story
noun ( plural stories)
- an account of imaginary or real people and events told for entertainment
- an account of past events in someone’s life or in the evolution of something
- a particular person’s representation of the facts of a matter, especially as given in self-defense
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| "Black Beauty" by Virginia Grove, acrylic & pen on canvas |
On Friday, I started to read Mockingbird by Kathryn Erskine, a book I'd been carrying around in my bag for weeks. The main character of the book, Caitlin, has lost her mother to cancer and her brother to a school shooting. With the guidance of her father and her beloved Mrs. Brooks, Caitlin must navigate her final year in elementary school before heading to the same middle school where her brother was killed. Caitlin is additionally challenged with an Asperger's diagnosis.
A young girl with a love of the dictionary and finding the meanings of words, she hears the word CLOSURE one day and makes it her mission to figure out what closure is and how to get it. As a budding artist, a young girl who loves to draw in black and white because the colors make everything fuzzy, she turns to her brother's unfinished Eagle Scout project and together with her father, finds a degree of closure.
Finding ourselves in story helps us feel a little less alone. Caitlin and I might as well be sisters. Just like me, she searches for the definitions of words. Just as I do, she loves to draw in black and white. Just like me, she blurs her vision when she's trying to feel less overwhelmed-- though she calls this process "stuffed-animaling" because it makes the edges soft. Just like me, she experiences discomfort around noise and she says she's bad at emotions. Like me, she loves gummy worms (I'd take them over chocolate any day) though she names hers, something I'm a bit jealous I'd never thought to do. Like me, she tries to intellectually synthesize what happens around her and only really 'gets it' in moments where her passions, intellect, and uniqueness come together. Caitlin is set to go to Virginia Dare Middle School. In middle school, my school counselor's name was Virginia Dare. Middle school remains one of the hardest periods of time in my life.
As I read Mockingbird, I started to forget all of the gray and the fuzz and the confusion that's been swirling around me for weeks. I started to pay attention to a story and started to feel connected in a way I haven't in a long time. I've been keeping distant from connection-- distant from connection to self, connection to others, connection to just about anything I can. I've been visualizing-- drawing and painting off of paper where only I have to worry about the images and sensations tagging along because there are some pictures other people don't want to see...there are some galleries of work not meant to be viewed. For awhile, though, I had a friend in Caitlin and while I did, I felt OK.
She was not the first book friend I've had.
Black Beauty was my favorite book as a child, with The Secret Garden coming in not far behind. I can't count the number of times I've read the book and while I love virtually any version, the tiny copy I had will forever remain special. I'd read and re-read that tiny copy while laying in bed at Mom-mom's house on the weekends. Time suspended but for the blackness of the sky painted by the spin of the earth. I read in the dark, a book light clipped to the cover. In between chapters I'd go to check on Mom-mom. Each night she'd sleep,with her hair in rollers, on the green,velour couch burned repeatedly by cigarettes. I never saw her use the bedroom that had been hers. I never really understood her story. But Beauty, I understood Beauty.
I saw myself in Beauty.
I've always seen myself through characters who are unable or struggle to express themselves. Beauty spoke, but I understood that animals did not literally speak as humans could. Mary Lenox in The Secret Garden seems only capable of expressing herself in ways unsuited to her new environment. It should surprise no one that I also had an ongoing fascination with Helen Keller because of her communication challenges and still hold a special place in my heart for the stuffed animal I sleep with every night, Teddy, because he doesn't have eyes and that leaves him able to communicate with me in very different ways...genuine ways.
Story holds me. Story helps me understand my own evolution. And those who possess barriers to the ease of communication so many take for granted, help me to feel like I'm a part of a family...a family of books...a community of story.
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