It's June, the wedding month, and once again I'm taken back to a memory fifty years ago. It was the first wedding in our family; a 'fancy affair' of sorts in East Tennessee which thrust our family out of our comfort zone in a big way. We weren't fancy people and had little confidence in our ability to participate in a wedding affair. Mama and Daddy chewed tobacco daily, farmed our 65 acres and lived a simple Appalachian lifestyle. The plans for a fancy wedding took us not only to a new place, but also to a new way to act. We had to learn how to act the part of, "the grooms family" and do our best not to embarrass ourselves and the rest of the family. It was weeks and months of learning what NOT to do which all climaxed on the day of the wedding when Daddy surprise himself, and horrified the family, by having an emotional outburst of crying and wailing just as the minister said, "I now pronounce you husband and wife." Mothers are usually the ones to cry at weddings, not fathers, and he didn't just cry he WAILED and, try as hard as he could, he could not stop himself. Being 12 at the time and very self-conscious this was enough to take me over the edge in terms of embarrassment. I've never wanted to run away from my family as much as I wanted to run away at that moment.
In two week we will have the first wedding of one of our two sons. This fifty year old story is now back to haunt me, and I'm just now beginning to experience some of the same feelings my Dad had at his first wedding. Recalling memories of your children as they grew and learned about life is just part of the wedding experience regardless of whether we show or talk about them. While the events at the time may have produced feelings of anger, disgust, inadequacy, embarrassment over our child's or our own behavior at the time, in an event such as a wedding twenty or thirty years later these feelings wrap themselves around a sentimental story moment that defines us and our children. We're all pretty prone to fall apart and weep because this is really personal history that has shaped us as a family.
Somewhere in this mixture of stories and memories I am trying to find the right way to welcome my son and new bride into their new life as a couple and to accept the change in our role as parents. I really do not desire to create an emotional display like the one my father did over fifty years ago, but I am very aware now that the potential is there. In some way, I suppose his emotional outburst made him more real as a person.
Are there some similar experiences in your life? Feel free to comment.
Monday, June 20, 2011
Monday, April 11, 2011
Good Story Listeners
Over the past ten years I have been very involved with my family stories and getting others to see the richness and beauty of daily life as it has been lived by others. I also perform stories for companies, non-profits, assisted living facilities, and I speak at a wide variety of events. Over these years I have begun to notice folks who are especially good story listeners. For every good storyteller there is also a need for a good listener. Below I will outline some of those features.
Good story listeners are curious about what they hear. They ask questions at appropriate places which help to draw out details of the story. They also do not interrupt the teller while they are speaking. They wait for the appropriate time to ask and usually open with, 'I'd like to go back to something you mentioned earlier and have you tell me more about it."
Good story listeners, really listen and pay attention to the person who is speaking. They are not 'pretending to be listening' and really just waiting to butt in with their own story or funny thought. Probably nothing is more of a turn off to the teller than someone who won't let you finish or immediately jumps at any time to tell their own story. These insensitive folks usually begin with,''If you think that's interesting, I have something that will knock your socks off!" A true listener knows when it is time to be the listener and NOT be the teller. No one wants to be cut off to hear another person's story or their insensitive remark.
Sometimes elderly people get lost in telling their story and a good listener can usually bring them back to the story with a question or two about the comments just before they got lost. A good question at this point may even bring the person back to new ideas and thoughts. When you don't understand what the person said, wait for the appropriate time and go back to the point in the story where you got lost. This is where you will ask for further clarification.
Good story listeners understand that humans are infinitely connected to each other through our basic make up. We differ largely only by the experiences we have had. It is here in these differences of experiences that we need to connect. This part helps us understand different cultures, different customs, and the things that often separate us from others. A good listener can accept that we are all defined by experience and somewhere in this knowledge is the way we begin to accept and forgive others. Stories help us see the picture from the other side.
It's my genuine hope that you are a good story listener first and a good storyteller secondly.
Good story listeners are curious about what they hear. They ask questions at appropriate places which help to draw out details of the story. They also do not interrupt the teller while they are speaking. They wait for the appropriate time to ask and usually open with, 'I'd like to go back to something you mentioned earlier and have you tell me more about it."
Good story listeners, really listen and pay attention to the person who is speaking. They are not 'pretending to be listening' and really just waiting to butt in with their own story or funny thought. Probably nothing is more of a turn off to the teller than someone who won't let you finish or immediately jumps at any time to tell their own story. These insensitive folks usually begin with,''If you think that's interesting, I have something that will knock your socks off!" A true listener knows when it is time to be the listener and NOT be the teller. No one wants to be cut off to hear another person's story or their insensitive remark.
Sometimes elderly people get lost in telling their story and a good listener can usually bring them back to the story with a question or two about the comments just before they got lost. A good question at this point may even bring the person back to new ideas and thoughts. When you don't understand what the person said, wait for the appropriate time and go back to the point in the story where you got lost. This is where you will ask for further clarification.
Good story listeners understand that humans are infinitely connected to each other through our basic make up. We differ largely only by the experiences we have had. It is here in these differences of experiences that we need to connect. This part helps us understand different cultures, different customs, and the things that often separate us from others. A good listener can accept that we are all defined by experience and somewhere in this knowledge is the way we begin to accept and forgive others. Stories help us see the picture from the other side.
It's my genuine hope that you are a good story listener first and a good storyteller secondly.
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Doodles
It happened every February. The rural mailman drove into our driveway to deliver Mama's annual order of Doodles from the hatchery in Knoxville. The order was always 100 week-old baby chicks, 50 males, 50 females. The only thing that changed was the breed of the chicken; sometimes it was white leghorns, sometimes Plymouth Rocks or Rhode Island Reds. This new 'crop ' of chicks would become both our laying hens and our food supply for the next year.
After opening the box in the kitchen near the stove Mama and I sorted the baby chicks into two categories, well and not well. The well ones were sent to the heated brooder in the chicken lot near our out house; the sick ones became my charges, either to nurse them back to health or to find a burial spot. This was my first experience to ever care for another living thing.
For three months we watched these doodles transform themselves into three or four pound chickens. They grew beautiful wing feathers, larger webbed feet, and larger vocal cords for bigger sounds than 'peeps'. While it was exciting to experience the weekly changes, always looming in the background was butchering day, sometime in June, where every male would be sacrificed except the one that Mama had chosen to keep around, "to keep the hens happy." The females would be spared because they were to become our egg supply.
While I was expected to help with the butchering each year, I always hated the process. It never seemed right or fair, yet I was told it was necessary for our family to have food. The slaughtered chickens were put in our Philco freezer for eating later. Nobody talked about having a chicken as a pet or eating vegetarian.
Farm life has many hard lessons about birthing, growing and dying. It also has many lessons about caring, nurturing, and surviving. While I eventually came to accept each of these lessons, I think I'll always wish that all 100 of the doodles that arrived each February could have survived. Couldn't Mother Nature find another way to make this food change business work out another way?
After opening the box in the kitchen near the stove Mama and I sorted the baby chicks into two categories, well and not well. The well ones were sent to the heated brooder in the chicken lot near our out house; the sick ones became my charges, either to nurse them back to health or to find a burial spot. This was my first experience to ever care for another living thing.
For three months we watched these doodles transform themselves into three or four pound chickens. They grew beautiful wing feathers, larger webbed feet, and larger vocal cords for bigger sounds than 'peeps'. While it was exciting to experience the weekly changes, always looming in the background was butchering day, sometime in June, where every male would be sacrificed except the one that Mama had chosen to keep around, "to keep the hens happy." The females would be spared because they were to become our egg supply.
While I was expected to help with the butchering each year, I always hated the process. It never seemed right or fair, yet I was told it was necessary for our family to have food. The slaughtered chickens were put in our Philco freezer for eating later. Nobody talked about having a chicken as a pet or eating vegetarian.
Farm life has many hard lessons about birthing, growing and dying. It also has many lessons about caring, nurturing, and surviving. While I eventually came to accept each of these lessons, I think I'll always wish that all 100 of the doodles that arrived each February could have survived. Couldn't Mother Nature find another way to make this food change business work out another way?
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Late Adulthood Love
The month of February found me working with stories gathered from assisted living personnel and children with elderly parents. It's been a long interest of mine to understand the complexity of late adult love and sexuality.
Many parents never talked about sex with their children and the silence has lasted a lifetime. Many adult children assume their parent or parents no longer have sex and have no interest in it only to get jarred into reality when they learn that mom or dad has a new friend at the facility. Or their mother finds out that dad, who has alzheimer's and lives at the facility, has a new girlfriend at the facility. Recently Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Conner revealed the story that her lifelong husband who has alzheimer's has fallen in love with a resident at his facility. Now not knowing who Sanda is, he spends his time at the facility with his new friend.Justice O'Conner's response to this has been to still visit him every Sunday and to have lunch with he and the new girlfriend.
Here is a story I encountered when I spoke on late adult sexuality at a Knoxville facility fifteen years ago.
Having just finished my presentation, I noticed an elderly couple standing nearby seeming to be waiting till the other attendees had left. Finally after the last person walked away from me, the man and woman came up and said, "'We want your opinion on something." They took turns sharing their story.
Both had spouses who had been permanently institutionalized for several years with severe alzheimer's and no longer recognized them as their spouse. The couple with me said they had begun a friendship with each other due to having to deal with similar situations, and gradually over a years time had fallen in love with each other and were sexually active. Both said they felt very guilty about this relationship since their spouses were still alive and quite sick. The question they asked me, "Do you think we are wrong to have done this?" I swallowed, took a deep breath, and tried to deal with what I was asked the best that I could. I basically tried to avoid answering the direct question I had been asked and tried to talk about their fears and concerns. They were afraid of their children finding out and how their kids would react to the news. They were concerned about other friends finding out and judging them, and they especially were afraid of the personnel at at the facility finding out. They were carrying a huge burden.
I talked with them for about 20 minutes; I asked non-judgmental questions and tried to listen well. By the time the conversation ended I had not answered their question and they returned to it. Finally I responded with, "who am I to judge you?" "I know this is a difficult situation to be in. I hope that you find an answer that allows you remember the love you have for your spouse and honors the good in your present relationship. If you can come to peace with these two things then who am I to judge you."
I returned home and still after 15 years I remember their story as though it were yesterday. As I interview assisted living personnel now I realize that the complexities of love, forgiveness, and understanding continue right up to the end of life. Some say it's even more complex in late adulthood.
Many parents never talked about sex with their children and the silence has lasted a lifetime. Many adult children assume their parent or parents no longer have sex and have no interest in it only to get jarred into reality when they learn that mom or dad has a new friend at the facility. Or their mother finds out that dad, who has alzheimer's and lives at the facility, has a new girlfriend at the facility. Recently Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Conner revealed the story that her lifelong husband who has alzheimer's has fallen in love with a resident at his facility. Now not knowing who Sanda is, he spends his time at the facility with his new friend.Justice O'Conner's response to this has been to still visit him every Sunday and to have lunch with he and the new girlfriend.
Here is a story I encountered when I spoke on late adult sexuality at a Knoxville facility fifteen years ago.
Having just finished my presentation, I noticed an elderly couple standing nearby seeming to be waiting till the other attendees had left. Finally after the last person walked away from me, the man and woman came up and said, "'We want your opinion on something." They took turns sharing their story.
Both had spouses who had been permanently institutionalized for several years with severe alzheimer's and no longer recognized them as their spouse. The couple with me said they had begun a friendship with each other due to having to deal with similar situations, and gradually over a years time had fallen in love with each other and were sexually active. Both said they felt very guilty about this relationship since their spouses were still alive and quite sick. The question they asked me, "Do you think we are wrong to have done this?" I swallowed, took a deep breath, and tried to deal with what I was asked the best that I could. I basically tried to avoid answering the direct question I had been asked and tried to talk about their fears and concerns. They were afraid of their children finding out and how their kids would react to the news. They were concerned about other friends finding out and judging them, and they especially were afraid of the personnel at at the facility finding out. They were carrying a huge burden.
I talked with them for about 20 minutes; I asked non-judgmental questions and tried to listen well. By the time the conversation ended I had not answered their question and they returned to it. Finally I responded with, "who am I to judge you?" "I know this is a difficult situation to be in. I hope that you find an answer that allows you remember the love you have for your spouse and honors the good in your present relationship. If you can come to peace with these two things then who am I to judge you."
I returned home and still after 15 years I remember their story as though it were yesterday. As I interview assisted living personnel now I realize that the complexities of love, forgiveness, and understanding continue right up to the end of life. Some say it's even more complex in late adulthood.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Apples and Valentines
I was in Ms. Daugherty third grade class at Seals-Mathis Elementary and I was eight. By the end of January we were being reminded that Valentine’s Day was approaching as we cut out red hearts to decorate our classroom, and Ms. Daugherty told us to be sure to buy our cards before Turner’s Drug store sold out. At home, Mama was doing her usual rant about spending money on Valentine’s cards and the whole event. Being Baptist and an environmentalist she never seemed to understand the concept of St. Valentine’s Day, the idea of romantic love, or why you buy cards, sign your name, and then throw them away. It was all a waste of money, time and effort when you could just simply tell someone you loved them. Of course, Mama and Daddy never gave Valentine’s Day cards. She also said I was way too young to be thinking about courtin’.
This year I had my eyes on Fred Johnson. I knew he liked me because he chased me at recess and when we played, “Red Rover, Red Rover” Fred always tagged me to run to the empty link in the circle. I also knew that Fred flirted with Glenda Clonce. I had known for weeks that my most special Valentine would go to Fred. The only problem was how to say what I felt for him. ‘I love you’ seemed too extreme, and I knew Mama would kill me if she discovered I had put that on a card; and signing my name wasn’t special enough, so I finally decided to put, “Your special friend, Patsy.”
As soon as all the kids got to school on Valentine’s Day we put our valentines into the big red crepe and white hearts box that sat on Ms. Daugherty’s desk. We wouldn’t distribute them until the end of the day. Early that morning Fred came up to me and Glenda and said, “I shore do like both of you girls, and today, by the end of school, I’m going to decide which of you I like the best.” Pulling a large red apple from his pocket, he continued, “I have brought this apple from our farm and I intended to give it to the one of you I like the best!” Well, from that point on the competition was on between Glenda and me. She tried her best, and I tried my best to earn Fred’s affections all day long. In one day’s time we were now competitors and this was serious business. Glenda shared her lunch with Fred; I helped him with his spelling words; we both yelled, ‘choose me’ when we broke into teams for the spelling bee. Meanwhile, everyone had heard about the contest and had picked sides. The apple had been passed around, dropped, bruised, thrown back and forth, and now looked more like an old Christmas ornament, but because it signified being ‘the chosen person’ it was a valued thing.
Three-thirty finally came in the longest day of my life at the time; Fred was ready to make his announcement. With about half the school, especially the 3rd,4th, and 5th grade classroom, gathered around him when school was dismissed, Fred made the announcement. He said, “I’ve decided which one of you girls I like the best.”
“I’m going to give the apple to…………………….GLENDA.” I lost! I was sad, humiliated, angry, and through with Fred! That’s when I learned my very first lesson in love.
No boy is worth waiting all day long for a sorry, half-rotten apple!
This Valentine’s Day take the time to tell your children or grandchildren one of your love stories, or a story about a valuable lesson you once learned about love. They need to know more about you.
Patsy Hatfield Lawson is a former professor, therapist and award winning storyteller who helps companies, associations, and non-profits, adapt to changes around them. Visit her website at www.patsyhatfieldlawson.com
Love Lessons
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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