Tuesday 21 November 2017

A Number of Stories.

Every story has some quantity of unmentioned background. Every tale, no matter how detailed, will have some descriptives excluded, or perhaps even characters that aren’t necessarily mentioned. This is possibly because otherwise every story would be a never ending one, reaching further and further for every possible breath, word and piece of history associated with it; not a great basis for engaging storytelling. Beyond this, the teller may not feel that every factor in the building of that story is necessary to be told. Perhaps they are not even aware of the presence of certain elements at all.

A demonstrative example of this might well be our own social media accounts. Are they untrue? Largely no. Do they tell the whole story? Of course not. But still, we share snippets of our lives emphatically, without further thought as to how large a portion of ‘us’ each post is. We want people to know us, to share in our lives, even to appreciate us. We share from our own perspectives, and assume the view it gives of our lives. But we all know that no post, no matter how detailed, can be the whole truth. It is one moment in time. Nothing more than a thought, to be later submerged in the scrolling of time.

But do we mind, really? Do we want or need the whole truth always?

Take your average movie. We begin at a point the storyteller decides. Perhaps it’s not at the beginning, depending on the scene order choice. But it is somewhere. We might be told a little of what has gone on before; perhaps an imagery clue of the time era, or the atmosphere of the situation we find ourselves seeing. We do not know, at this point, very much more. As is the magic of storytelling, we are drawn into watching the slow unfurling of an animal from it’s tightly packed place of hiding. As each limb appears, stretches out, and is placed purposefully on the ground, we begin to piece together what the creature is and perhaps even it’s purpose. We may never know it’s past, or parenting. We may never know it’s early experiences. But from what we see of it, in the telling of it’s current detail, we believe we know what existence it has. We are deciding what we see, based on what is told to us. And inevitably, what we have seen before.

Does this mean that stories of all kinds cannot be deemed accurate, or true to the teller? No, not at all. Fictional stories are defined by creativity, yes. But this does not mean they cannot be real to us, or fail to provide statements of perspective that are truthful. Just because I tell you one chapter of my story, does not mean that the unspoken others are intentionally hidden from view. Perhaps without additional information we may see things more clearly. How many times have you felt confused in a moment of decision making, due to too much information crowding in on you? How much clearer have you felt when you were given a three option menu?

I believe story telling is vital to our human existence. Storytelling is found in all cultures worldwide, enjoyed by every age imaginable, and is often what can define nations and individuals. We use stories to give moral learning examples to children, to invite ingenuity from the students we teach, and to tell strangers who we are on first dates. We use tales to soothe, to excite, and to placate. There is a reason why the movie business is one of the most successful industries in existence, why Amazon continues to thrive upon selling books through the pressing of millions of 1-click orders a day, and why Bollywood turns out hundreds of movies a year for it’s insatiable audiences. Regardless of your opinion of them, we can easily explain why it is that reality television and social media newsfeeds are thriving more than ever before. Ultimately, we want to know about other peoples experiences of the life we all are working our way through. 

Since I was a very small child I have adored all kinds of stories. I have always liked to be read to, and to read to others. I love to be lost - and indeed found - in literature for hours at a time. I was the child whose hand shot up when my class was asked who would like to read aloud. I was also the child who befriended the primary school librarian through the course of spending more time in my favourite room in the school than in any other. My tatty bookshelf in the shed at the end of my childhood garden was a favourite, and I have never lost my adoration for many of those authors whose books lived there on those shelves. In this way, I have grown deep respect for the power of written word, enjoying so many of it’s shared gifts. Upon reflection, it is quite possibly what brings me to be writing these very sentences to you right now in the way that I am writing them.

Numbers? Not so much. I struggled my way through mathematics classes throughout my education, and although I later re-took and passed my Maths GCSE (thank goodness) it wasn’t an easy journey. I still struggle to read a 24 hour clock and to conquer sums without using a pen and paper. It has always fascinated me why my brother absorbs mathematical equations so naturally, breathing in their information with an appreciation for the good they do. While I wrestled with algebra, he danced with each mathematical challenge effortlessly smoothly, bringing each each equation to beautiful crescendo in the way he worked out their purpose and final answers. I watched on in awe as he did so, and still do as he tours the world now delivering accountancy lectures on his numerical discoveries. 

Thanks to the Montessori and later Quaker educations we both had, my sibling and I were never pitted against one another. I remember my brother proudly telling a teacher we had that his sister was an artist, and that we just had different types of brains that were no better than one another. His belief in me, along with that of my parents in the both of us, has been the solid foundation from which we have gone on to pursue our own pursuits and ambitions.

But what if I had been denied a childhood where I was provided with opportunities to read, or spend time learning about the things I was passionate about? What if I had instead had a brother who was naturally competitive, who had ridiculed my numerical contentions? Not every Matilda gets her happy ending, as Dahl depicted in his famed book about the young girl who wasn’t allowed to dream. What happens to those who never meet their narrative saviour?

The question that has occurred to me recently, is what happens to those ‘Matilda’s’ when they grow up? What happens to the young girls who never got to be all they might be, or indeed the young boys stopped from being who they dreamed of, in favour of who their Father dreamed they’d be instead. What happened to those characters, in their real life stories?

As an adult, dance and the performing arts have grown to be a joy for me in the same way reading has been throughout my life. I found that to dance was very correlative in the sense of feeling I got when I read a favourite book, or a particularly powerful piece of poetry. When I read, I am taken from my body and I exist only in my minds eye. This happens for me in the same way when I am able to dance freely, often in empty studios without an audience. In my early twenties, as I have written about before, I genuinely know that dancing saved my life. Without the creative and physical release I could find in empty studios with roaring music to facilitate movement, I would not have survived the challenges I was faced with at that time. 

I was fortunate enough to experience the empowering freedom dance and art could - and can - provide. It is specifically this that I continue to strive to share with others who find entrapment in any area of their life. Whether the trap set is large or small, or set by yourself or another person. No matter how old or entrenched it might be. I know for sure that we can all be freed through the powerful combination that is art and kindness in duo-ability. I have seen for myself the power of this.

Thanks to your support and those of readers worldwide, this blog page is now an established platform from which the ‘Living Liberté’ movement can happily launch. After 5 years of writing stories of truth - with almost 50 articles of this kind to date - I feel ready to take our concept further.Now is the time to reach out wider and gather pace. But how?

I will now employ a writing technique favoured by so many of my favourite writers, although one I have less often utilised - the dreaded cliffhanger!

Because, readers, I think I might just have found a way. One which may be the very making of a very important new chapter indeed. Perhaps the most significant one yet. 

And so, until next time!

With love & #liberté,

Helen Victoria

2 comments:

  1. Beautifully put, as always, thoughtfully constructed, and relevant to us all....Keep on amazing Me XX

    ReplyDelete
  2. Looking forward to the next chapter!

    ReplyDelete