Last spring my East Tennessee relatives paid me a visit. They came to town to see Garrison Keilor’s show at the Ryman. My guests included my 85 year old aunt, brother and sister-in-law, and cousin, all in their 70’s. My husband and I are in our 60’s. One long standing family tradition is to spend hours at the dinner table talking about a variety of topics. Sometimes we take two hours or longer to finish our meal and talking. This was one of those meals.
The topic of discussion that day turned to dating and love. Everyone was talking about their early courting years, and eventually someone asked me about my love life saying that they knew little about my life from adolescence until after I was married and had children. With that question I began to piece together the jigsaw puzzle of my love life for them. This table memory was the first piece of the puzzle. Later in the summer I was involved in a professional workshop in storytelling with Donald Davis, one of the top storytellers in the nation. We were assigned the task of telling some of our stories about our boyfriends and girlfriends. These two events gave my memory quite a jog to try to tie it all together. The last event of my ‘love journey’ involved hearing a long time colleague and friend play some of his blues music which so often focuses on love, leaving, learning, and losing. By fall I had complete my love story and a program began to emerge. This would allow audiences to enter this journey with me through stories and music. What a journey this has been! Eventually I began to realize there had been a long list of people who had taught me about love, and some of the lessons had been profound.
Last month I wrote about the necessity to share our life stories with our families and others so the lessons we have learned can get passed on. I encouraged families to share their stories so that their kids and grandchildren can truly know who they are and how their journey can speak truths for them. Below are some questions to help you think about what love lessons you have learned and what role they have played in your life. If you can share these you may be able to let your kids and grandchildren learn from you instead of having to learn it from others who have less influence on their lives than you do.
- Do your children know how you and their grandfather or their father fell in love? Did it last? What made it last or what made it fail?
- What do you know now that you wish someone had told you to help you learn about how love and loving works? Remember children need your lessons to help them learn about love. They need your stories of how you failed or succeeded because the chances are good that they will encounter these same problems with love themselves. They will listen better if you share your stories rather than giving them advice or lectures. They get plenty of advice from their parents, and they tune it out. You are the family storyteller. When stories are told kids (and adults) listen.
- What’s the most valuable lesson you ever learned about love? Can you tell the story of how you learned it, and what it now means to you?
- What funny things happened during dating and what lessons did these incidents bring to your love life?
- What stories are you hesitant to tell? Sometimes these stories are the ones that have the most learning tied to them.
Patsy Hatfield Lawson is a professional storyteller who does entertaining story and music programs for all types of speaking venues. “Lessons Learned in Love” is currently being booked for Valentine’s Day.
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