Stories R Us

Our stories are us. I see it (hear it) more each day. How I can be talking with what appears to be a person when suddenly a Story takes over. Sometimes new, sometimes ancient. In a blink, a unique being presses play on the tape in their head, and suddenly they speak words they once heard spoken.

We know about the complexities of "cultural narrative" but when you get right down to it, we are Stories. We have our own, braided into our family's, our friend's, our community's, our history's, our oligarch's. Why do you tell the Stories you tell? The ones you repeat? The ones everyone knows. The ones your partner can see coming. The ones you have locked and loaded. To entertain? To be relevant? To push an agenda--maybe not even your own?

When I taught playwriting to underserved teens in Chicago one of our first lessons was about morals and themes. We discussed what kind of bedtime Story might be useful to tell a hypothetical rambunctious child. The students chirped, tales about jumping on sofas and breaking vases. I asked what narratives the students, as South Side high schoolers, don't like. "That Mexicans are lazy!" a guy announced. The class was like YEAH. So, I asked, what if we wrote a Story about a lazy bee who never gathered honey? To teach children to finish their homework? How about that? The class had no qualms. I added, now what if I named that bee Maria Sophia Garcia? NO, they shouted! Sometimes I think about the Stories I love and ask myself what they're saying. I rewatched one of my so-called favorite movies recently to find it still incredible and entertaining but in some ways actually majorly opposed to my values.

In college I learned there may actually be just two Stories: Boy Meets Girl and Jesus. Or, some would argue, A Stranger Comes to Town. Lately I tend to think it's Mother or Father. Which is coincidental (or, not at all) because I learned to tell Stories from my parents.

As a journalist, my dad spent his whole life pretty overtly telling Stories. Other people's, through his own rectangular yellow pad. My dad was often on the move when I was younger. Headed to events or the police station or local board meetings. Then he'd sit at the computer, seemingly tortured, tapping away. As I got older I basically never heard from him without also hearing about someone else's Story--maybe a baker or a teacher or a nurse or a consignment shop owner or an architect he met on a plane. Sometimes a text went along with the anecdote, but sometimes it was only news unfit to print. My favorite memory of my dad is probably the Thanksgiving he chose to write about some pantry service group of women who would be in the Christmas parade, zooming with choreographed grocery carts. We watched the marching band and floats together from the sidewalk, but when the gals with their carts whizzed by he took off down the street after them. I could hear him shout, "HELLO C____ S______ WITH THE DAILY TIMES!" I watched his hat get smaller and smaller. Later we met in the park to watch the trees light up.

It's true he'll try to get the scoop on anyone. We've basically never had a waitress escape my dad's questioning. She'll stop by to top off his coffee and he'll slip a "so where are you from" in. "How are they treating you here?" is another staple. We stopped to talk to a guy in the Cracker Barrel parking lot. We stopped to get the skinny on each card table at the farmer's market. Any shop window can be peered in. But also, there are Dad's Stories. The one about the garage and the one about the cactus and the one about the me and my stuffed animals. Sometimes he'll even ask if he's told me about something, I will say yes, and he will still tell me. I've learned to think of these little globs of history as somehow significant, and I do ask myself why and what they prove.

My mom also has her Stories. I have heard some over and over and some never before. I would say common themes tend to be efficiency, good deals, a twist, doing the right thing, and suspicion. She observes what people say and do and later reflects on who might be a snake. Her Chicago accent very thick and she narrows her eyes and starts with a specific see. It took me many years to recognize she is not a documentarian, but an author--just a different kind. She will report on a fact but twirl in some findings. There is great wisdom I've discovered from these Stories. Not far off from magical realism or historical fiction. The world becomes a paper backdrop and paper dolls with which to exemplify one's own viewpoints. I remember she told me the Story of a middle school teacher marking her test wrong. Later she found out she was right. "Thus began my lifelong journey as a skeptic," she said. We laughed, but where was the joke?

I get my nosiness from my dad, but I get my ability to retell a day's Story from my mom. She basks in little gratitude breaks. After every outing she recaps how we did it just right, or maybe how we'd do it differently if we did it again. At the end of vacation nights we like to reminisce about all we didn't know when we woke up. All we couldn't have guessed! Everything is a little book. You'd think we were reimagining a trip from years ago, when the activity was, in fact, hours ago. My mom will spend five minutes regaling me with how we found a perfect parking spot, even if I was in the the one driving. I think it's nice to know things are nice while they are nice. I like nice Stories. I think we could use more of them.

Both my parents' Stories have been known to change. A historian and Storyteller myself, sometimes these revisions give me pause. What is even true if Stories change? Especially if Stories are us. Then again, then again, what will be true if we don't change? And if we are changing and we are Stories, how could I expect anything different?

Christmas Pop-Tart

Before we drove out of Phoenix, Puhg and I stopped at the hipster coffee shop. We’d already been, the day before. I outlined a short story idea, a cool dude complimented Puhg on the Suns jacket I thrifted for him, and we both drank iced mochas.

We took the trip to celebrate Puhg’s dad’s birthday. At the sunny event I drank four ginger beers and ate a bunch of pizza and wore a plain white t-shirt. Madwomaning like you wouldn’t believe. The sunset was very pink, watched it with Puhg's aunt. Later we got breakfast burritos with the best green sauce ever. I sat outside on Kale’s porch, then stuffed my face while her husband told me about his recent friend break-up. I was bold enough to say, It seems the root of your friction is that you think he thinks he’s better than you. How much of that is based on his actions toward you vs. your own bruised self esteem? We figure some things out before I have to go lay on the floor with headphones in watching the final livestream of Eras.

Saturday night I got dinner with Shellz at Cornish. We riled each other up, as we do, and laughed, as we do. We saw a play because I wanted to see the play and also because I hoped the theatre company might do mine one day. I ran into a dear friend in the lobby. We hugged forever and then she introduced me to the artistic director, who seemed cold and uninterested. I cried on the car ride home about it, of course. I’m desperate to get this piece produced. I have some of the greatest minds in comedy behind it and yet!

I talked to another Broadway producer about it two weeks ago, the dramaturg for the most prestigious award in playwriting a few days after. They both confirmed, the play is excellent, but the industry is collapsing, and artists who aren’t independently wealthy are kinda out of luck. It felt nice to be told. I looked up the playwright for the piece I’d seen. I guess it was “good”? It won a Pulitzer. But, man, it was nothing new! A realistic examination of the working class. Okay so WHAT? I muttered in my head as the cast bowed. No levity, no solutions, just sort of: wow, have you considered some people are poor?! Aren’t we brave to think about that?! Just as I suspected, the writer attended one of the country’s most prominent art academies and then two Ivy Leagues. I don’t care if I sound bitter! Sometimes I think we’ve been taught that bitterness is inherently bad because it’s a necessary ingredient to achieving class consciousness! But I’ve also observed, people who are Oops All Bitter lose their ability to make beautiful art. A little bit goes a long way, I guess, like the dark chocolate shell around a scotchmallow from See’s.

Monday was for bonus Shellz lunch. The same vegan place we’ve been going since we were 23. She still pretends it's going to be bad. It's tradition. I had my beloved Thai peanut salad, drafted the short story. I drove to the mall in sunshine and picked up Puhg from the movies. When we first started dating he said he’d never go to that mall again because he worked retail at Levi’s there during college. This weekend, while waiting for me, he walked to the storefront and took a selfie. More spinach cocktail pasties with Kiles followed by the dreamiest banoffee. I asked everyone if they’d like any, served one bowl, then stood in the kitchen devouring the rest.

So on the way out of town, I order an oat vanilla latte and peep the pastry case. There’s an adorable sprinkled pop-tart filled with maple apple butter, apparently. I tap on the glass. That, I say to the barista, the cute little Christmas thing.

So YOU, she says, as though we’ve ever met. I laugh so fully then say always great to get a chuckle in before 9 AM. She nods to the other barista, says they're always chuckling. A couple chuckleheads, I encourage. That’s what they call us, she confirms. Reality has melted away. You should work here, she says, you’d fit right in, we’d all be chuckleheads. I agree, of course. I eat the pop-tart when we’re back in LA. At night. On the couch. It’s delicious.