The Storyteller...

It's been a while since I wrote, for me writing takes mostly inspiration, in other words I have to be "In Spirit", but it also takes time, commitment, passion, heart or at least a couple of those components and lately my life is undergoing many changes, twists and turns and I'm focusing mostly on that.

I get inspired to write about something all the time, but lately when that happens my mind is either too tired to let the words flow or I'm doing something else at the moment.

I'm convinced that I was born to be a "Storyteller". I believe I've always known that but what I didn't know when I was growing up was that you're not supposed to postpone what "You're Born to Be", judge yourself for the way you do it or compare with others that do it as well. I grew up knowing that I had to do better than I did, I was told that by my parents, teachers, surrounded by others who did do it better than I did, I just got by. Looking back I realize that one of the reasons I never became passionate about anything while I was growing up like others did was the way school was taught and my own personal abilities to learn.

Now that I've been working for the school system and see how diligent they are at addressing every single child and teaching them the best way the child learns better, I realize how much of the education I was offered I missed because I just couldn't focus on all that information they offered me, I could retain some things but others I couldn't, my mind would wonder into this Magical World of Storytelling.

I could make up stories about anything as far back as I can remember. I believe that if school had been taught in a Storytelling manner I would have learned better, but it took me till I was living alone, on my own for the first time in my life, in my late 50s to realize this and now in my 60s I've only begun to scrape the surface of all those stories that I've held inside for so many years that seem like so many lifetimes ago, now only a handful of those millions of stories are still somewhat clear in my mind.

There are many ways that we engage in stories, it can be something as simple as someone next to us riding the bus home at the end or the beginning of the workweek, a total stranger we had never seen before or most likely will never see again, he or she has a story to tell like we all do, all that story needs is an audience other than yourself so it can be told, so if you were to engage in a short conversation with that stranger you may know things about them that could change your instant interpretation of them while perhaps identifying with a part of their story. And just by you listening to their story you are allowing it to be told. The person telling their story will get some sense of relief because having a story in your mind can weigh you down or excite you and by being able to tell someone about it you're either sharing on the burden or the excitement while connecting through it with another soul.

This is more evident than ever in this era of Technology, all you have to do is look at almost any site, especially those with platforms that lend themselves to the telling of one's own personal story which are in fact the most successful ones, ie. Facebook, Twitter, Blogger, Instagram, Youtube, any dating site, but it doesn't even have to be just Social Media it's also any company that has created a Website,

I know at least for myself that if I'm going to look at a company I have the habit of looking at the area where it says ABOUT US and the reason I do that is because I like humanizing the experience no matter if it is to buy a pair of shoes, some business cards or deposit at the Bank, I feel more of a connection when I realize there is someone behind all these words on a screen that are offering me a product or a service. Just like we did before the Internet changed the way we live our lives.

The other day I came up with some quotes that made a lot of sense to me:

"The plain fact is that the Planet does not need more successful people. But it does desperately need more peacemakers, healers, restores, storytellers and lovers of every kind. It needs people who live well in their places. It needs people with moral courage willing to join the fight to make the world habitable and humane. And these qualities have little to do with success the way we have defined it".
~ David W. Orr - Ecological Literacy: "Educating our Children for a Sustainable World".

"The purpose of a Storyteller is not to tell you how to think, but to give you questions to think upon".
~ Brandon Sanderson - "The Way of Kings".

We all have a story to tell and we all have the need for someone to listen to our story and at least for myself I want my story to be an ADVENTURE!

 Envision your story on a large movie screen and ask yourself "Would I go see that movie, is it interesting, will it hold my attention, is it going to make me laugh and cry and feel every emotion intensely, do I like how the music in the background makes me feel, did it teach me something, was it worth my time, how do I feel when I walk out of the theater, uplifted and energetic, sad and drained or perhaps with anger, fear or despair?

Would I read the book and buy the movie when it comes out on video so I can watch it again and again or will it be one of those movies that we see once when it comes out on TV in the weee hours of the morning when there is nothing else to watch and when you're 1/2 way through the movie you realize you already saw it once and didn't care for it?

Go make your life what you want it to be so you can be in total harmony with the story you tell. Believe me it's worth it, I know, I'm The Storyteller....

Hugs xoxo
@nit@

How Well do You Know Yourself?...

I was at a long weekend getaway with some of my friends, I believe there were 11 of us. A weekend to remember no doubt, one of those that come along perhaps once in a lifetime if you're lucky and it doesn't happen to everyone, although those who understand the value of love and bond will make it happen. Why do some people do and others don't I really don't know the answer to that, but what I do know is that when something is important enough to us we make things happen and not everything is important to everyone.

We were an interesting bunch, we came from different backgrounds although somewhere along the way in our childhood our paths happened to cross and we became fond enough of those memories that we wanted to feel that same emotion that we do when people who share lifetime experiences with you come back into your life again. There's already that familiarity, the fond memories to relive, but we are actually making a new friendship, because the memories are lovely but we are living in this now reality that probably has nothing to do with who we were when our paths crossed for the first time.

It's funny because I don't remember us being a particularly close generation. As always there were little groups of friends within the generation who did frequent each other but as a whole we didn't promote many activities to do as a group other than what the school programmed as group activities.

Throughout the years these small groups kept contact with each other since they stayed and didn't move away, but I did, I left when I was only 23 and stopped seeing or knowing from any of them for years and one day I looked back and wondered what had happened to all of them. I really wanted to see how these children that were my little classmates once with the personality that I remembered had wound up as men or women.

This particular group  of 11 was chosen by the friend who organized this long weekend. His family has the most lovely farm in a town in México and Christmas was approaching. The farm has a large main house with several bedrooms and of course living room, dining room, gardens, an enclosed pool. It had other houses around with more bedrooms for guests and another one for the staff who took care of it all, the land, the houses and the animals.  It has a vast piece of land and there was even a stream that ran through the land, one of those places that comes out of your dreams.

The staff also took care of all the guests in this case our group, but I'm sure there have been many people throughout the years that visited there.

Our group couldn't have been more diverse, screen writer, producer,  psychologist, a police woman, a couple of teachers, an art dealer, several of them very wealthy and comfortable with their lives. I remember how I felt in that place, the same way I remember feeling when I was a child in my classroom sitting towards the back, I wonder what kept me sitting there? or what made it so that I would feel that same emotion again 50 years later?

I wanted to discover who they were as adults, it was a small group, we could have written a good screenplay of this magical long weekend because it was that, the fireworks in the center of town, the cemetery that we visited with the little old man who took care of it all these years. It was a cemetery for the British soldiers who once invaded that land. He told us the story that all the tombs had to face in a particular direction I believe it was facing the Queen or England. I couldn't stop taking pictures. My friend even found a tomb that belongs to a relative of his.

We visited a firework factory, went into town to watch the dances, the music and the always amazing Mexican food! My favorite.

We sat that one night around the fireplace and I said lets get to know each other, who are we now, what memorable thing has happened in your life since the last time we saw each other and they looked at me as if I had come from another planet, one challenged me and said you start so I did.

I talk about my life to anyone not because my life is a tragedy or important enough to anyone to know what I do with my days, is important to anyone other than me but because I feel that I have arrived at a place where I can see clearly that it is us who create our own reality and that love is all there is. It took me years of painful search to find that out and now I want to share it. The only way one can teach is through their own experience so I talk about my life with pride not to attract pity or any other emotion for that matter just to illustrate. I don't feel bad about my past, I loved that I lived it and am here to talk about it.

After telling them what my life path had been and where I was at the moment they all stared at me in silence and one of them broke the ice and said "Well not everyone is as comfortable sharing about themselves" another one chuckled at a comment I made, one who had NEVER even as much as glanced at me in all the years we've known each other said "Your efforts is what got us all together to begin with" as if aw poor thing don't feel so bad you did something right. One came to tell me you are behaving like a victim.

Of course nobody said anything about themselves after that, we all just kept on being these strangers that knew each other once. Some of them more because they kept in touch all these years.

I didn't feel the need to tell them I love my life, I don't care how you view it or how sorry you feel for me I love knowing that life experiences have a purpose, that we are not our ego, that we create our own reality, that we rejoice for the success of others, that we connect with others out of love not of fear or judgement. That we should help each other fulfill dreams.

Towards the end of the reunion the psychologist pulled me to the side with a lot of empathy to offer her help, I wanted to give her a hug and tell her don't worry I don't need any help I'm great but instead I listened to what she had to say and funny enough she asked me "How well do you know yourself?" I said I've taken the past ten years of aloneness to get to know myself better so I think I know myself fairly well, OK she said "can you describe the ridges of your fingerprints? any finger. Hm I thought, maybe I should just keep on looking for what's inside of me and see what else I can learn.

How well do you know what this life is all about, how much emphasis are you placing on finding that out while you're here, is there a purpose for you to be here? "How Well Do You Know Yourself!"...

Hugs xoxo
@nit@

If G-d brings you to it......

I thought this was a nice story to share with you...it looks long to read, but it truly isn't...not to mention that it is well worth it!

I decided to give it a title since it didn't come with one, and I have no idea who wrote it, a good friend of mine from childhood sent it to me.

I'm just like Rose, I take classes every chance I get, travel as much as I can, anywhere, I'm fearless, daring and thrive on adventure, and if the opportunity arises, I'm there!

Hope you enjoy the story as much as I did, and remember to be like Rose, it's the only way to be!

Hugs,
@nit@
If G-d brings you to it, He will bring you through it!
(Thank you Rose!)

The first day of school our professor introduced himself and challenged us to get to know someone we didn't already know. I stood up to look around when a gentle hand touched my shoulder. I turned around to find a wrinkled, little old lady beaming up at me with a smile that lit up her entire being. She said, "Hi handsome. My name is Rose. I'm eighty-seven years old. Can I give you a hug?"

I laughed and enthusiastically responded, "Of course you may!" and she gave me a giant squeeze. "Why are you in college at such a young, innocent age?" I asked. She jokingly replied, "I'm here to meet a rich husband, get married, and have a couple of kids .." "No seriously," I asked. I was curious what may have motivated her to be taking on this challenge at her age.

"I always dreamed of having a college education and now I'm getting one!" she told me. After class we walked to the student union building and shared a chocolate milkshake. We became instant friends. Every day for the next three months we would leave class together and talk nonstop. I was always mesmerized listening to this "time machine" as she shared her wisdom and experience with me. Over the course of the year, Rose became a campus icon and she easily made friends wherever she went. She loved to dress up and she reveled in the attention bestowed upon her from the other students. She was living it up.

At the end of the semester we invited Rose to speak at our football banquet. I'll never forget what she taught us. She was introduced and stepped up to the podium. As she began to deliver her prepared speech, she dropped her three by five cards on the floor. Frustrated and a little embarrassed she leaned into the microphone and simply said, "I'm sorry I'm so jittery. I gave up beer for Lent and this whiskey is killing me! I'll never get my speech back in order so let me just tell you what I know.

" As we laughed she cleared her throat and began, "! We do not stop playing because we are old; we grow old because we stop playing. There are only four secrets to staying young, being happy, and achieving success. You have to laugh and find humor every day. You've got to have a dream. When you lose your dreams, you die. We have so many people walking around who are dead and don't even know it!

There is a huge difference between growing older and growing up. If you are nineteen years old and lie in bed for one full year and don't do one productive thing, you will turn twenty years old.

If I am eighty-seven years old and stay in bed for a year and never do anything I will turn eighty-eight. Anybody can grow older. That doesn't take any talent or ability. The idea is to grow up by always finding opportunity in change. Have no regrets. The elderly usually don't have regrets for what we did, but rather for things we did not do. The only people who fear death are those with regrets." She concluded her speech by courageously singing "The Rose."
She challenged each of us to study the lyrics and live them out in our daily lives. At the year's end Rose finished the college degree she had begun all those years ago.
One week after graduation Rose died peacefully in her sleep. Over two thousand college students attended her funeral in tribute to the wonderful woman who taught by example that it's never too late to be all you can possibly be.

REMEMBER, GROWING OLDER IS MANDATORY. GROWING UP IS OPTIONAL. We make a Living by what we get, We make a Life by what we give. G-d promises a safe landing, not a calm passage. If G-d brings you to it, He will bring you through it.

--- We are all like one-winged angels. It is only when we help each other that we can fly.

--Luciano de Crescenzo

Because We're Keeping the Dream Alive...

When my kids started attending school I began to pay more attention to the way people act and interact, I guess I was reliving my childhood through my children's eyes, while using the wisdom of my years.

I used to volunteer endless hours at their school and after school activities, and noticed how other parents did it. After all children don’t come with instructions and I certainly didn’t know if I was doing it right or wrong. I wanted to be a “perfect” mom, and not do what my parents did, “the best they knew how”. I decided to set my standards high and wanted to learn as much as I could in order to make as few mistakes as possible.

Some of the mothers were right there with me, every day, as volunteers in the classroom and field trips, as well as the multitude of after school activities. There were so many to chose from that I'd go crazy trying to decide which one was best for my kids, so many classes that no matter how many hours they could add to the day there were never enough to do it all, learn it all and be it all, but there we were, trying hard and doing our best.

There were the working mothers and the playing mothers. Those that would meet for coffee at Starbucks and a game of tennis, shopping, a day at the spa, a few trips around the world, some craft making class and wine tasting on Friday night, while the kids stayed with the nannies; or those who couldn’t afford to give their time to the kids because they needed her salary to buy books and shoes. Some I interacted with for years and some I never even met.

Then all of a sudden my kids grew up, and the friendship we had developed over the years started to blossom, but I realized I had put my life on hold this whole time, and although I loved what I did, I needed to find out who I was now.

I knew then I needed to go back to my own childhood and try to remember some of the things I had experienced or maybe even those I left unfinished. I have 'some' very vivid memories of my childhood, but I could hardly remember most of my formative years, I had moved away in my early 20s, so I decided to go in search of my past and started with my long lost family and childhood friends.

I spent many hours doing this, but I had the internet, and never doubted something good would come of this new 'Science Fiction World.' I started by placing a call into my highschool and asked for the principal at the time, to see if he had any information, and found out curiously enough that he was one of my old classmates cousin, so he got me her e-mail address and she gave me someone else's, and in a fairly short period of time, 4 or 5 months, which is nothing compared to the 35 yrs. I had not been in contact with most of them; I had collected about 80+ e-mail addresses. Then I looked for a venue where we could all meet again one more time and catch up with our lives.

I did remember that we were never really a close generation, nor a large one, unlike my kids who just graduated from a generation of almost 1,000, we must have been about 90 give or take. But I did know one thing, that no matter how close we all were, we did have wonderful experiences together for many years, and at one point in our lives, in some of the most impacting formative years, we were spending a big portion of our days witnessing and being a part of each others lives.

And just like the mothers from my kids’ school, there were those who wanted to get involved in making this happen, some that had major careers and trips and busy lives, some who lived very far away, those with not much interest in delving into their past, and some who had challenges and just couldn’t participate.

5 years ago I stood in front of about 70 of my childhood friends. They could have brought Ricky Martin to that party and we would have still continued to talk to each other for hours without paying attention to our surroundings. We had history together and we all seemed anxious to share on the history of the lives we had lived for the past 35 yrs.

We are a very special generation, a lot of stories have come out of our lives, some challenging, some successful, some failures, and we’ve even experienced the loss of a few of our dear friends.

Not long ago I stood again in front of many of them, we put our arms around each other just like we did when we were kids and we will continue to do each time we see each other, with the appreciation of a friendship that lasts a lifetime. A special part of our history. Only this time I know who I am…