I may have shared parts of this story before, but the entirety of it is a force that has changed my life for the better, every day, so I'll tell it again.
My Mom started telling me this story as far back as I can remember. She would wrap me up in her arms and hold me tight if it was just us, and if told to a group, I would stand a small distance away, smiling at every detail. I remember the tonality of her voice, the expressions on her face as she related the terrifying morning she and my Papa woke up and I had escaped from my Port-a-Crib; each time she would begin the story with a very serious face. We were up at my family's cabin, it was early in the morning and my parents woke to find I was not sleeping peacefully in my crib. They started to look around the cabin for me, calling out my name, but with no response. At this point in the story the tone of her voice starts to get nervous, and her brow furrows. They thought, could I be hiding? As they searched high and low the answer quickly moved from probably to a definite no. I was not in the house. In my memory this is when they realized the front door was open, but I'm not certain on the order, so lets just go with it.
The cabin shares land with a dude ranch, and depending on the time of year, the horses used for trail rides graze on our section of the property. Luckily for one very horse curious two year old it was the right time of year. I can't remember, but knowing myself now, I'm quite sure I was aware of this. At this point in the story my Mother's voice has gone from sing song "oh where is Jordy?" to sheer panic at the thought of me unlocking the front door and escaping into the surrounding wilderness filled with bobcats, mountain lions and black bears. The expression on her face in one of panic as well. Where had I gone? How far could I have gone? What wild creature had potentially eaten me for breakfast?
None. As the story goes, my parents looked out through the front door and gazed up in shock (and some horror) to the top of the hill where they spotted the silhouette of a curly-haired two year old standing in the middle of the heard of horses, happily petting their noses.
After much coaxing I emerged from the heard and back into the safety of my parents arms. As my Mom tells it, it wasn't easy, I loved those velvety warm muzzles. At this point I beg her to tell me the story again, or if told to a group everyone smiles and jokes that it may be a small miracle that I'm still here. But I know differently. To this day I can still feel that wonder, that excitement of being surrounded by what I knew in my heart I love most in this world. To my parents it looked as if I could be trampled at any moment, but to me I was being protected, those horses were my guardians, and to this day they still are.
Thinking about it, I probably would have ended up trying to con my parents into buying me a pony at some point in my childhood, but because of this story, because of the way it was told, and the wonder with which it was told, my future seemed all the more imminent. Because of this story I didn't have to go out searching for my passion, I knew it was there from the start. This story changed my life, and each day I go to the barn and pet my horses nose, it continues to do so.
The power of a great book or story is undeniable. Even a merely good one can change your life. Yet the story itself is just the beginning. To truly grasp the full impact, the magnitude of a stories effect requires a closer look into every element, including the story of the story. Think about it, behind every page of written word, spoken verse and video clip lie moments that make that story special. For me these include a number of wonderful memories like the story above, or when my Papa would tuck me in each night and I would beg him to keep the story going, or listening to my grandmother recall memories from her childhood and the adventures she took. I can remember the stories from these moments with varying degrees of clarity, but the feelings, the details of my my Grandmother's hands and the roughness of my Papa's mustache are what have truly made a lasting impression.
Moments and stories like these are the reason we are launching a new monthly installment of Tell Me A Story. This new installment will focus on these moments of subtext, or really, the story of the story. In future months we invite you to submit your own, along with any photographs to [email protected], along with the subject line Story of a Story so that we can share these memories and experiences together as a community, and most importantly, as lovers of stories.
Let the adventure begin!
P.S. Check back later this afternoon to find out the winner of our Mr. Goethe's Garden book giveaway!
~Jordan
*Last time in Books and Stories: Mr. Goethe's Garden
