what’s the story, man. errr, woman.

It’s one of those rare days, yesterday, that’s filled with all of my favorite things.

Well, nearly everything. Driving ‘round and ‘round to find the destination is no barrel of monkeys. I do eventually arrive, late, fired up and frustrated.

Collapsed into the door frame, I’m welcomed by a stranger, a mother bear of a goddess who commisserates for her own distressed travels. In just those 10 seconds of embrace, her rotund figure and pillowy bosom soak up my stress like sponges.

Drained of half my tensions, I then take my seat at the table in the library’s conference room to join the women’s writing storytelling circle.

I’m not a group person, neither a joiner, so it takes something pretty special to entice me in, especially in the early morning hour of a Saturday.

It’s the second circle meeting (I missed the first last month) so all faces are new, all voices unfamiliar. Our prompt last month is: Who Was I at Age 10 (20, 30, 40, 50 …)

Today’s the opportunity to hear who each of us in this donut’s dozen was at the chosen age/decade. Each story is well written, to varying degrees, and fairly well delivered. You can learn a lot about a person by how s/he speaks. In the first go-round, it’s clear who has leadership abilities, who is mid-range and who is passive or submissive.

I hear about learning to read and write again at an adult age. About marriages made on others’ expectations that eventually entrap. About having a child with a disability. About veering away from the Mormon cult. About youthful steamy indiscretions. About the sanctuary found in nature.

My story, if assigned a central theme, would be a house, from 23 years back.

“I’ve a gift for spaces and places … highly sensitive to their vibrations and environments,” I tell one woman who as the circle disbands steps forward to share that she enjoyed the piece. She could identify. And like me, in adulthood, the longest she’s lived in one residence is five years. (around 1-1/2 is my norm.)

That’s the thing about stories: Each stands alone, as unique and inviolate as the breath drawn by one’s own lungs. And each, in some eventual time or space, is connected by some common thread … be it an old drafty house, an entrapping marriage, encounters of lust, smothering judgmental mothers …

The prompt for the October circle: Beginnings. I can hardly wait to hear what was her beginning … and hers … and hers. Links in a chain of stories encircling the world. That is human existence.

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