Storytelling is central to why I write. My father told me stories as a child. He would ask for me to choose something in the room and then he would make up a story about that object. To test his abilities, I once chose a speck on the tile floor. I heard a story about how the mark got there and why it was important for the mark to stay as a way of remembering what happened on that day. Though I can’t remember the details of the story, I remember the message and the enjoyment of hearing my father share his creativity. He was my first storyteller.
My next storytellers were poetry reciters at the writers’ conference I attended for many years down on St. Simons Island, Georgia. Several of the older men in attendance could recite lengthy poems. One of my favorites was Sidney Lanier’s “The Marshes of Glynn.” He was born in Macon, Georgia, so was I, and wrote about the marshes that surrounded St. Simon’s Island. The setting on St. Simons, the deep voice of the recitation, etched a memory of the marshes in my mind and I get all excited when I am driving over the causeway and see them for the umpteenth time.
Glooms of the live-oaks, beautiful-braided and woven
With intricate shades of the vines that myriad-cloven
Clamber the forks of the multiform boughs,–
Emerald twilights,–
Virginal shy lights,
Wrought of the leaves to allure to the whisper of vows,
When lovers pace timidly down through the green colonnades
Of the dim sweet woods, of the dear dark woods,
Of the heavenly woods and glades,
That run to the radiant marginal sand-beach within
The wide sea-marshes of Glynn;–
Connecting storytelling to art was my next learning experience about ideas for stories. Pierre-Auguste Renoir was my art storyteller. A humanities class in high school showed slides of famous art pieces. I fell in love with the Impressionists, especially Renoir. I wrote a poem about “Luncheon of the Boating Party” people because I felt I knew who
they were. I was about to get on the boat at the edge of the painting and Renoir just left me out.
The High Museum in Atlanta advertised an exhibit of Impressionist artists. I took a Trailways bus up from Griffin to Atlanta and walked to the museum to see the art. Therewas a line with burgundy ropes guiding people through to see Renoir’s “Luncheon of the Boating Party.” When I was in front of the painting and saw the vibrant colors, the details, the brush strokes, I cried. The line pushed me along, but I got back in line 22 times to see the painting again, and again.
Throughout my life, I have loved storytelling. What a delight it was to be chosen to direct the Rabbit Box Storytelling in Athens and be able to hear true stories from a variety of folks who had something to share. I told my own stories, ones that resonated with my memory of an event that meant something and had me learn.
Now I write stories. My novels are another way of storytelling and creating characters that live daily in my life. Cahey and Mrs. Schultz are those characters. Though the books have been published, these two remain in my head and I think about what they may be doing as I write new stories. Are they waiting on the sidelines as I did in “The Boating Party” to come back into a story? “Time will tell,” says Cahey and Mrs. Schultz will say, “I knew you would do the right thing.”
Leara Rhodes 