The Storyteller

This is a story about an ordinary girl who loved stories, and who came to love telling them.

When she was a small child, stories were a way for her to escape when her own story was less than ideal. Back then, they helped her to hold hope for her future, to dream of possibilities and a way of dreaming up exciting and incredible goals to work towards. She could be a dancer, an actress, a famous artist perhaps. The possibilities were endless. In her head she always imagined that even though things were difficult right now, there would be a happy ending to her story. There would be - she believed this with all of her heart.

Eventually though, she was all grown up, and she came to a place where she felt defeated. She wasn’t anything she wanted to be ano had believed she could be. Her life wasn’t anything as she’d imagined it would be when she was a girl. No dreams had been realised and she felt a lack of fulfilment like a heavy black hole in her stomach. She was learning life was hard, it was full of many twists and turns, and there certainly weren’t any guarantees that this was a story with a happy ending. Her lesson was hard learnt And the girl had to grow up even more.

Slowly, change came about. The girl came to learn through her sadness that life is what you make it. She came to understand that we have a certain amount of power and instead of waiting to see how the story turns out and expecting things to simply come, we are empowered to make our own choices, which we can use to guide ourselves in the direction we want to go.

She began to rebuild. She changed her job, began paying closer attention to her relationships, took time out to meditate and do things that her heart aligned with. She began to know herself better. She became less interested in her own story, and much more interested in other’s. And this was were the magic began. The girl was an artist. This was something she’d always known, but now understood properly, with every fibre of her being. It was pointless trying to be anything else - that was what had made her so miserable in the first place! She began to see being an artist as a gift, being able to use her hands to create, to find texture and colour and light and put them together until she was transported to another place, away from her troubles and away from her fears. She knew that this would always be her way of connecting to the world and making sense of it and as long as she did this she would have a way of filling her soul and living her dreams.

She began to tell people’s stories, knowing that stories connect us together. They help us to heal by providing space to reflect and learn. They give us space to be lost and to dream. The girl wove stories in brightly coloured thread, connecting, always connecting. She stitched them in sparkling sequins and tiny shiny beads. She asked her friends to tell her their stories, feeling immensely grateful that they were willing to share something personal with her, willing to have their stories told. She brought their images to vibrant life with her luscious fabrics and silky threads.

Life was different now. There were so many things the girl learnt through others, that her life became enriched. She learnt more about herself through others, and through precious time spent working on her craft. The girl, not a girl anymore but a woman, fell in love, had a baby. She made her art in the heart of her home, with her family bustling around her, understanding it was a part of who she was and the missing puzzle piece that made her whole. To work in this way brought her limitless joy, embroidering, cutting, stitching and sewing the pieces of her life. Her emotional repair work. Her story.