When I say, ‘Life is weird,’ I’m not being ironic. For a long, long, time I wasn’t sure whether or not I’d be able to feel genuine joy over anything, and in my wildest dreams there was no version of my life that included the stuff I get to live out right now. There was no pining for any higher education, let alone a master’s degree in narrative future studies. There was no thought given to becoming a traditional storyteller, professional or otherwise. There was no hope of moving across an ocean to a country renown for it’s terrible, cold, weather. You know how your head can ‘know’ that logically you are likely to feel or experience something (love, happiness, excitement, hope, etc…) again someday, but since hearts and guts are not convinced by logic they’re just sad and depressed? Yeah, that - for, like, years. Turns out, logic has won this round big time because I’m over here crying actual tears of joy at least once a week. I am grateful that Life takes into account so much more than our tiny visions of our own potential, because holy wow, I cannot believe how happy I am living in this terrible weather while I work on a master’s degree in narrative futures, and being an apprentice to the deep traditional art of storytelling in Scotland.
This week, I had the great pleasure and the great honor of telling a story as part of Stories on the Way: Solstice Stories at the Scottish Storytelling Center.