Big thanks to all the folks who came out last Thursday and supported our storytellers. The room was packed and show was full of sweet, tough, sad and beautiful stories.

All our first-timers did great and I hope they come back. Jennie showed us what can happen when we refuse to believe in all the “nots” we’ve grown up with. John made us laugh when he realized the best thing he could hope for in his first ultra-marathon was to die gracefully. Sonny got a huge roar at the end of his story when we found out the man he helped was Gordon Lightfoot (I still wish we could have sung The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald afterward). And Sam had us all wishing we had majored in physics when he told us how he proved to his auto insurance company that, according to Copernicus, his car didn’t actually collide with a stationary object.

Renee, in her second time up, made me realize how little compassion I have for people I disagree with. Renee didn’t just take the high road when confronting a racist on the bus, she took the space shuttle. It’s great when I hear a story and realize that if it had happened to me I would have reacted completely differently and in the end would have made everything worse. Thank you Renee for reminding us that we can’t really call ourselves compassionate when we only have compassion for people we agree with.

Lauren, another regular, told the funniest tanning story I’ve ever heard and I will do my best to convince her to let me post the audio on our Facebook page. Thank you Lauren for making me suddenly happy with my mole-y, pasty, Northwest skinsuit. I always wondered what I’d look like with a tan and now I don’t need to find out.

Thanks to all the tellers who got up there and shared a part of their lives with us. I know how hard it is and I’m grateful to anyone who has the courage to do it. It always hurts when we get to the end of the night and we still have names in Mr. Coffee. I’m sorry to the five people we didn’t have time to get to. I hope next month’s theme is something you can rework your story for so you can throw your name in again.

Our next show is May 25 and the theme is “Letting Go – Stories of living without something you thought you couldn’t live without.” Or something like that. I’ll get the wording right and send out the invite as soon as I can.

The audio turned out fine so if you told a story at the show and want the audio send me an email and I’ll get you the MP3. I only give the audio to the people who told a story and it’s only of the story they told. A lot of what you hear at FGS is very personal and most people don’t want their stuff all over the internet.

Thanks again to everyone who walk up to the mic and the folks in the audience who always show so much love and patience. I hope you heard something that made you smile or feel a little more connected to the people around you.

See you on the 25th!

Paul
freshgroundstories@gmail.com