Liz Warren | Storyteller

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I just tried “loafing,” as recommended by Jack Maguire at the end of Chapter 4 in The Power of Personal Storytelling.  I think I’m a natural.

One thing I discovered right away is how I access memories.  A prompt like “I am nine years old” brings up nothing for me.  Apparently my brain has not categorized my memories by time.  But if I picture a house I lived in as a child, the memories flood in.  My mother’s sleeveless blouse isstained with the juice of blackberries after a day spent making jam.  During an impromptu boxing match on his bed, my brother falls through the window; I stay home alone while my parents take him to the emergency room for stitches.    Again and again, I see my father stomping his boots three times to get the mud off before entering the house and I hear the heavy clank of his keys as he sets them on the kitchen counter. I could go on forever.

I have no idea which, if any, of these memories might grow into a story.
(Actually, maybe I do.)  In any case, the sense of possibility I feel
after twenty minutes of “loafing” is truly rich.

The image of the frog at the top of the post came from here: 

http://alltopics.com/images/green-frog-loafing-around-leaf.html