the scale balanced by adding to the other side. Education, arts, athletics, family, travel, on we heap the good seeking balance and elusive peace. I have been thinking of the peace and balance and my thoughts crossed over to my recent reading of Herman Melville’s Israel Potter. Peace is the goal but not what is often the recalled moment. In his book the great battle with the Serapsis at sea is the greatest moment. Not unlike Melville’s Moby Dick it is the struggle that has become the epic not the 10,000 days of peaceful sailing on calm seas. Those days pass with nary a word but the foe conquered, triumph in adversity spills forward I millions of volumes. So the journey raising children is to seek the calm sea, but count the battles fought as moments in our history. Riding out the storms is the test of skills as they teach new lessons. I launch these children into the world as vessels of my faith, hope and aspirations. As admiral I prepare my small fleet. I see it is fitted appropriately, trained for the challenges and set off to test the waters. The time of smooth sailing is opportunity for continued training and savoring what life offers. On the horizon a dark cloud. The wind fills the fleet’s sails, head on we travel with God Speed ad high hope, what adventure lies ahead? Blog for Oct. 1, 2009 Carolyn Stearns (C) |
