Carnival of Stories

My most recent Podcast was about the role of Stories in education. (Check it out on Spotify: The ABC’s of Education.) It’s a theme much on my mind, as I find myself like a kid at the Carnival, rushing from one storied ride to the next in mild euphoria. Each one a world unto itself.

 

I’ve always been an avid reader and it’s safe to say that I’ve never been without a book to read for the last, oh, 65 years or so. Always a work of fiction, often a parallel book of non-fiction and sometimes, yet another book of poetry. But in my elder years here, I seem to be immersed in stories more than ever and in a multitude of mediums. 

 

For example, on this trip. I’ve brought three books, one a mystery I finished (Richard Osman’s The Man Who Died Twice)  and then gave to a friend here,  and now another mystery I’m re-reading, E Is for Evidence by Sue Grafton. Her books are all plot with familiar characters I like and adequate writing. The third, by Niall Williams, titled History of the Rain, is low on plot and high in poetic and beautiful writing. I’m actually reading both books side-by-side, since they are so notably different from each other. Then listening on Audible to a third simultaneously, a re-“reading” of Memoirs of a Geisha to prepare for my upcoming trip to Japan. The Osman and Grafton books are part of a series and a good part of the pleasure is returning to yet more adventures with the same characters. Likewise, the Williams book is set in the same Irish town of Faha that was the setting for the two I read recently, This Is Happiness  and The Time of the Child. I think this book pre-dated those, so no familiar characters, but the village is the same. 

 

Since the pandemic, I’ve become mostly-delightfully addicted to the endless choices of streaming series on TV, often watching something every night. Immersed in series with 5 to 10 seasons and 5 to 10 episodes each season, I again feel the pleasure of visiting the same characters who you come to know and enjoy in all their idiosyncrasies. Even when I travel, like now, I can access Netflix on my computer and just stumbled on a new Australian series called The Newsreader  which is holding my attention, complete with its own cast of colorful characters. All of the above guarantees that I always have something to look forward to, something I consider a key component of happiness.

 

How to keep track of all these people and all these ongoing plots all at the same time? I couldn’t say, but I seem to be pretty good at it and I think it is both a pleasing jungle gym of mental exercise and probably a good way to forestall any encroaching dementia. Then on top of these stories is the ongoing saga of the Warrior’s basketball season, news from friends via Facebook or chat or WhatsApp or e-mail, the ongoing horror story of the news which I choose to merely skim in survival-mode micro-doses. 

 

Then of course, is the story I’m actually living. Not only living but reflecting on and telling here in this Blog and again in my handwritten journal and again in conversations with friends. Like I said, a carnival of stories and it is the anticipation of the next chapter and the re-connection with the people real and fictitious that is partly responsible for feeling that my life is threaded through with meaning, a constantly revealing and unraveling plot that brings so much more satisfaction than mere random moments of experience.

 

Not the most exciting chapter in my traveling music teacher confessions, but just my thoughts-du-jour sitting in the Singapore Airport, about to turn the page to my next Asian Music Tour chapter as I get ready to fly to Bangkok.

Stay tuned…