But what happens if my job is only successful if I learn how to really F.A.A.F.O.? What I’m learning is…I don’t think I get any better at my storytelling, especially if I’m going to make a whole full-length show, if I can’t learn to play–really play, like I’m a little kid again–and let some things fail.
It’s kind of like that joke about the the two young fish that run into the old fish, and the old fish says, Hey, boys, how’s the water? And the young fish say, What’s water? Storytelling was the water that was all around me.
As I have slept on hospital recliners, created calendars for coordinating treatment transportation and meal drop-offs, and called on networks for everything from emotional support to equipment donations, one clarion call keeps echoing in my ear. We are not doing elderhood the right way around here. It is terrifying, isolating. It can break your back and your bank.
A few years ago, I started letting go of many films in my ritual because, as someone pointed out to me, I ostensibly wanted to bring change into my life and perhaps doing the same thing over and over again was not serving that purpose. And, hello, watching He’s Just Not That Into You on Valentine’s Day was perhaps not the most efficacious way to find my semi-permanent dance partner.
I used to know some of this when I led orienteering activities back in my camp days. We guided kids through fun exercises in how to read maps and find posts in the woods where they would mark their papers with unique nail prints to prove they’d found their goal. This was the OG geocaching.