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Family Storytellers
By Cornelia Powell | September 30, 2009
My brother Daniel can twist a hunting yarn like a kudzu vine around a stump, bemusing you with his smile until his tale untangles just in the nick of time. My brother Billy’s laughter throughout his storytelling hints that the conclusion is going to be some wry twist to what you might expect if more sensible folk were his subject matter. And my sister Sallie finds those “curiouser and curiouser” happenings in life and brings them to the light of day with a sense of irony and a giggle, all to the delight of her listeners.
We have wonderful family resources to draw from: grandmothers and grandfathers and great-grandfathers. These characters — some rather curmudgeon-ly, others only pretender curmudgeons, and some just a delight of nature — had a unique way of expressing themselves in the world. Some of them at times even going against the grain of society, but never without a strong sense of justice and passion and compassion.
On the “gentler” side of this storytelling legacy was my dear Gummie. Gummie was my daddy’s mother, a woman enchanted by life of the late Victorian era with its attention to detail in dressing, gardening, sentiment and beauty. When I was a little girl, Gummie told me stories—stories that conjured up beautiful images as she described in textural detail the party dresses she wore as a young woman in Mobile, Alabama. I thought the words were from some ethereal fairyland: “ashes-of-roses”, “robin’s egg blue”, “crepe de Chine”. How did my grandmother learn this magical language? Surely if I could remember such words, they would unlock a door to paradise itself, my very own “secret garden.”
Gummie’s favorite stories were those in which she caught the eye of some handsome young man. Maybe it was the startling blue of her eyes that captured his fancy; or the glimpse of her ankle as she lifted her skirt departing the train when she arrived “up the country” in Carson, Alabama; or as she sat ever so gracefully playing the piano in church. My grandmother’s words created new worlds for me to explore — worlds alive with vibrant colors and exquisite imagery.
Long before I dared to imagine that I could be a writer, I was working on advertising text for my now former shop when some Victorian sentiment reminded me of Gummie. I stopped what I was doing to write down my imaginings and just allowed the words to flow forth, amazed at how poetically they landed on the page — as if Gummie was there telling the story in her sing-song voice. I loved the image that emerged on paper, capturing an essence of her, a piece of her life recorded. I remember thinking, “Oh, so that’s why we write—to tell our stories, stories that honor our heritage and open new doors.” And, it’s more than that — it’s as though in the telling we expand and overlap into each other, like an invitation into the other’s secret garden. Storytelling puts out the welcome mat!
Topics: Relationship, Remembrances, Women's Notes |