Everybody's Talkin'

 I come from a family of storytellers. My father was perhaps chief among us, but we all at times carried the talking stick wide and high. It was part of my dad's job, as a salesman, to carry on conversations that might eventually lead back to the subject of his business: printing. I like to believe that he was never a blowhard, or too over-the-top. He was a raconteur. He could talk a gate off its hinges. When he had a mind to. Interestingly enough, at my wedding he gave my wife and I this advice: "Shut up and listen."

Considering my upbringing, this was a tad ironic. Sitting around our dinner table was an exercise in control. It was important to time your bites such that it never interfered with your opportunity to jump in on the conversation. It helped that we had the dress rehearsal earlier that afternoon when we came home from school and mom would ask us about our day at school over a glass of Kool-Aid. We had a chance to polish up our best five to ten minutes there in anticipation of that moment when, between forkfuls, we held the floor. This heightened level of attention was not always fair, at times we completely shut down my younger brother. This resulted in him being recognized as "the quiet one," so much so that I had friends in high school who were not sure if he could speak. 

Which turned out to be fine, since he has been making up for all that quiet time over the past twenty plus years. Without that steady competition for the spotlight, he has been able to carve out quite a nice corner of the storytelling frontier. And my sainted mother, who watched the show and made the dinners and poured the Kool Aid, turns out she can spin a tale with the best of them. Turns out she was just a lot more polite about it. 

Which is why I sometimes wonder, as I make my own way through this field of potential audience, if I am not merely prattling on because no one feels comfortable telling me to shut up. Is it possible that I am that entertaining or that my stories are so compelling that no one wants to interrupt? Or am I monopolizing what could be a pleasant two-way interaction? 

At this moment the ridiculousness of me asking this question in the midst of my daily monologue is paramount. Of course you could leave a comment, suggesting that I shut up, or perhaps you have your own story that you'd like to tell. But that's not the nature of this exchange, is it? 

Then there's the matter of my son. The young man who, upon hearing me going on during a Zoom meeting recently about some experience from my youth, shouted from across the room, "Hey, why don't you tell them about the time you jumped the family station wagon into the middle of oncoming traffic?" Which gave me two chances to reflect: First, have I told my son enough of my stories that he has internalize them along with his own? Secondly, is it now my son's avocation to prompt me to keep the stream of chatter going? I know he has his own style, and now we have our own kitchen roundtables with mom and dad and son vying for the mic. I am still carrying around a few stories from my parents, and I know that the gift of once upon a time has been bestowed upon my little boy. No one will mistake him for the quiet one. Every day is a new opportunity to make a new story.