I have a very very early start at work and at the do or die period of my thesis (I’ve chosen doing over dying) and I haven’t got much time to write fun stuff.
So I’m asking you to tell me a story. It doesn’t have to be long, and it can be about anything. Go on, move me, make me laugh or make me cry. I want to know what’s been happening in your lives.
And I’ll leave you with this cute haiku (the lovely Pip Lincolne first posted it). As I was up at 5 am. I don’t know how you regular earlybirds do it.
Surprise me!
Hi Carly, here is a story that I wrote for Short Tale Tuesday last week.. I hope you enjoy it 🙂
http://www.cupofteaandablog.com/2012/05/little-blue-torch-short-tale-tuesday.html
Hey Carly!
Was going to text you, long time no see! Things have been crazy busy, for you also it seems. Good luck with your thesis. I love that haiku – awesome. Here's a story…3.5weeks til we go!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! hope that makes you smile. it's short, but so amazing 🙂
Heidi xo
Hi Carly, a story? Well how about the story of how my best friend and I became friends.
We were just about to go into year 12. We knew each other, but not well, acquaintances more than friends. Then a mutual friend invited us both to go to Sydney for the weekend to find our formal dresses.
We headed up, filled with the excitement of 3 17 year old girls on their own in a big city and headed into the first shop. There I saw it. A slim fitting black dress, with electric blue sequined bust and a back of complicated spaghetti straps. It was divine, it was $500. Far too much for this 17 year old but at her friend's urging I headed into what must have been the world's smallest change room to try it on.
I undressed, and stated to pull it over my head, but in the confined space, it slipped and about half of the spaghetti straps ended up on the wrong side of my head. I was pinned, arms in the air, half naked, dress lodged over my head.
The girl I knew was on the far side of the shop, Alex was close by. She came to my rescue and headed into the tiny change room. With an anxious sales assistant outside, she examined me. "We may have to cut it off" she whispered. "Is everything ok" called the shop assistant". "Just fine" we chorused. She struggled and pulled and eventually got it all sorted. As it turns out the dress was also a size too small to get over my hips.
The dress may have been a failure, but ever since she rescued me from that change room, we have been best friends.
I'm always awake at 5! My story- I am on instagram x
A story. It was four years ago; It only lasted a moment. I was in the Royal Childrens hospital for two months, learning to walk again. I had progressed to a point where I could walk, but horrifically. I was aware that I looked like a freak. I was walking myself from the rehabilitation floor back to my ward. A lady in the lift with me that I had never met smiled at me, and said 'You are doing so well. Keep going'. My walking was horrendous; But for the rest of the day I floated. x
When my younger cousins were small, I used to look after them fairly regularly. Both were very keen on stories. They both went through a phase – at about 3yrs old – of insisting that said stories *not* come from a book. Being in my early 20s, I would sometimes cheat by telling them a story from a book they hadn't yet come across, like Storm Boy. I hot upon a winnign idea with the elder one though, by brokering a deal: I would tell her a story 'not from a book', but then she had to tell me a story. Her stories were awesome and far better then mine. My favourite part was when they seemed to be almost finished, but being three, she'd draw in a big breath and says 'and then……' and contniue for another 10 minutes. They're all grown up now, and are both lovely girls. The eldest has just started a journalism degree at university, the younger one is in middle high school a fantastic debater. Is this the power of stories?
There are some people in your life that leave a mark and you never forget them as they change the path you take.
I have someone like that.She is a nun at the Mater hospital where I did my nursing training.
My parents were going through a divorce during my second year of training.Being the eldest in the family and in the days when divorce was not common,I didnt think I could handle it all and the study.
I went to the very strict and very serious Sister Patricia and asked if I could stop my studies to become a Registered Nurse and be an Enrolled Nurse instead with the study I had already done.She looked at me with her very stern face and said in a kind understanding voice "yes you can but,if you do you will never know if you could have done it."
That was all I needed to hear.She made me have more faith in myself.I didnt give up,which I would have had she just said "yes you can,sign here."
I went on to complete my studies and became a Registered Nurse.The day I found out I can remember sitting at the traffic lights and wanting to scream from the car "I did it!"
So that is my story of how just a few simple words from someone can change the course of anothers life.
Paper Aeroplanes.
I was becoming increasingly hysterical. I couldn't understand why my paper aeroplanes wouldn't soar high above the pine trees and straight towards the clouds. That was where they needed to go.
Despite the overwhelming emotions I was trying to understand, I continued to fold the paper with the utmost care. I was so gentle. I remember vividly caressing the pristinely white paper it as if it were the most fragile object in the world. I wasn't usually that gentle with paper, but this paper served the most important purpose I had ever known in my then 7-and-a-half years of age. My aeroplanes were supposed to be going somewhere special. The innocent and naïve thinking that came with being such a sensitive boy also told me that the more love I put into each fold and each touch, the more likely it would be that my aeroplane would reach the clouds.
Some of my aeroplanes caught the wind and I felt an ache in my chest when I thought, for that sweet, tiny second, the delicate aeroplane might just reach the clouds. Repeatedly though, they dropped from the sky and my broken heart sank with every crash.
With each failed attempt, this new pain I’d been feeling all morning grew stronger, and more tears would stream down my already salt-stained face.
I decided to try one more time. I grabbed the worn-down lead pencil and proceeded to write a message on the snow-white piece of paper as I'd done all morning. Despite having to re-write the same words each time an aeroplane vanished over a fence or landed on a roof top, the sentiment of my words, and the heart-felt depth that went with each one, never dulled for a moment.
I continued to perform the rest of the steps I’d been following for that long, emotional morning.
I folded the paper with love until a perfectly formed aeroplane was in my tiny, shaking hands.
Exhausted, but determined, I ran to the highest point in the yard.
I carefully scanned the sky to locate the prettiest cloud.
I kissed the paper wings softly.
I took careful aim at my chosen cloud, before closing my eyes as tight as humanly possible.
I made a wish.
I threw my aeroplane towards the sky.
I held my breath…
My Nanna never got the pleading messages contained within the folds of my aeroplanes; begging her to come back home, begging her to give me a hug, begging her to not leave me… because they never reached Heaven.
A very small part of me reflects on that day and smiles – maybe at the simplicity of my thinking – but, for the most part, I so vividly remember the gut wrenching pain. I was so hurt, so confused, so angry and so devastated.
Twenty-three years on, I’ve still never felt the heartbreak that I felt that day. For that, I am grateful.
DN
My little girl is sitting, reading beside me. "I'm up to page 21" she tells me proudly "theres not really that many words on each page though…" she holds up her book and shows me the pages. "Thats ok sweets." I reply "Its not the number of words, its the story thats important"
I read to her always when she was a baby, then a toddler, then a small girl. She's getting bigger, and more smart and beautiful every day. She reads to herself now. She doesn't need me anymore, the words are not mysterious wiggles anymore, the meanings make themselves clear to her without my explanations.
I love that I have given her that gift – the gift of stories. Somewhere to escape to when this world is too harsh or too sad or too *much* somehow. For all my failings as a mother, I feel somewhat redeemed knowing that I've given her that.
I headed off to the shops today and this little cute dog was circling my feet looking really happy. So I went down to pat it and instantly it decided to growl at me. I got frightened and decided to walk on to the supermarket.
This little story, thinking about it now, made me see that things aren't what they seem.