Well, to be honest I am not looking forward to this semester. I have already gotten my folders and notebooks together, but it seems stale. School since 1985? I'm ready to be done with it. I am taking a class on the master storytellers and their styles, best known stories and general history. I am also taking a class called Historical and Psychological Aspets of Storytelling. AKA Hysterical and Psychotic aspects of storytelling. Apparently the class is a little demanding. I'll let you know after I finish it tonight.
I have been re-reading Tara's post from the other day and realizing how powerfully differnt our wishes were when we were children vs. our wishes now. I also remember just how young we were the year of the different colored dresses and initialed collars. I found a picture in my stacks of pictures of us with our hair all sunday-curled and our baby fat (some more so than others!) smiling faces.
The difficulty in being so old(who ever thought 25 was old?) is that you have a harder time remembering what it was like being so young. Being so innocent and impractical. It's the impracticality that I miss.
Wouldn't you just like to get rediculously excited over the possibility of snow?
Or getting a candybar?
Or pumpkin patches you colored in class?
I realize that I am sounding eerily similar to Our Town.
I think the thing I have to remember is that the wishes we make as children are always reflective of the adults we will become. This whole story is really the answer to the question, 'Who are we, and what have we become?' not 'Who were we?'
Just something else to think about
Charlie
Tuesday, August 31
Monday, August 30
Admiring the Scenery
I really appreciate the responses I have gotten about the wish thing. I haven't had time to really sit down and write out stuff since we went to Atlanta this past weekend (The Braves won after Chipper hit a homerun and they managed to strike out Barry Bonds- thrilling!) however, I have been thinking about it a lot.
Wishes. I wonder what I would have wished for. Like Tara Said, that little girl was a very different person. She was a lot more carefree and creative- though I am working on that. I only really remember wanting to write when I was a kid. I guess it isn't really about what I really wanted but what that thing I wanted symbolized. Tara wanted to be strong. Laura wanted to be liked. I wanted to make wishes come true.
Charlie
Wishes. I wonder what I would have wished for. Like Tara Said, that little girl was a very different person. She was a lot more carefree and creative- though I am working on that. I only really remember wanting to write when I was a kid. I guess it isn't really about what I really wanted but what that thing I wanted symbolized. Tara wanted to be strong. Laura wanted to be liked. I wanted to make wishes come true.
Charlie
Thursday, August 26
Changing the course a little
So I've been thinking about the story that I've been working on and I think that I might try to tweak it a bit. instead of having some ability I was thinking...
There were once four little girls at the Oklahoma State Fair. They were all holding hands and wearing matching plaid dresses, each in a different color. They also had white collars with their initials stitched on them. They meet a balloon man and he gives them each a different colored balloon and tells them if they pop it they will get a wish that will last an hour. Most people are too afraid to pop their balloons because they think they won't have anything if they give it up. Tara goes first because she is the most brave even if she is not the oldest. Each girl makes a wish and it shows something about their character and their desires, and they each learn something very valuable- yet not preachy. Actually it's kind of humorous.
Please let me know what you would wish for and what you think the others should wish for- remember you are a little girl.
Maybe Tara would wish she had all brothers (hee hee).
What would I wish for? I don't know at all...
Charlie
There were once four little girls at the Oklahoma State Fair. They were all holding hands and wearing matching plaid dresses, each in a different color. They also had white collars with their initials stitched on them. They meet a balloon man and he gives them each a different colored balloon and tells them if they pop it they will get a wish that will last an hour. Most people are too afraid to pop their balloons because they think they won't have anything if they give it up. Tara goes first because she is the most brave even if she is not the oldest. Each girl makes a wish and it shows something about their character and their desires, and they each learn something very valuable- yet not preachy. Actually it's kind of humorous.
Please let me know what you would wish for and what you think the others should wish for- remember you are a little girl.
Maybe Tara would wish she had all brothers (hee hee).
What would I wish for? I don't know at all...
Charlie
Tuesday, August 24
People we meet along the way...
Just so anyone knows, I have fixed the settings on here so that anyone may comment now. I just ask that if you comment anonymously that you sign your name.
Well, today has been a bit boring- especially since all I have wanted to do is try to figure out how to work out my newest issue. I would like to tell stories that are personal, but I have to be able to tell folktale type stories as well. So I have come up with a compromise. I would really like to put together a folktale about my sisters.
My youngest sister gave me a book last year, called Three sensible adventures- I really reccomend this book to anyone- and it has made me want to portray my own sisters in supernatural, metaphorical ways. I've been a bit stuck, though.
I was re-reading the poem The Goblin Market by Christina Rosetti- one of my favorites. I thought I would post the end for you all to read. I really reccomend the whole poem but it's a bit long to put here. It's about two sisters, one named Laura and the other named Lizzie. Laura succombs to the temptation of the Goblin's forbidden fruit and Lizzie risks everything for her. (Okay I know that it's a little cheese city, but I really like it)
Laura awoke as from a dream,
Laugh'd in the innocent old way,
Hugg'd Lizzie but not twice or thrice;
Her gleaming locks show'd not one thread of grey,
Her breath was sweet as May
And light danced in her eyes.
Days, weeks, months, years
Afterwards, when both were wives
With children of their own;
Their mother-hearts beset with fears,
Their lives bound up in tender lives;
Laura would call the little ones
And tell them of her early prime,
Those pleasant days long gone
Of not-returning time:
Would talk about the haunted glen,
The wicked, quaint fruit-merchant men,
Their fruits like honey to the throat
But poison in the blood;
(Men sell not such in any town):
Would tell them how her sister stood
In deadly peril to do her good,
And win the fiery antidote:
Then joining hands to little hands
Would bid them cling together,
"For there is no friend like a sister
In calm or stormy weather;
To cheer one on the tedious way,
To fetch one if one goes astray,
To lift one if one totters down,
To strengthen whilst one stands."
Christina Rossetti
If this makes you think of anything in particular that you might want to share about your siblings feel free to let me know. Mine are particularly wonderful, even if it's hard to think up good super-abilities for them.
Laura (my baby sister, the artist) has come up with her own super-ability: something to do with vision. I think that she will be the one who can see the beauty in all things. Tara (my twin) will probably be the one who heals all wounds. I can't seem to come up with anything for myself or my oldest sister Christa.
Hopefully after my Historical and Psychological Aspects of Storytelling class this will be much easier.
Well I've rambled long enough...
Charlie
Well, today has been a bit boring- especially since all I have wanted to do is try to figure out how to work out my newest issue. I would like to tell stories that are personal, but I have to be able to tell folktale type stories as well. So I have come up with a compromise. I would really like to put together a folktale about my sisters.
My youngest sister gave me a book last year, called Three sensible adventures- I really reccomend this book to anyone- and it has made me want to portray my own sisters in supernatural, metaphorical ways. I've been a bit stuck, though.
I was re-reading the poem The Goblin Market by Christina Rosetti- one of my favorites. I thought I would post the end for you all to read. I really reccomend the whole poem but it's a bit long to put here. It's about two sisters, one named Laura and the other named Lizzie. Laura succombs to the temptation of the Goblin's forbidden fruit and Lizzie risks everything for her. (Okay I know that it's a little cheese city, but I really like it)
Laura awoke as from a dream,
Laugh'd in the innocent old way,
Hugg'd Lizzie but not twice or thrice;
Her gleaming locks show'd not one thread of grey,
Her breath was sweet as May
And light danced in her eyes.
Days, weeks, months, years
Afterwards, when both were wives
With children of their own;
Their mother-hearts beset with fears,
Their lives bound up in tender lives;
Laura would call the little ones
And tell them of her early prime,
Those pleasant days long gone
Of not-returning time:
Would talk about the haunted glen,
The wicked, quaint fruit-merchant men,
Their fruits like honey to the throat
But poison in the blood;
(Men sell not such in any town):
Would tell them how her sister stood
In deadly peril to do her good,
And win the fiery antidote:
Then joining hands to little hands
Would bid them cling together,
"For there is no friend like a sister
In calm or stormy weather;
To cheer one on the tedious way,
To fetch one if one goes astray,
To lift one if one totters down,
To strengthen whilst one stands."
Christina Rossetti
If this makes you think of anything in particular that you might want to share about your siblings feel free to let me know. Mine are particularly wonderful, even if it's hard to think up good super-abilities for them.
Laura (my baby sister, the artist) has come up with her own super-ability: something to do with vision. I think that she will be the one who can see the beauty in all things. Tara (my twin) will probably be the one who heals all wounds. I can't seem to come up with anything for myself or my oldest sister Christa.
Hopefully after my Historical and Psychological Aspects of Storytelling class this will be much easier.
Well I've rambled long enough...
Charlie
Thursday, August 19
Marching orders
It's funny that I am here (At school) to be learning to be an artist and yet I am trapped in my little office doing quantitative research. I hate research. I hate statistics. I hate that I am not expanding my artistic self instead of writing a literature review.
I guess that we all have a mittle medicine to swallow.
I would like to think that every post I make would be brilliant and filled with little golden nuggets of insight and perfection, but I honestly don't know that I have much to say at this point that is all that interesting. This is the boring part- the part before I actually get to do anything or before I get anywhere in my journey. I've got my marching orders nad now I have to march for a while before I can get to the interesting stuff.
Perhaps next time I will post a story.
Charlie
I guess that we all have a mittle medicine to swallow.
I would like to think that every post I make would be brilliant and filled with little golden nuggets of insight and perfection, but I honestly don't know that I have much to say at this point that is all that interesting. This is the boring part- the part before I actually get to do anything or before I get anywhere in my journey. I've got my marching orders nad now I have to march for a while before I can get to the interesting stuff.
Perhaps next time I will post a story.
Charlie
Wednesday, August 18
A call to adventure...
So this was my husband's idea. Something to keep my family- and possibly myself- up to date on what's going on with my new career.
I am a storyteller.
Joseph Campbell says that every story begins with the call to adventure- something that happens to engage the main character. Well, I guess my call to adventure started a year ago when my husband and I moved to East Tennessee State University to go to Graduate school. I decided that I wanted to study Storytelling at the only place you can study storytelling. Here we are right next to Jonesborough (the Mecca of all Storytelling) and I feel like the wallflower at the dance.
I am enjoying my storytelling, though. I've started to tell some personal stories lately and that has really opened me up. As an artist. (I've been recently reminded that storytelling IS an art form and that I am going to have to think of myself that way if I want to grow as an artist.)
Anyway, I hope that this is actually interesting to some of you... if it is you might want to visit my sister's blog: www.lauralsanders.blogspot.com
Laura just moved to Memphis to start work on her Art History degree, she is also a very talented painter.
Chara Watson (Charlie)
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