Before the workshop 1,001 Life Saving Stories began, we sat and talked. I turned to one of the participants and asked him if he had been to any of the Story Slams.
"I have been to some of them," he said. "There was one slam at Doyle's Cafe in JP. This young man took the stage. You know, stage fright is a funny thing. He clearly had rehearsed his story but he stumbled."
I don't think he realized it, but he was talking about me. The "Supernatural" Story Slam was my first Story Slam of the season. Despite my rehearsals, my nerves got the better of me. I still remember how my legs were shaking after Robin Maxfield announced my name. The whole I time was telling, I thought they were going to give out from under me.
"That slam gave me the courage to continue with this," he concluded.
"Well, I'm glad my performance did you some good," I said.
Joan Lancourt said some words of thanks for our attending Central Square Theater and 1,001 Life Saving Stories.
Then Norah Dooley took the sage. "Stories inspire stories. So, rather than talk at you, let's get a storyteller up here, like a sour dough starter."
Paula Junn, massmouth's Social Media Director and photographer, took the stage and told our first story. When all her possessions fell onto the train tracks in New York, she thought about jumping down to save her things. She hadn't slept the night before and stood there half dazed, about to jump. She told us how her life and her possessions were saved by some kind strangers. She never got to say thank you to those people but she thanks them every day.
Growing up in a war zone, Farrah Haider, second place finisher in massmouth's 2011 Big Mouth Off, learned that, "Life takes faith." She believed she was invincible until the day a militant pointed a gun at her and her brother. Quickly wrapping her arm in a coat as if she were injured, she held her arm up to the militant and said that her brother was taking her to the hospital. The militant let her pass. "I realized that day, I was injured. All of us were injured. All of us were the victims of the war."
Shortly after joining an after school program as a teacher, Ben Cunningham, first place winner in massmouth's 2011 Big Mouth Off, saw a little girl face down in the wood chips of the playground. None of the other adults approached but he heard her cries. When he knelt by her side, "Save me, Prince Philip! Save me!" the little girl cried. He played with her and the other little girls, despite the stern looks of a senior teacher. Overhearing the senior teacher crying one day, Ben learned that sometimes little girls know when a fairy tale is just a fairy tale but that grown women believe they are real. Sometimes it is grown women who need saving.
Norah took us into our imaginations. What did we see? What did we hear? We turned to the people around us to share our stories.
The man who had told me how my stage fright had given him courage made me rethinking what "life saving" meant. Stories do inspire stories. I remembered how I had help to alter the course of one of my friend's lives in college. Sometimes saving a life means helping a friend find the courage to follow his own path.
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Owen Grey has been telling stories his whole life. He has found a home with massmouth and the Greater Boston storytelling scene.
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