{"id":9400,"date":"2014-09-01T17:35:30","date_gmt":"2014-09-01T07:35:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/?p=9400"},"modified":"2014-09-01T17:35:30","modified_gmt":"2014-09-01T07:35:30","slug":"the-never-far-away-telling-of-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/the-never-far-away-telling-of-story\/","title":{"rendered":"The Never-Far-Away Telling of Story"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"AwesomeAuthorQuote\"<\/a>This weekend I was far away from writing stories on my computer (something that doesn\u2019t happen very often!), staying in the beautiful southern highlands. There were trees as far as the eye could see, and not one building interrupted the view. Parrots squawked. Mist hazed. There was little traffic. We saw only a handful of people\u2026<\/p>\n

Yet I told more stories than ever.<\/p>\n

You see, we were staying with old friends whom we hadn\u2019t seen for a while, so quickly found ourselves comparing stories about our children\u2019s schools and teachers, about all the rain lately and how difficult laundry has been to dry, about fence lines and what the neighbours said about our various planned home improvements\u2026 all somewhat basic stories, but how better to reconnect with old friends than by bonding over shared experiences?<\/p>\n

Reconnection stories.<\/p>\n

It was also a fairly traumatic weekend, with my seven-year-old daughter snapping both bones in the wrist of her dominant hand. The poor thing was in tears for hours, her fingers went cold and she couldn\u2019t move them \u2013 so I had worried tears too. Hours were spent in three different medical facilities, resulting in an operation and a heavy cast. So hours of stories were also shared as Hubbie and I worked to reassure and distract her. We told her about when she was little and used to throw her favourite fluffy toy out of her pram, so poor Mummy often had to retrace steps until it was retrieved. Eventually I tied the toy to her pram so it only trialled behind us rather than get lost. We laughed about how silly she\u2019d been to throw the toy out of her pram in the first place when it meant so much to her, when here she was years later still clutching it tight.<\/p>\n

Distraction stories.<\/p>\n

Of course we didn\u2019t want her brother to feel left out, so we told him about when he was a toddler and left his favourite fluffy toy in the oven of an apartment we were viewing to buy. We only realised he\u2019d left it there when, just before bedtime, he decided he wanted his toy and hoped it wasn\u2019t \u2018getting too hot\u2019. We eventually figured out what he meant and got the real estate agent to let us back into the apartment.<\/p>\n

Inclusive stories.<\/p>\n

We even told my daughter’s doctors and nurses stories about our family and how over the years we’ve had little external help, so are really close as families go. It was important for them to understand why we all wanted to accompany my daughter down to the operating theatre and why I wanted to wait outside the recovery room for the duration of the operation and not \u2018go get a coffee\u2019.<\/p>\n

Communication stories.<\/p>\n

So in a way, being far away from stories actually brought me closer to ‘story’. Story is everywhere and anywhere. We collect stories and share them, we use and retell them until our goals are achieved. Stories can mend and heal, connect and bridge, help us to know where people are coming from and how best to treat them and their families. Stories are a part of our culture. Stories create our culture. They solidify memories, and help us understand that we are not alone in the world.<\/p>\n

So whether you\u2019re telling a story about something that happened to you ten minutes ago or ten years ago \u2013 enjoy telling your stories, because every story is rich in importance and meaning, for you as well as others. Storytelling is fun too!<\/p>\n

In fact, why not swing by the comments section below and share a story with me? When do you most like to tell stories and why\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This weekend I was far away from writing stories on my computer (something that doesn\u2019t happen very often!), staying in the beautiful southern highlands. There were trees as far as the eye could see, and not one building interrupted the view. Parrots squawked. Mist hazed. There was little traffic. We\u2026<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/i><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7],"tags":[949,947,948,946,951,950,945],"class_list":["post-9400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writer-advice","tag-communication-stories","tag-distraction-stories","tag-inclusive-stories","tag-reconnection-stories","tag-stories-and-culture","tag-the-importance-of-story","tag-the-never-far-away-telling-of-story"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9400"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9400\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9411,"href":"https:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9400\/revisions\/9411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}