My mom was full of secrets. She was always running some low-level con to save money. I don’t know how many times she told me to act like I was 5 when I was 10 so we could get into the movies cheaper. Did you know I wrote a play when I was 16? Neither did I, but that’s what she wrote on my college applications. I was furious when Pomona College wrote back asking to see it. I told them our house burned down.  

I guess it shouldn’t have surprised me when I found out 30 years after she died that she’d lied all her life about having a master’s degree in speech and drama from NYU. She went to her grave telling people that.

I held a grudge against her for a lot of reasons, but one of them was watching her lie all the time. She wanted me to be a hustler like her but I wasn’t built that way. I hated all the lies she told when I desperately wanted to have a parent I could look up to.  

Earlier this year, I laid into a couple friends for some double standards they held. Normally, I would have ignored it but I got tired of their sanctimonious finger-pointing. I thought the argument would last a few minutes and then we’d move on to ordering dessert. But it didn’t. It lasted through the night and into the next day. And the day after that and the day after that. It was terrible. Three egos banging away at each other when we should have been enjoying each other’s company.

I couldn’t figure out how to make things better between us until one of them mentioned a secret his own mother had kept. It was a terrible secret. The worst you can imagine. It made me wonder how safe I was all the years I spent at his house as a kid. That night I shared a secret I’d kept from him for decades.

When I was in Boy Scouts my mother signed off on a lot of merit badges I didn’t earn. If I completed half the tasks for a particular badge, she’d sign the form and say good enough. If I said I could complete the last two tasks when summer came around she’s sign off on the merit badge that day so I could get it at the next troop meeting.

It bothered me for decades that I caved in and let her sign me off on merit badges I didn’t earn. But it was always easier to give in than to argue with her. One of the things my friend and I shared were those years in Boy Scouts. It was a big part of both our young lives, and I always felt guilty that he thought I earned so many of those merit badges.

So I told him. He didn’t say much. He just nodded and kept doing what he was doing at the counter. Maybe he had suspected as much and this was just confirming what he’d thought. I didn’t ask him how he felt about it. I guess I just wanted him to know that I know that I’m not the paragon of integrity I sound like when I’m laying into someone. And maybe I wanted him to know that even when I’m at my most sanctimonious, part of me knows that people could be calling me out on my stuff if only they knew what I was holding inside.

It’s been months since that night in the kitchen when I told my buddy about the merit badges. We’re back to texting each other jokes and memories. I don’t know if we’d be doing that if I hadn’t shared how imperfect I know myself to be. Some secrets are meant to be kept forever. And some are meant to be shared so you can get out from under them and right-size yourself.

And that’s the kind of story we’re looking for at our show at our January show. Did you discover a secret someone you loved was keeping? What did you do? Did it change how you felt about them? Did you keep a secret of your own for a long time before you realized you couldn’t anymore? Maybe you got caught keeping a secret. How did that turn out? Did you apologize and make amends, or keep denying until you both just stopped talking about it? I think I’ve probably done every one of those things. We’d love to hear your own story about secrets. 

Whatever story you tell, remember to practice it out loud on as many people as possible and time yourself when you’re doing it. Please don’t get onstage if you haven’t practiced your story. The audience is giving you their time and attention. It’s not fair to them if you get up there and try to wing it.

All stories have to be under 8 minutes. Stories can be as short as you want but not over 8 minutes. Stories also have to be clean in both language and content. Send me an email if you have any questions about that.

The rest of the rules and guidelines are below:

Storytelling Rules and Guidelines

We have a free monthly online workshop that’s a great place to get feedback on your story. 

https://www.meetup.com/Fresh-Ground-Stories-Storytelling-Workshop/

I’m also happy to help anyone with a story they’re working on. Send me an email and we can set up a phone call.

See you on Thursday, January 16, at 7 pm, at the Chabad of Queen Anne – Magnolia. 1825 Queen Anne Ave N, Seattle, WA 98109 (Remember, no non-kosher food in the building)

Paul
Freshgroundstories at gmail dot com

What a night of amazing coincidences we had last Thursday! Two out-of-town tellers dropped by the show that night and knocked me out with their stories. Another teller got up and told a story about a resentment he had against someone that echoed one of the most powerful moments in my life.

How did this happen on a cold rainy night on Queen Anne? I have no idea. Storytelling is magic. That’s the only way I can explain it.

Chris started off the night with a story of what it takes to run your life when you don’t have a job to get you out of bed every morning. Apparently, life in retirement is made up of apps, alarms, calendars, planners, and post-it notes all designed to get you off the couch and into the world. Did you know there’s a setting on your Fitbit that pings if you haven’t moved in three hours? This is what life is now. We need an app to remind us to stop staring at other apps. Thank you, Chris, for letting me know I’m not the only one struggling to live a fully engaged life in the face of the internet and cable TV.

Next up was Gretchen with a story of moving across the country to Seattle for a girlfriend and what happened when they broke up six months later. Turns out that sometimes your friends know what’s best for you when you don’t. I need to send Larry and John a thank you card who convinced her over a tear-filled Christmas that she could stay in Seattle and start over. She didn’t need her ex and she didn’t need to move back to Minnesota to build a new and better life for herself. 

Brian followed Gretchen with a story about when he and his family moved from the Midwest to a small town in North Louisiana in 1971. Despite being a bookworm, he had a lot of fun growing up in this strange, new town in the middle of nowhere. As the story progressed, I remembered one of my favorite bits from comedian Bill Hicks where he’s sitting at the counter in a Waffle House reading a book when some guy looks over and says, “Well boys, looks like we got ourselves a reader.”

When Brian got to the part of the story when he was about to tell

us what book he stumbled across in Gibson’s  department  store that changed his life, I tried to guess which one it was. He’s too old for Harry Potter so…A Catcher in the Rye? To Kill a Mockingbird?  The Joys of Sex?

I’d love to tell you what book it was but I want you to feel bad that you missed the show. Imagine how your life might have changed If you’d come to the show, heard about that book, went out and bought it, then the book changed your life. 

Are you sad now that you missed the show? Here is my offer to you. The first person who missed this show and writes me at freshgroundstories at gmail dot com and says they will tell a story at our January show will get the 40-year-old copy of the book I found on eBay that changed Brian’s life. How can you pass up this deal??

I was excited to see Todd up next because he told a story at our

last show that I’ve been thinking about ever since. I was curious to find out more about him in his next story. And you know what? He did it again. Todd, brother, are you reading my diary? He told a beautiful story about how he worked through some big resentments he had with a guy at work who done him wrong. In just a few lines in the middle of his story, Todd brought me back to one day in 2015 when I saw an old flame from across a conference room the memories hit me so hard I ran out to the parking lot, jumped in my car, and drove to the next town over trying to escape the past.

When I got to that next town, all I could think to do was sit under a tree outside a monastery repeating one phrase over and over, “Send her love and wish her well. Send her love and wish her well.” All the Zoloft and Lorazepam in the world couldn’t touch that grief. Silently wishing her the best life possible was the only thing that stopped the shaking and brought me back to the present.

I hope everyone who comes to our show hears a story that brings them back to a moment like that. Knowing Todd had to wish someone who hurt him a beautiful life in order to get his own life back makes me feel a little better. And a lot less alone.  

Next up was David who came all the way from Port Townsend to tell the story of tagging baby seals on St. George Island in the Bering Sea. And once again I was almost knocked out of my chair. David had no idea that I was born on St. Paul Island just a few miles across the choppy sea from St. George. David’s description of the Pribilof Islands was exactly as I remember it from my trip back was I was 10. I’ve never met a single person outside Alaska who has ever heard of St. Paul or St. George, much less been there. How in the world did David from Port Townsend know to walk into this show on Queen Anne and tell a story about tagging seals??

I must have been in a weird state after David’s story because when I walked back up to the mic I asked if anyone had gotten inspired during the show and would like to tell a story. A woman in the second row raised her hand, got up, and told a great story about meeting a stranger on the quad of her college who inspired her to live out her dream of becoming a pilot.

I won’t tell you the big twist that came at the end but she did end up becoming a pilot. A bush pilot. In Alaska. When I asked her jokingly if she knew one of my high school friends from 40 years ago she said, “Yes! I totally know that guy!”

How was this happening? What was going on that night? How did a woman from Alaska, in town for just a few days, wander into our show on Queen Anne and tell a story about becoming a bush pilot and knowing one of my oldest friends? Storytelling is magic, is all I can figure.

Our last teller, Saloni, told the perfect story to close the evening. She took us on a journey from her first storytelling event at a Moth in San Francisco, to finding out something about her boyfriend that she didn’t want to know, to finding love in Seattle with a man who loves her stories as much as we do. Thank you, Saloni, for jumping in and closing the show when you weren’t even planning on telling that night. If we don’t see her again for a few months it’s cos she’s head over heels for a lucky guy on the eastside.

Thanks again to everyone who came out on a rainy night to listen to stories and share some of your own. Our next show is on January 16. The theme is “Don’t Tell – Stories about secrets.” I’ll get the invite out as soon as I can.

In the meantime, the Chabad where we do our show is holding its annual fundraiser. They’re the only ones who offered us a place for our show after the Olive Way Starbucks shut down. Without them, we’d still be on Zoom. Blech. Let’s never go back to Zoom.

Here’s the link if you’d like to make a donation:

https://www.chabadqueenanne.com/templates/fundraising/default_cdo/aid/6706820/jewish/Campaign.htm

If you’re working on a story and would like some feedback, check out our free online monthly workshop. It’s a great place to work on stories and meet other people doing the same. The next one is January 5.

https://www.meetup.com/fresh-ground-stories-storytelling-workshop/?eventOrigin=your_groups

Happy holidays, everyone

Paul

Freshgroundstories at gmail dot com

Hi everyone,

I hope you’re excited about next week’s show. It’s been too long. We haven’t missed two shows in a row since 2020 when I resisted doing FGS on Zoom because I knew the pandemic thing was bound to wrap itself up in another week or two. I am the Nostradamus of nothing.

But next Thursday we are telling stories no matter what.

There will be no more flat tires on I-5 and no more holidays that fall on third Thursdays. I’ve made all the appropriate sacrifices to the storytelling gods so you know this show is guaranteed to happen.

I hope 8-10 of you bring stories to tell. Our theme this month is, “CTRL-ALT-DELETE: Stories of starting over.”

Maybe you have a story about starting over or rebooting your life that you’d like to tell? It doesn’t matter how big or small it is. It could be about starting over after a big breakup or starting over after losing in the quarterfinals of the 1983 Lake Stevens Middle School Chess Championships. I would love to hear both those stories.

Here are the rules & guidelines for telling at FGS if you haven’t seen them in a while: https://freshgroundstories.com/2013/01/22/storytelling-rules-and-guidelines/

Here’s a wonderful story I heard last month on The Moth. It’s by Matthew Dicks, the author who wrote the book that I give away each month at our show to a random first-time teller.

Maybe next month our theme will be something about friends. Matt’s story has inspired me.

I hope you’re all doing well and noticing all the stories in your life happening around you. See you Thursday at 7 pm at the Chabad of Queen Anne 🙂

https://www.meetup.com/fresh-ground-stories/events/304800619/?eventOrigin=group_upcoming_events

Paul

freshgroundstories at gmail dot com