Storytellers work from the edge. While words may be chosen and time spent preparing for telling, in the end the storyteller must step to the “story edge ” and cast the net of words out over that edge allowing them to fall where they may. At the place where words are spoken… there begins and ends any say about what happens next, for the distance those words need to travel to secure a place in your audience’s heart and mind may be as close as they are to you in the room or as far away as they are in their mind somewhere else at the time of telling. Inevitably, working from the edge, the storyteller armed with good intention, must relinquish the outcome of the story into the hands of the audience.
Looking out across the sea of fourth grade faces, some look as if they wish they were somewhere else, some are fiddling with the string on their sweatshirt and yawning, some are trying to share secrets from the teacher at the back of the room and some are waiting…yes, waiting for what comes next.
How can I keep telling without some measure of knowledge about whether or not what I am telling has any meaning for them or even makes any sense? I am looking for changes in facial expression, sounds they may make in response to the story, but in the end I just don’t know what is going down.
Still, I keep telling. I vary the cadence of my words, allow for pauses and linger on pairs of eyes to encourage connection. In the end, I never know. One little boy who always sits quietly to the side of the group and speaks no English keeps staring at me. I have no idea whether he understands anything I am saying at all.
Unexpectedly a janitor enters the room as I am telling to fiddle with the heater that hasn’t been working and 15 little heads follow him to the other side of the room. Oh my…I am distracted myself, but I manage to finish the story and the children politely clap as they are taught to do.
The students begin to file from the room and as they go, the little boy who doesn’t understand English stops, looks up at me, smiles and then pulls me close for a hug. I am stunned, but so grateful for this gesture of connection. No matter what, I tell myself, it is important to have faith in the spoken word. And today, my faith in the spoken word has been renewed by a young boy in the unspoken words of his smile and hug.