The Ripple Effect- Stories Lead to New Stories

Every day I receive emails and letters from people reading "Blowing on Embers". I heard from Mobalaji Adenubi from Lagos Nigeria and from Florence Ten Fingers (see Florence's story earlier on the blog) one of the Keepers in the book;

Florence wrote:
"I received the book and I sat down and read it through. My children took turns reading it and one son read it twice. They realized what us women (here on the Reservation) went through ---life with many hardships.
I've heard it said that a family that prays together stays together. For me it was me and the children who prayed together every day to get through.

"We've been having cold spells here with snow flurries, but it isn't as cold as it will be. For now, the snow melts as soon as it hits the ground. This year the Elderly Program didn't get any turkey for us so we had to buy some, but it turned out okay. The program receives money from the Casino every three months so it helps.

"I'll end now. Thank you for wrting the stories. May Watantanka bless you. Your friend(Muska)), Florence.


From Martha:
I read about Ellen in your book recognizing that protective bubble and Reflections on Teachers. It seems to me that all your sorrow and all your pain has pushed you to where you truly belong. I very much look forward to reading your whole book. Several years ago I had a weekly storytelling workshop with seniors. I'd never really worked with personal stories before and for several weeks I listened as they told their 'nice' stories. Finally, one week I dove in and told a difficult personal story about being disowned by my grandmother and suddenly the stories came pouring our about loss, separation, disillusionment. At the end of the session, Sam, an 84 year old, said, "You know, Martha, for weeks we've been telling the nice little stories, but today we told the hard ones, and it brought us all together." And it really did. We so need to listen deeply to one another's stories in this broken world of ours.


From Barbara:
Monday I met with a group of friends who have been meeting monthly for at least ten years. When someone was talking about the seeming end of a 40 year friendship with a girlfriend, I told them about meeting with you and your ideas about stories people have or don't have. It seemed to me then that the idea of stories we have about anything, in this case friendship, loyalty and what that friendship can expand to include has everything to do with the stories people are telling themselves and perhaps less to do with what someone has said or done.

From Gloria:
Based on hearing you speak before, I knew your talk for AFTNC would be very meaningful to me. Frankly, I was not prepared for it to be quite so powerful! I was particularly struck by your statement about surviving the crisis, but what sense did you make of it? I have had three major periods of crisis in my life to date- 3 major periods of illness and pain which seemed to combine with many losses, the first period of illness came together with my sister's suicide, my father's diagnosis of terminal cancer- and his death, my mother being in the hospital and in a serious auto accident, my husband's sister dying and 3 weeks later, his father. Then this was followed by two bouts of breast cancer, and years of constant pain from various sources.

I decided to read your book before I contacted you to see if it gave me any inspiration/direction in my quest to make sense of my experiences. For some reason, I can not figure out why, Joan's story set something off for me. I have had this great desire to tell someone the story of my illnesses- and that is always a "victim" story. But after reading Joan's story, I had this vivid memory from my first period of illness and pain. We had fenced in a small rectangle of our property so we could grow something free of deer, and had planted a vegetable garden. I remember being out there in the nude, enjoying the feeling of the sun on my body, tending the garden. It reminded me of how with all I've been through, I have always maintained my "zest". In between my surgery and my radiation for the last cancer, I went scuba diving over the objections of the Drs. I got deeply into my music and even gave a vocal recital though not in the best of health which affects singing. And after completing the first round of radiation, I did something I always wanted to do, I studied Taiko drumming, though it was quite strenuous for my physical condition.

Please send me your story so that other's can share in "the ripple effect".