Story Club Anyone?

Throughout my life, I was an enthusiastic participant in book clubs. I liked the company, reading in a community, and finding commonality amongst people who were genuinely interesting. Sometimes they’d suggest a book I wouldn’t have picked up myself. These were my favorite months—discovery, conversation and desserts overflowing. Confident in my own perspectives, I opened my mind far enough to learn something new. There was magic there.

I’ve encountered different types of readers. Some skipped their way to the end, or disregarded whole chapters. I read it all the way through. Because I said I would. In the same way I post here every Friday, as an obsessive compulsive tick and a genuine joy in a well executed schedule.

I belonged to one book group in Los Angeles in the mid 1990s. One of my very favorite people had a set opinion about that month's pick, even though she’d never opened it. That’s the kind of nerve I’m chasing. Plus, she still managed to add the conversation. Did I say she’s one of my very favorites?

The last time I belonged to one was close to ten years ago, before the world went red around me, before stories became opinions that were so fraught, neither side could engage. I, too, entered into a new phase of reading, and perhaps life, where other’s impressions of things left me feeling attacked and insecure. 

I found a haven in live storytelling, choosing to delve into something that jazzed my curiosity in smaller chunks of time. To be sure, it is a pastime I’ve been primed for my whole life. If you are naturally empathetic, like me, a story told or heard can be a much needed refuge from a brutally lonely world. 

Let me smell the hot steam coming from the subway grate, while you desperately try to locate something or evade a puddle. Or murder. Or rain. Tell me how it pops like so much oil in a hot pan, until you slip, terror sparkling off the wet pavement and the oncoming traffic. From the comfort of my living room, or a phone line, or inside an office, I revel in the slow lead in, the sweet details, the let down, and the moment of redemption. Also I’d love to be enlightened and heard. Plus, can you offer me a laugh. Is that too much to ask?

Three years ago, on a whim my subconscious devised despite my knowledge, I offered to run a live story slam for my temple in Patchogue, NY. I thought it would be fun. A nice new thing to offer people who loved a ritual so much they came together week after week, year after year, to pray the same prayers they had their whole lives and would do till they died. They are steady and reliable, leaning into repetition, which makes them a hard sell for something new.

Some trusted me enough to try. One by one, along with some friends I’d recruited, despite a surprise snow storm, they told their stories. I watched faces light up and their confidence grow. It filled me with enough joy to tamp down my self doubt for some time.

Then the pandemic hit. I did another one online and it was wonderful, but not the same. I wanted to hone the craft of teaching. I recruited a few friends to join me on this odyssey and we began to meet over Zoom in order to plan. They are two storytelling women I’ve known for a long time that were new to each other. Before we knew it, our planning sessions morphed into storytelling practice.

We’d come up with a theme and each tell a story on the topic the next week. Some were quick, funny stories about picking up Chinese food. Some were memories we had as children. Or the little ways we felt we’d traumatized our own. A few were soul searching, but mostly not. They were just a way to relate over how we manage the human experience. 

A topic each time. At the end of six weeks, or even two, we knew each other better as a group. It’s the Leonard Cohenesque, proverbial crack letting light in that attracts me, even when my story’s about tripping over myself to grab the toilet paper I forgot to bring with me. We laugh and sometimes cry. It tells us something about each other to witness our experience. It does not matter which side of the aisle we’re on, which generation we wound up in, we all spend too much time in traffic and no one’s kids ever respect what they do. 

An idea has been whispering to me for some time, because this filled a much needed hole for me and I hope it can do the same for you. Because the stories were what I loved about book club in the first place!

I’ve watched myself and people I know, trying to dip their feet back into the ooze of life post lockdown, only to slither back into their living room shadows. You only have to look at the evidence for the rates of depression, anxiety, and suicide among our kids to know that, especially for them, the lockdown shook up the natural progression of things. They don’t know how to relate beyond quick videos in an app, and I think they want to. We were not meant to spend our adolescent years staring into a box in our bedroom. I’m not sure how it’s that different from television but it is, ok?

Recently, we’ve invited new people in. I look forward to our storytelling nights. Story club has lower bar for entry than a book one. Some weeks people can’t come, and that’s fine. No real rules, no pressure. Side conversations in between. Feedback available upon request. Or not.

In the same way you don’t need to be an author to enjoy a book, the only common requirement here is humanity, even if the dogs know to take their places on the couch.

This is a value-added idea to you, my dear readers. I am delighted by how thoroughly this has become a part of my journey. Please let me know if you try it! I’m always grateful for a good story.