The answer I inevitably and invariably come to is the same one reached by the editors at McSweeney's Internet Tendency. I read, share, and reflect upon a piece by John Hodgman, titled "Welcoming Remarks Made at a Literary Reading, 9/25/01."
Though you may not recognize his name, most, if not all of you would recognize Mr. Hodgman were his photo presented with the article. He is the tweed-attired, nerdy PC of the Mac vs PC ads that aired several years ago. He is a frequent guest on The Daily Show, where he offers his "You're welcome"s for solving problems he has not actually solved. He has written three books, each more funny and self-referential than the last, each brilliantly humorous in their ability to be opened to any page for a quick laugh, yet also intricate in the overall narrative arc that weaves them together. His appearance and voice, mild mannered, polite, and soft-spoken, offer a perfect juxtaposition to his absurd and assertive statements, working to make them all the more humorous. Imagine if Lewis Black or George Carlin politely voiced their frustrations to undermine them. This is the humor of John Hodgman. It is intelligent, quiet, polite, good, human. It is therefore, not difficult to hear that voice reading those words, in spite of the fact that I was likely doing homework for my 7th grade math class, and not at a Literary Reading on September 25, 2001.
The piece (Have you read it yet? Do so before pressing onward.) deals with storytelling, which is likely why I find myself so drawn to it year after year. Storytelling is, for me, a fundamental piece of personal and human existence, the lens through which I view the world. Events demarcate new tales and chapters; characters enter, vanish, appear unexpectedly after long absences, and subtly but profoundly change the narrator; settings shift; themes, symbols, motifs become oddly apparent... I declare it in my Facebook "About Me," (and where is there a more authoritative declaration of my existence?) "Storytelling above all."
And it just so happens that I agree with all of Mr. Hodgman's assessments about storytelling. Maybe he was the one who shaped my own assessments in the first place. It's hard to say. First, that it is an oral tradition. Your ear is reading this more than your eye. But more importantly, that it serves three functions: "to inform, as in relay news and record history; to instruct, as in pass down a set of moral guidelines; and to entertain." When I write or tell stories, particularly for children, I aim to juggle all three of these functions at once. Sometimes the juggling leads to imbalance, and the moral guidelines are hammered home in heavy-handed fashion at the journey's end, or the entertainment is an abundance of puns, or a narrator must intercede to spell out the information. But in general, I am for all three, and I like to think I do pretty well. Rarely, though, do I think of that fourth function, that function that served early storytellers and listeners as they "desperately needed distraction, and reassurance that they were not alone."
I believe that is why I turn to this piece every year, rather than returning to stark images of the day's events or replayed footage on CNN. This piece allows me to remember, but also to distract myself with a reflection on storytelling. To distract myself from the fact that eleven years ago, my story, the story of all Americans, the story of all the world, changed suddenly. Some of the stories, those we remember with the greatest solemnity and sorrow, ended that day, far earlier than the narrative conventions we, as a society had established suggested that they should. Those of us whose lives were not taken found not a single, tragic period at the end of the sentence that morning, but an ellipsis, leading us into our next uncertain chapter.
As a world, as a nation, and, if I may be so bold as to speak to this level, as individuals, we have since entered new chapters, but no event has so dramatically changed the collective landscape we share as storytellers. (And we are all storytellers.) Narrative conventions of security and comfort shifted. New characters were introduced, and the character of old characters changed. The unwavering voice we once used to tell our stories proved prone to cracking, to breaking, to being utterly at a loss for words.
Eleven years later, the storytelling atmosphere has, erratic and mutable as it is, changed again. Stories of that day and the days that follow are now told to serve Hodgman's first three functions. Novels, films, plays, television specials, all exist now that examine that day, and all of them serve to represent the change that occurred in the way we tell our collective story. The stories are all different, but, even without having read/heard/seen all, or even most of them, I can speak to one common element they share. These stories, like all stories, work to show that stories, like storytelling, like the presence of and need for storytellers, lives on.
So today, as we reflect on our own stories, perhaps focused on those "I was _______ when I heard," moments, leading into the great ellipsis of our time, we should share them with each other. Share them not necessarily to inform, to instruct, or to entertain. Share them so that "we may gather and distract one another, take comfort in our proximity, and know that we are, at this moment, safe."
I am, like John Hodgman, only humbled: to be here, to be alive.
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