Since we have a little extra time between shows I’m going to post some videos of my favorite storytellers. Here’s an interview with Kevin Kling. He’s just about my favorite everything and if you get a chance to see him live you should break whatever traffic laws you need to in order to get that ticket.

Thank you everyone for making last Thursday’s show so much fun. I was worried that the flooding and holidays would keep people away but the place was packed and we had a night of great stories.

Thank you also for letting me take some time and work on a story of my own one final time before putting it to rest. It takes me a long time to write my own stories and it was nice to finally close the book on that particular one. I hope everyone who showed up enjoyed our special guest Launa who closed the show. Her story was just as captivating live as it was on the radio. I hope to have more special guests in the future. I’ll put a link to Launa’s story on our Facebook page in a few days.

Special thinks to our first-timers Scott and Miz James. If you ever have a chance to work for Scott do it! He is the world’s kindest boss. Miz James’ story had a number of themes in it but the one I’m still smiling about three days later is the power that certain Bollywood film stars have over the rest of us mortals. When I was a kid I wanted to be Spiderman. Now I want to be Shah Rukh Khan.

Obie told a beautiful story about the freedoms some of us have and some of us don’t. It’s something we’re all thinking about a lot these days but they way Obie’s story played out was unique to him. All I can say is that every time I see a political bumper sticker I will think of that story.

Terra Lea is one of our newer storytellers who I hope will become a regular. She had one of the best opening lines ever and I am going to do everything I can to convince her to let me put the audio online. It’s a sweet story about facing the difficult things in life and how sometimes the best way to do that is by taking your pants off.

Special thanks to everyone who told a story that night: Ginger, Barb, Bailey, David, Jonathan, Miz James, Obie, Scott, Terra Lea, Launa.

Once again I feel bad that I had to bump a bunch of people because we ran out of time. I’m trying to think of the best way to get as many people onstage as possible and it basically comes down to a two things. One is that all of us need to stay under the 8 minute time limit. I know it’s hard to cut stuff but for FGS we really need it to keep it tight.

The other is that I’ll probably start keeping a list of who tells a story on which nights so if it comes down to choosing someone who told a story last month and someone we haven’t seen in a while I’ll choose the person we haven’t seen for a while. We have a lot of regulars who tell great stories but some folks take months to work up the courage to get onstage and I want to make sure they get a chance to share their story.

One thing that I know will be helpful to everyone is a new story workshop that Bill Bernat is starting up. He’s going to hold one workshop a couple weeks before each new FGS so if you’re working on a story and you want some help on it this is a great place to go. It’s free and run by one of the best storytellers I know.

Basically it will be a bunch of people sitting around a table in a coffee shop sharing stories and asking for feedback. If you join you’ll get the monthly workshop announcements but don’t RSVP unless you have a story you want to work on. You can find the rest of the details at the link below:

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

The recording from last week’s show came out fine so I can give each of the storytellers a copy of their performance if they want it. I only give them to the people who told a story and it’s only the audio of their own story. Most performers don’t want their personal stories online so that’s why I only give copies to the people who told them.

Next month we’ll be going to back to our regular non-holiday schedule which is the 4th Thursday of every month. That means our next show is January 28. The theme is “Starting Over.” I’ll write up the official invite next week and get that out to you. Let me know if you have any questions.

Have a great holiday season! Come back with some stories 🙂

Paul

freshgroundstories@gmail.com

“I hate to tell you this.” I don’t know how many times I’ve heard that phrase but I think I could go the rest of my life without hearing it again and not feel like I’ve lost out on anything.

As hard as it is to hear I have to admit that it’s rarely been a surprise. By the time I go to the doctor I’m already bracing myself for the worst. Whenever I hear it in a relationship I’m usually aware that I’ve been on borrowed time for a while. You know how excited you get when you wake up and smell bacon cooking? Sometimes I wake up and smell the Bacon of Breakup. I’m not kidding. I can smell a breakup that’s about to happen. I don’t know exactly what it smells like but it’s not bacon. The other day I saw a guy try to high five his girlfriend and she walked right past him. That’s what breakup smells like.

Anyway, the most awkward moments for me are not when I’m being dumped, it’s when I’m trying to tell a woman how I feel about her. It’s the “I love you” moment. Or the “So, you know I have a crush on you” moment. I think I have a special talent for choosing the wrong person to fall for.

Once I was sitting on a bench with a lady I had a crush on and as we were looking across the water I said, “You know I’m kinda sweet on you.” Without even looking at me she said, “Why don’t those condos have windows on the side facing the bay? Who wants to look out over an ugly parking lot?” I don’t think she was purposely comparing me to a parking lot but it did sort of create that impression.

Another time a woman I was head over heels for wrote to ask if I’d like to get a house and be roommates with her. I couldn’t say no fast enough. I said, “Look, if we were roommates I would spend every waking moment trying to charm the pants off you. I don’t mean that as a figure of speech. I mean literally charm the pants off you.” In my head, this was the best way to say I had a huge crush on her. To her credit, she matched my glancing heartfelt confession with an admission of platonic misdirection. She sent back emoticons of three baby chickens and a puppy gif.

You can never tell how these hard talks are going to be received. Honesty is scary. And it’s not always rewarded in the way you want. I was going to write this month’s story about the time a doctor told me my mom had cancer but I don’t have the emotional energy to dig that one up. Then I thought I’d talk about the time I had to call my dad and tell him I got someone pregnant. There’s a big difference between calling your dad to tell me he’s going to be grandparent and calling your dad to tell him you got a girl pregnant. It was a hard call but it was met on my dad’s end with surprising grace. I don’t have the energy to tell that story either, though.

Tonight I want to go to bed thinking about the times I put my heart on the line and told someone how much I cared about them. Every time I’ve done that it’s paid off. Not always in the way I wanted but it was always good in the end. The lady on the bench who got nervous when I said I liked her? A few years ago, in the depths of the worst depression in my life, she and my buddy Mark came over and gave me the best Thanksgiving I’ve ever had. The woman who sent me three chickens and puppy gif? I saw her the other day. She’s as beautiful as ever and we still get together as often as we can. She didn’t run from being my friend and I never treated her any different because that’s all she wanted to be.

I’m grateful to all the people who let me start an awkward conversation and to all the people who had to start one with me. It means a lot that you trusted me enough to say what you had to say even if you knew I wasn’t going to take it well at the time.

And that’s the kind of story we’re hoping you bring to the next FGS, Thursday, December 10 at 7pm at Roy Street Coffee and Tea.

The rules for stories are below but you know the kind we’re looking for: true stories that happened to you that still mean something to you days, months or years later.

Remember to keep it clean and under 8 minutes.

Rules & Guidelines: https://freshgroundstories.wordpress.com/2013/01/22/storytelling-rules-and-guidelines/

I hope to see you there.

Paul

freshgroundstories@gmail.com

Thank you to everyone who came out to the show last Thursday. I look forward to this night every month. No matter what the theme is or what stories are told I’m always grateful to see people willing to be so beautifully honest and vulnerable up there in front of everyone.

David, one of our regulars came up to me after the show and said, “Those newcomers. They were awesome!” And he was right. They were awesome. Two of them were shaking so hard while they told their story I thought I was going to have to go up there and give them a hug so they could get through it. But each of them made it just fine and they have a lot to be proud of. Big thanks to Roger, Lynx, Cindy and Bailey.

One of the most powerful moments in the show came during the second story. It was from one of the first-timers, Bailey. I won’t tell you what the story was about because I feel it was something for just those people who were there in that moment to share. But I will tell you one thing she said that I think we should all hear more often, “Don’t stop fighting for your happiness.” It’s been a long, hard road for her to find happiness and telling her story at our show was one more step on that journey. She said that night was the first time in 25 years she had been in front of a group of people. Thank you for choosing to be with us when you took that step Bailey. Thanks also to everyone in the audience who stayed with her during the long silences in her story where she was pulling herself together so she could say the next word. Don’t ever feel bad about not getting up and telling a story of your own. Being a kind and patience audience member is what makes this all possible.

Thanks to all the storytellers who told that night: Jake, Kris, David, Lynx, Cindy, Barb, Hannah, Gary, Kevin, Bailey, Roger, TC, and Keith.

The only thing I regret during the show is that I forgot to remind everyone that another one of our regulars, Jonathan, is offering a storytelling workshop this Wednesday. It’s $15 for a 3-hour class and that is a very good deal. It basically pays for the room and the materials. I’ve been to lots of storytelling workshops and I have always gotten something important out of them. It’s also a good way to meet other tellers and find cool people to work on stories with after the class ends.

Here’s the link to it:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/storytelling-101-workshop-learn-to-tell-the-personal-story-tickets-19029010282

Next month’s show is Dec 10th. The theme is “The Hardest Thing You’ve Ever Had To Say.” It doesn’t matter if it’s something you had to say to another person or just quietly to yourself. And since I know that maybe the #1 hardest thing you’ve ever said isn’t something you want to say in public we’ll accept the 2nd or 3rd hardest thing you’ve said. Or if you have a really good story about the 15th hardest thing you’ve ever had to say then definitely tell that one 🙂

I gotta say one more thing before I let you go. I’ve met some amazing people at this show and a few of them have gone on to become some of my favorite people. Nathan Vass is one of those people. I don’t get to see him nearly enough so whenever he shows up at Roy Street it’s a special treat for me. Two days ago I learned he was in Paris during the attacks. No one could get ahold of him. We wrote emails, checked his facebook page, called his parents, checked all the news coverage for his name. Nothing. Today was getting kind of scary. I just started getting to know this guy and now I’m regretting all the times I’d been in Seattle and didn’t call him to go get a cup of coffee.

A few minutes ago I got an email saying CNN had found Nathan safe and sound. As happy as I am for him and his family I’m also happy that I’ve been given a second chance to get to know him better.

Here are two links to learn about more about him.

http://www.quirksee.org/2013/09/19/seattle-king-county-metro-bus-driver-nathan-vass-358/

His story from the August FGS:

The recording from last week’s show came out fine so I can give each of the storytellers a copy of their performance if they want it. I only give them to the people who told a story and it’s only the audio of their own story. Most performers don’t want their personal stories online so that’s why I only give copies to the people who told them.

That’s all for now. Thanks again to everyone who came up and supported all the tellers that night. I hope to see you on the 10th!

Paul
freshgroundstories@gmail.com

I was looking through my desk the other day when I came across a little notebook I had almost forgotten about. As soon as I saw it I remembered exactly what was in it. At some point during the fall of 2011 I decided to list all my fears. I don’t know why I wanted to do this. I certainly had no desire to face them. Maybe I was just starting to realize how powerful a role fear played in my life and I wanted to see how deep it went.

So I started writing every night when I got into bed. Just before you fall asleep is not the best time to write down every terrifying thought you’ve ever had. In fact, I would say it’s the worst time to do it. But that’s when I always found the pen and paper in my hand so that’s when I did it.

Every night for months I wrote down every thought that ever terrorized me. Some were easy. Birds-they’ve always seemed murderous to me. Going over that waterfall in South America-the one with the 3,000 foot drop. Fear of losing my job and having to live in my car again.

As the weeks went by, the writing itself began to scare me. I didn’t want to admit all the fear that steered my life. Fear that I won’t have courage when I need it. Fear that someone I didn’t like was right about me. Fear that someone would hear my name and roll their eyes thinking, “Ugh, that guy.”

Two nights ago as I read through the book I saw on page 28, right there between sharks and bad milk, “Fear of being honest.” I closed my eyes and put the book down slowly. I felt like I’d just seen a old friend’s name in the obituary column and couldn’t read any further.

Fear of being honest isn’t in me anymore but I remember what it felt like. For me, at the core of being honest was the fear of being alone. Deep down in my heart, somewhere between the cockles and the ventricles, was the belief that I needed to keep my true feelings secret for anyone to stick around.

The good news is not long after I wrote that my life fell apart completely and I got to spend the next two years learning how to put my little Humpty Dumpty heart back together again. If I hadn’t spent those two years relearning how to see the world and my place in it I wouldn’t have been able to reopen the book a few minutes later and read that line again.

This time I managed to keep it open and think back to the guy who wrote it. You know what I remember? He did the best he could with what he had. He had a really good handle on every terrible thing the world could throw at him but he never stopped looking for the love and kindness he’d heard was out there somewhere.

Part of what running this show has taught me is that speaking your fears will bring the people you need into your life. I don’t know why but that’s what it’s done for me. I went from sitting in the dark filling 44 pages with crippling fears to getting onstage and talking about the scariest moments of my life with a room full of strangers. I can’t tell you I’m completely fearless but I can say that if I wrote that book today it would fit on a postcard.

And that’s the kind of story we’d like you to bring to our next show: Change of Heart – Stories of left turns and change ups.

Tell us about an event or series of events that caused you to change how you looked at things or how you live your life. It doesn’t have to be anything big, just something that shifted you one way or the other.

The rules for stories are below but you know the kind we’re looking for: true stories that happened to you that still mean something to you days, months or years later.

Remember to practice out loud on friends or pets and keep it under 8 minutes.

Rules & Guidelines: https://freshgroundstories.wordpress.com/2013/01/22/storytelling-rules-and-guidelines/

I hope to see you at our next show on Thursday, November 12, 7:00pm at the Roy St Coffee and Tea.

Paul
freshgroundstories@gmail.com