How I Became a Storyteller....

     By accident, really.  Years and years ago, as in junior and high school years and years ago, I use to literally tell myself bedtime stories.  Nothing extravagant, just verbal lullabies which cradled me to sleep.  Never had I any intention of making them anything more than and never, EVER, had I any intention in writing them down.  That I had assigned to my younger sibling, she was the writer, I the singer.  However three events occurred to alter my decision.  
     First, I saw an HBO special.  I believe it was called, "The Sam Giancana Story".  According to this rendition, he was a gangster who go involved with one of the Phyllis McGuire the lead singer of the McGuire Sisters.  What struck me about the tale was how intensely he loved this woman.  She was the focus, the center of his world and died because he could not, would not, relinquish that bond.
     Second, I was a dream I had.  In it, a man in a canary yellow Mercedes Benz 560 SEL was obsessed with finding this young woman.  He was both intrinsically drawn and inexplicably connected to her.  So much so, that each place he searched for her, a moment ago, the woman, had already been there.  Their coupling was a force beyond him.  One he could not contain.  One he could not control.  It directed him, drove him defining his nucleus, determining his course-he had to find her.  Yet matched  by his desire to uncover her was hers to stay away.  She was terrified of him' troubled beyond reason-even to the verge of fearing for her own life.  That's why she took to the streets, late during the night, with only the clothes on her back.  By no means could she be found by him, by no means would she be found by him.  If only she could get to a phone, if only she could call her mother.  Yet each booth lie under a street lamp and she could not risk exposure-not even for a second (this was pre-cell phone days).  Because oddly, for reasons, that perplexed her, which she didn't understand, he was always right there-just one step behind.  She felt trapped, link an animal, as if her scent was leaving an invisible trail for him to follow.  Yet strangely, eerily, even When they were in close proximity-he never found her nor sensed her presence.  So remaining undetected, remaining unseen-she kept moving cloaked by night's fabric.
     Third, I saw the movie, Love Jones.  This feature presentation glimpsed into the lives of two individuals.  Nia Mosley and Darius Lovehall, at the inception of their relationship.  For me it was magical watching the two meet, mutual attraction flourish, their lovemaking sensuously yet tastefully displayed, watching the hurt-the confusion-prompting separation and finally viewing the reunion when love prevailed.  Now this so illuminatingly vibrant was the fact it was characterized by African-American and it pleased me to see us depicted in such a positive fashion.  
      This returns me to case and point.  Fore unbeknown to me, these three elements had culminated within my being, transforming my livings goal (which as I mentioned earlier  was singing) all this occurring as I walked from the movie theater that night.  "Love Jones' pictorial crest had lifted my spirit to a blissful zenith which singed in me a searing urge to relay a story.  A tale filled with the same splendor I had just witnessed on the screen.  
     My immediate response was to quench it, tell it verbally, get it out my system.  So I tried, a couple few times-but it did not work because verbally the words was not capturing the story's essence.  Furthermore, there was an imbued fear if, orally, I did render the tale, it's beauty would be lost, evaporating into nothingness-and this time that could not happen, the story would NOT it. This time, for what ever reason it had to remain-but how?
     There I was stuck!  Burden with a story's growing desire to be rendered, yet there being no way to tell it, apart from me writing it and did I say-I don't write!!!  Consequently for a few days, I did nothing, unsure what to do.  But then, a thought, "He give it to my younger sibling, she'll know what to do, she's a writer-problem solved.  Hence, I told her my literary fancy, which she listened patient and quite attentively too and once I finished, I believe you all know, she promptly declined.  Citing it was not for her to do because the idea had not come to her, but to me-stuck again!
     So like a father pacing the room waiting for his child to be born, I pounded mental pavement, anguishing thinking, "Oh Lawd, I can't do this, I can't write, don't know how, why You do this to me."  Then one day when the weight of the story became crushing, I sat down with a pencil and a blank piece of paper and wrote.  This desire being greater than my apprehension of never having EVER written anything they began speaking though me to me, describing their lives, coupled with the feelings they were experiencing.  Thus becoming unstuck by being struck with knowing me writing this was the only resolved.  
     What else happened the night I left the theater was that the trio of events had spawned in me a crispness to my vision, a clarity that had not been there previously laden with a quality which made all shine.  The radiance bounced off people, things and circumstances giving them a glimmer, a sparkle, as a wave under the sun's glow-it was astounding-still is.   The same applied to my hearing.  Everything was amplified to the hilt, each sound rippling with a deepen resonance tacit richness not before detected.  Hence, due to this metamorphosis, everything had a story to tell, all I had to do was listen and observe.


      To be continued......




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