Doing it anyway

"a walk in the rain" by Jeff Mendoza.
See more of his work here.

I spent this past weekend at the National Storytelling Conference (NSC), a wonderful gathering of colleagues and friends. It's packed full of workshops, keynotes, performances, and a whole lot of chatting with people I see only once a year. It's great.

It's also tremendously difficult. I first attended the NSC with Kevin and continued to attend them with him for the rest of his life. There are many memories and associations at the conference, as well as many moments when I desperately want to turn to him and say whaddya think? Going through the conference without that intimate connection, without that person to whom I can say anything, without Kevin, it's hard. Add to that the truth that the many people at the conference knew Kevin and love him still, it becomes something of a minefield.

It's something of a minefield but I go anyway. Why? I hear you ask. I ask myself the same thing, and each time I come back to the same realizations, some of which have to do with him and some do not.

1. Revisiting relatively safe places that are triggering can help me access good memories I otherwise might not be able to find. I see Kevin everywhere at the NSC. I see him laughing, listening, telling, moving, alive. I remember him more fully. 
2. I reminds me that I can still share things with him, I just need to listen differently for his response. I talk to him just about every day. At the NSC I talk to him even more. thinking things like Did you see that? or What do you think about that? or Hey, look who's here!
3. I connect with those who also love him, and remembering him together feels good. It helps me know I'm not alone in missing him.
4. The event has its own value and Kevin would be really pissed if he knew I avoided it because of him. Spending a weekend with people who love storytelling as much I do replenishes me.
5. The price of love is grief. Knowing this now, I can prepare. I can plan on enough down time, find people to catch me when I'm falling, avoid the things I know will be really hard (like singing May the Circle Be Unbroken and calling out the names of those who have died). I can make choices.

Five years on, I find grief is like the rain. It is unavoidable, but now I have a little more understanding of how I can cope with it. I can avoid it, but that doesn't mean it's not there. I can let myself be drenched and give myself over to it, knowing now that I will eventually dry off and emerge again. I can bring an umbrella and chose to walk in it anyway, knowing I will get wet but I'll be okay. I am certain that I couldn't process triggering events and places like this when I was only a year or two out. They devastated me. Now, sometimes I choose to walk in the rain.

I don't choose to do it anyway every time, there are some places I may never visit again, but I now know I can choose. Sometimes, anyway. Besides, Kevin would kick my butt if I didn't get into the world, let myself be seen and loved, tell my stories, and live.

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(c)2019 Laura S. Packer

Throwing starfish and the necessity of barking

If you've been following me for any time, you know that part of my work in the world is reminding everyone to #barkagainstthedark. I've been posting barks on social media regularly since November 2016 and I continue to do so, even when it's really hard.

What is a bark? At its most basic, a #barkagainstthedark is a way to stand up to the grim moments and actions in the world. It's a way to say I am here. It's a way to build resilience and community and hope, even when things feel overwhelming and isolating and bleak. In action, barks can be something to make people laugh, a poem to make them think, a reminder of our better natures and the arc of history. Barks are whatever help us keep going and not give up. They are, I suppose, my own attempt to throw a starfish back into the ocean. It might not make a difference for everyone, but it might make a difference for someone.


We all feel down sometimes, so a bark is a reminder that no one is alone. Whether from mental health or societal forces, everyone has trouble remaining engaged and hopeful (at least I do, and I'm extrapolating from my own experience) so a bark is a voice in the darkness, a small light.

We live in extraordinarily challenging times. The current U.S. administration is racist, sexist, fear-mongering, and greedy. Their volume is overwhelming and their actions are devastating for untold numbers of people. That they are supported by our neighbors is heart-wrenching. Even when I try to remind myself that racist, sexist, fear-mongering, greedy behavior comes from a place of fear, I cannot help but become angry and disheartened. I bark to remind myself that I can do better. We can do better.

We will. It will take time. It may not happen in my lifetime, but we will.

Knowing it's a long game that may outlive me might make you wonder why I keep barking. I bark because if I stop I become complicit. I bark because I need to remind myself that I am not alone. I bark because the starfish story stops too soon. When I tell it, I end it with,

The man watched the boy pick up another starfish and throw it as far as he could into the waters. 

He saw the splash and imagined the creature's relief. 

He bent down, picked up another starfish, and threw.

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laurapacker.com Performance, coaching, keynotes, and more.
thinkstory.com Organizational storytelling, communications consulting, and more.
(c)2019 Laura S. Packer

Lying fallow

This was originally published on Patreon; it is somewhat expanded here. Most of my blogging is now on a platform that allows people to support the artists they value, so the artist can keep creating without as much financial stress. If you enjoy this blog please consider supporting me over on Patreon. For as little as $3 a month you can get all the great content you're used to, fun rewards, and the satisfaction of knowing you are both helping me create more art and making your appreciation tangible. Thanks.

One of the great gifts of my life is that I love my work. One of the great stressors of my life is that I love my work.

I work hard because I love what I do and I don't get to perform, teach, consult, coach, etc if I do not put in the day-to-day work of marketing and promotion, so I work most of the time even if most of it is unpaid and invisible to those who aren't working artists. Because the day-to-day work of being a professional storyteller happens in my home, it's hard to stop and disconnect, yet I can't afford to go away or go offline for very long or very often.

As much as I love vacation time, that's a kind of stress too, because I worry about what I'm not doing. In the need to find a way to step away from work, I remembered what it is to be fallow.

Fallow is defined as:

/ˈfalō/ adjective: 
(of farmland) plowed and harrowed but left unsown for a period in order to restore its fertility as part of a crop rotation or to avoid surplus production.

It is essential for the land and for beings to rest. To gaze out at nothing. To do something other than what is productive. I need to remind myself that fallow time is vital for the creative process, let alone for living a full life. Fallow time is different from vacation time in that it's about deliberately doing nothing knowing it is, in fact, a necessary part of creativity.

I now actually put down time into my schedule and walk away from the screen, the classroom, the stage. I sit on my back deck and watch the trees move in the wind. I read something that has nothing to do with work. I rest.

I forget this sometimes and am soon spinning in place, exhausted and depleted. This article helped me remember and inspired me to remind you that you may need some fallow time too.  Part of my work for this summer is lying fallow. I hope a vacation will be in the future and I hope it will be easier to relax into that time because I've practiced in my fallow time.

What nourishes you? How do you replenish yourself? How are you lying fallow?

P.S. I am co-teaching a class on finding and following the work of your heart, which includes thoughts about lying fallow. If you're interested but have questions please get in touch. I also have a limited number of discount codes. Thanks!

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laurapacker.com Performance, coaching, keynotes, and more.
thinkstory.com Organizational storytelling, communications consulting, and more.
(c)2019 Laura S. Packer

Where do stories come from?

This was originally posted on my Patreon, back in January 2019. Most of my blogging is now over there; this week I'm musing on what it takes to coach effectively and how this is its own kind of story. For as little as $3 a month you can get all the great content you're used to, fun rewards, and the satisfaction of knowing you are helping me create more art and making your appreciation tangible.

Almost every writer and storyteller I know has heard, "I would love to do what you do, but I don't have any ideas. Where do your stories come from?" Science fiction writer Barry Longyear published the collection It Came From Schenectady as a tongue-in-cheek response, saying that he subscribed to a mail order service based in Schenectady and they sent him ideas monthly. I sometimes long to be as snarky, but the answer is a lot more complicated.

I find inspiration for stories in all kinds of places, from existing works to the overheard, from my life to the odd reaches of my own imagination. Sometimes these ideas bloom into stories with almost no effort. Other times it takes real labor to figure out what it is I really want to say. And every so often there will be an idea that lingers for a long time until it turns into something unexpected. It's this last kind of story I want to think about with you, today.

One of my favorite of my own stories is called Blood Woman. It's a dark, first-person fabulist tale that explores love, domestic violence, and what we might do to protect those we care about. The protagonist is a woman who bleeds rubies and cries diamonds. I don't tell it often because it disturbs audiences, but it has become a part of my Haunted: Stories for the Brave of Heart show. I love this story. I love the character, the images, the places it lets me go. It took years to uncover and I am so glad I gave it time to emerge.

Blood Woman and a few others are what I call "pearl" stories because, like a pearl, they start with a small irritant and take time to form into something meaningful. These are stories that start from a single, powerful image. The image stays with me for a long, long time and, if I'm wise and mull on it, it will emerge into a story in its own time. The narrative needs to slowly accrete around the image. The precipitating image in Blood Woman was a girl's arm with a scratch, nothing serious but the kind of wound she might get while playing, with a few drops of blood. A single drop falls from her arm and lands on the ground, shimmering. The image always included the sound of bells and the taste of salt.

Had I rushed the narrative I probably would have come up with something interesting, maybe a fairy tale about a spunky girl who finds her fortune, but because I waited I found a much more powerful story. It's one that took time to craft and create. Had I rushed, the image would have been a nice one, but not the central theme.

This isn't the only time I've had an image haunt me. I wish I could say I gave each lingering image time to become a pearl story, but I haven't. When I haven't the story is inconsequential and I often end up removing it from my working repertoire. When I do let the image take its time as it grows into a story, it might become something special.

This is, of course, not the only way I develop stories, but it is one of the more interesting and mysterious. The creative process requires us to trust ourselves and our instincts about our work; I can think of no better example of this than pearl stories.

Have you ever had a similar experience? What happened? I'd love to know!
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Support me on Patreon.
laurapacker.com Performance, coaching, keynotes, and more.
thinkstory.com Organizational storytelling, communications consulting, and more.
(c)2019 Laura S. Packer