Story Teller

I love it when people talk with their hands. I think its almost poetic - the fluid momentum of speech versed against dancing hands. With each movement, you learn so much more about a person and the story they’re telling.

My family has a history of these finger-fluttering story tellers. Personally, I know my own words rise and fall with the intensity of my tale, and I’m always leaning on the edge of my seat to make sure each phrase is perfect. I do so love to tell a good story.

I also love to hear them, and I love it when relatives get together because I get so much more good material. I’ve been known to spend whole days just wasting away on spoken word. I think its becoming a lost art.

I know many people twice my age who can weave a fanciful anecdote - true or false. However, the number of people in their twenties who like to just “sit and talk a spell” seems to be dwindling more and more by the day.

Where are all the good story tellers going? Are we going to wake up one morning and not remember the meaning of the phrase “once upon a time” or “you won’t believe what happened the other day”?

The whole topic of this post came to me during a visit from my grandmother’s sister who recently came to stay. I didn’t even know she was in town, but I try to make it a habit to stop by and see my grandparents (whom we call Mega - pronounced Mee-Gah - and Papa) at least once a week. Papa, in particular, needs a little stirring up every once in a while, and I’m not against giving the old man a run for his money.

However when I arrived, I realized that my Aunt Gloria was down for the week from Alabama (how two women from Utah ever ended up in Georgia and Alabama I’ll never understand, but I digress). Well, I had really only planned to stay for two or three hours, but - sure enough - Aunt Gloria and I got to talking… and before I realized it the whole day had passed by. I think we caught each other up on every niece, sister, cousin, and great-grandchild there is in our family, but it was just so much fun.

We talked with our hands and our feet - and even our eyebrows when we really needed to get the point across.

After I left, there was a happiness in my heart that settled there for days, and I think that’s because that’s the way we are meant to be. In this era of text messaging and emails, we so often lack actual physical expression on a day-to-day basis that we are losing all of the good story tellers, and I for one can’t sit back and just let it happen.

So I beg of you when you catch yourself in conversation this week, work your hands into your dialogue and see exactly where it takes you.

You’ll be surprised just how much better pointing a finger can make you feel.