The Keeper of Stories

by Sally Page

she wonders if the story of life is a tragic comedy or a comic tragedy.

She believes the stories need to be based on real life because they convince her that the unexpected can happen, that there is extraordinary strength and goodness within normal, everyday people and, because of this, there is always hope.

when you are a child, as you don’t ever think of yourself as young. You are just you, and will take up guilt and responsibility without noticing that they are far too large for you and that they are really things an adult should be wearing.

maybe sometimes life is not about having a story; maybe it’s about finding one perfect moment.

Maybe life is not about having a story? Perhaps it is about having done one thing that you can look back on with pride? That you feel defines you.

“I figured out long ago that if I listen to the few people who shout at me, I am making them more important than they are. What they say will stay with me, upset me, and those loud voices will go on and on, even when the shouting has stopped. So instead, I listen very carefully for the quiet voices—which is most people. The people who teach a perfect lesson with nobody knowing. The children who eat their bogies. The artist who gives a man his hat. Or a vicar who just sometimes would like people to ask her how she is. Those people, the quiet people, seem to have more important things to say.”

She wonders if part of storytelling is not only about sharing the good things in life but also enabling the storyteller to send the bad things out, to let them disperse like dust in the wind.

I think it’s in people’s stories that you discover the best of what we can be.”