≈ Comments Off on FGS: Losing It – Stories of being out of control 5-21-2026
The reason I’ll never skydive isn’t that I’m worried that the chute won’t open and the ground crew will find my body, feet sticking up out of the grass like a lawn dart. It’s that I don’t like being told what to do. And as soon as you step out of the plane, gravity tells you exactly what you’re going to do for the next 10-15 minutes. There’s no discussion, no listening to reason. You’re going to be falling at 176 feet per second until you pull that cord.
That’s why it’s always interesting to me how I react when I’m truly out of control. I like to go back and think about why I did what I did. I was proud of myself a few years ago when I had to give the Heimlich to a guy choking next to me at a lunch counter. I stood up, knocked his gut in a couple times, then sat down and went back to my omelet.
I wasn’t proud of myself when I broke my hand punching a wall at 19, when I found out my girlfriend was stepping out on me. I also wasn’t proud of myself when I had a complete mental breakdown in 2012, when the world fell out from under me. I told that story two years later. It ended with a moment in my kitchen that brought me back to life and made me want to see what happened next. I’m still thinking about that time, and hope I’ve learned enough skills that it doesn’t happen again.
I’d love to hear about a time when you or your life were out of control and how you made it through. How did you act in the moment? Were you cool as a Bering Sea ice floe or did you lose your mind and kick a bunch of rocks? Were you dumped? Fired? Evicted? Given a diagnosis? How did you react in the moment and how did you find your way back to Chillsville?
Whatever the story, we’d love to hear it. Remember that a story isn’t just a series of things that happened. There needs to be something at stake that you overcome by the end.
Practice the story out loud to 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 eight minutes. Stories can be as short as you want, but no longer than eight minutes. Stories also have to be clean in both language and content. Send me an email if you have any questions about that.
FGS themes are just suggestions, so you can come out and tell a story about anything as long as it follows our usual rules and guidelines.
Before I get to the wrap-up of last week’s show, I want to remind everyone that ABBA night is happening this Friday at the Swedish Club. Get your tickets here for the show we’ve been waiting a year for 🙂
My girlfriend Marni and I already have our tickets and are discussing what we’re going to do if we discover that one of us dances funny. Relationships have crumbled under lesser revelations, so we’re preparing for the worst. We’ve decided if one of us dances in a way that brings shame upon the family, we will squeeze that person’s hand three times and then quickly walk back to the table. Whichever one of us is funny dancing will slowly dance over to the opposite side of the room, then walk nonchalantly back to the table, where we will stay seated for the rest of the evening. And then we will never speak of this night again. That’s our plan if one of us is a funny dancer. Hopefully, we’ll find that we are relatively equal in dance talent and the only people we embarrass on the dance floor will be our kids.
If you want to see how this all plays out in real time, get your tickets and come say hi
First up was Andres with the best story we’ve heard about the fun fact you have to come up with at almost every workplace icebreaker. I love stories about the tiny moments in our lives that we all experience but never talk about. Here’s a fun fact about FGS. If your babysitting plans fall through, you can bring your two-and-a-half-year-old son onstage with you while you tell a story. Andres, you and your son are always welcome here. My secret wish is that one day, when he’s older, he’ll tell his own story with us.
Next up was Kelly, our only first-timer of the night. She told a story about catfishing a catfish on Tinder. I heartily support this! I love any story where the conman gets conned. Maybe one day we’ll do a whole show called, “Turnabout is fair play.” Thanks for telling your first story with us, Kelly. I hope you had fun and come back and tell again.
After Kelly was Deborah with a story about being a nostalgia junkie and how that can lead to finding that the past may not be as great as you remember. In a twist at the end, she realizes that no matter what the past was really like, those memories made her what she is, a storyteller.
Next up was Susie, whose story was a love letter to New York City. It was the saddest story of the night because we learned she’s moving to NYC. As much as we’ll miss her, I know she’s going to tell some great stories there, and maybe one day we’ll be listening to her on a certain podcast we all love.
Next was Ariel with a story I’ve waited months for. It’s the story of how she came to be named Ariel. It wasn’t the name she was born with, it’s one she chose recently. One of the things that makes FGS special is that we slowly get to know each other over time. Ariel’s only been telling with us for about a year, but each time she walks onstage she reveals a little more about herself. This is one of the gifts of personal storytelling. We don’t get to become best friends with everyone we meet in life, but sometimes listening to an honest story, told with humility, is enough to make us feel like we’re not alone. Thank you, Ariel, for always sharing just enough of your life to make us feel like we’re all together in this.
Next up was a surprise teller, my son, Taran. He purposely never tells me if he’s going to throw his name in Mr. Coffee because he treasures the look of fear on my face when I pull his name out. I have no reason to be scared because he’s always done great. I’m incredibly proud of him as a storyteller, but any parent will tell you that there’s always a little fear when your kid walks up to a microphone with a story that might include you. That night, he told a story about teaching his cousin to ride a bike and how worried he was that he was taking a memory away from her dad. It was sweet and touching and pure Taran.
Debbie came next with a story about growing up near her cousin, who lived down the street. It was a story that began with anger and bullies and smashed up watermelons. In the end, it was a story about the danger of judging people without knowing the full story. It’s hard to withhold judgment when we’re hurting. Every story, every conclusion we come to, feels justified. If we’re lucky, we live long enough to find out the truth and maybe a little compassion.
Sean was up next with a story of going to his 50-year reunion. His graduating class had 92 kids, so everyone knew everyone. Fifty years later, a lot of them were still around. One of the lines that sticks with me a week later is that the kids always said that he was the smart one. The assumption was that he would go on to do well in life. He did, but he said it had more to do with all the support he got from his family. That hit me pretty hard. I, too, had a reputation in school as being the smart kid. I know from experience that it’s not what’s in your head that helps you succeed. It’s the people you keep around you that make the difference. Thank you, Sean, for your honesty in saying that. I know I wasn’t the only one in the audience that night who felt that way.
Gretchen was next with a story of growing up in a small nuclear family that didn’t have a strong connection to any of their blood relatives. Throughout her life, she always wondered what it would be like to have relationships with cousins and uncles and aunts and such. Then one day, decades into her adulthood, she found herself on a Zoom call with a cousin who looked like her, talked like her, and laughed like her. There she was, a true blood relative. Checking in years later, looking to connect over a vacation in the San Juans.
Cliff then told a story about taking care of his mother after she took a fall in her later years. Sometimes the best gift we can receive is to get the chance to repay the kindnesses we were given by others. There’s something about Cliff’s voice that makes his stories get inside you. I could hear in his voice that night the gratitude he felt for being able to finally give to his mom what she so freely gave to him when he was growing up.
Our second-to-last teller was Auntmama with a story 70 years in the making. It happened between World War II and plastic, as Auntmama said that night. The story wove through the hollers of the Appalachians, the factories of nearby towns, and a bowling alley named Victory Lanes. I can’t do the story justice here, but you must believe me when I say we were transported back in time to a place and a world that no one in that room had ever seen. That’s what Auntmama does. She time-travels and takes us with her. She builds a world that once was, takes us through the alleys and diners of her life, and brings us back to now, where we look around and down at our hands and wonder why we feel so different.
Our final teller of the night was Saloni. She told a beautiful story about giving up on love and then love sneaking back into her life in the form of a good man, a plate of lentils, and a series of “small, grand gestures.” We only know her sweetheart as Guy #5, but we were all kinda swooning over him by the end of that story. Congratulations, Guy 5. Saloni is a wonderful woman, and you’re a lucky guy.
That was our show from last Thursday. If you missed it, we’ll be back on May 21. The theme for that one is “Stories of being out of control.”
If you can’t wait a month for more stories, go see our friends at 7 Stories in Burien this Friday. I love this show and the people who run it.
I hope you’re looking forward to our next show coming up Thursday. This month is our 16th anniversary. Can you believe we’ve been doing this 16 years? Our little show is a teenager going out on dates, sleeping till noon, and flunking his driver’s test.
There are a lot of storytelling shows in Seattle now, but there were only two when we started in 2010, and only one was focused on personal stories. Does anyone remember A Guide to Visitors? As far as I know, it was the only storytelling show in Seattle devoted to personal stories before FGS. It’s the first place I ever told a story, and it changed my life forever.
When Fresh Ground Stories began in 2010 (under the name Emerald City MothUP), it picked up where A Guide to Visitors left off. AGTV was a curated show where you pitched your story idea to the producers, and if they liked it, they’d help you craft it. FGS has always been an open mic where no one, including me, knew what was going to happen each night.
Those were exciting times. We had a fantastic showcase of stories every three months with AGTV and a place where folks could work out new stories every month at FGS. AGTV is no longer around, but we have more story shows in Seattle than we’ve ever had before. Each one is special in its own way, and I encourage all of you to check them out.
The more places we have to share our stories, the more connected we’ll feel to each other. And feeling connected, even for just a few minutes, the length of a single story, is something we all need.
Our theme this month is “Now and Then – Stories of the past coming back.”
If you’d like help or feedback on a story, write me directly at freshgroundstories at gmail dot com, and we can set up a time to talk on the phone.
We also have a free monthly online workshop that’s another great place to get feedback on a story you’re working on, regardless of where you’ll be telling it.
That’s all for now. I hope to see a bunch of you this Thursday on the top floor of the Swedish Club. We have 109 spaces of free parking! (I love saying that). I give away three annual memberships to the club at the end of each show, so be sure to put your name and email address in the Folger’s can before the show. You don’t need to be a member of the club to come to the show or tell a story, but it’s a pretty great place to hang out, and who wouldn’t want to win a free membership, right?
≈ Comments Off on If you were planning on going to Auntmama’s Storytable show tonight…
I just found out it’s been cancelled due to illness. Auntmama will reschedule as soon as everyone is healthy. You can stay updated by checking their Meetup page: https://www.meetup.com/auntmamas-new-storytable/
Auntmama (Mary Anne Mooreman) has been a great part of FGS over the years, so I always try to share her events with FGS folks.
Hope you’re all looking forward to the next FGS show on April 16.
≈ Comments Off on FGS: Now and Then – Stories of the past coming back 4-16-2026
Whenever I choose a theme, I immediately worry that a hundred people will come out for the show, but we won’t have any tellers because the theme was either boring or too specific. I generally spend the next week worrying that I might have to come up with 90 minutes of stories to cover the time. That’s never happened, but I worry about it a lot.
If I were to tell a story about my past coming back, I might tell about the time my old babysitter found me on the internet and told me the real reason my mother was always so angry.
Or I might tell about the time I was at a conference and saw an ex five years after we broke up. I thought I was completely over her until I saw her in person. Suddenly, my mind froze, and my body took over. I was out of the conference hall and into my car in under a minute. Somehow, I found myself miles away, sitting under a tree outside a monastery, wondering how this could happen after all those years of therapy.
Or I might talk about how my brother and I recently started talking to each other after years of silence. Those texts and phone calls led to him telling me the truth about something I’d been wondering about for 40 years. If I ever share that story onstage it’ll be called, “Two Knives and a Baby.”
Whatever story you have about the past coming back, we’d love to hear it. Remember that a story isn’t just a series of things that happened. There needs to be something at stake that you overcome in the end.
Practice the story out loud to 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 eight minutes. Stories can be as short as you want, but no longer than eight minutes. Stories also have to be clean in both language and content. Send me an email if you have any questions about that.
FGS themes are just suggestions, so you can come out and tell a story about anything as long as it follows our usual rules and guidelines.
Fresh Ground Stories 