Storytelling

Tuesday, August 11, 1998

I had dinner tonight at my sister's house. This was another part of the continuing festival celebrating the 51st birthday of A---, my film festival buddy. He is also a family friend of my sister and brother-in-law, which is how I met him many years ago.

The food was good! Some salmon, simply baked, some brown rice mixed with mild salsa to give a spanish rice effect, and salad. My sister had asked me to bring the cake, so I bought a "Mud pie" ice cream cake at the newly reopened local Safeway. During the meal, my nephew J--- told us the tale of hiking all over Tiger Mountain. He does have a good way of telling a story, and got very dramatic while recounting the episode where four of the six children of the trip went right into the stinging nettles. It was just good luck that he avoided this hazard himself. His younger brother B---- wasn't so fortunate, but was proud to show us where his hand had been stung by the nettles. There was even a happy ending to this section of the tale, since J--- and his friend had remembered that fern juice (is this true? I thought it was jewelweed!) counteracts the nettles, found some ferns, and squeezed them over the unfortunate victims.

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Al, acting as guest moderator and facilitator on the journals mailing list (not the same as diary-l), has been asking some good questions! Today he was asking us about reactions to our journals that have pleased us or moved us or angered us. This prompted me to dig back in my "diary people" mail folder, where I save both correspondence with diary folks and feedback that I get in relation to this journal.

The reverberations from being rejected from a certain webring are still being felt in this journal, over a year later! So that was definitely a journal reaction that hit me hard.

The reaction I've got that made me the most proud was related to entries written at the beginning of August, a year ago. I was corresponding with someone and commented on him acting as caregiver to his mother, since I did the same thing for my parents for a year and a half. Prompted by our letters, I wrote "The Summer of a Dormouse" and "The Scythe of Death". They were tough to write, but worth doing. And even if that person's praise was a bit hyperbolic ("the most moving thing I have ever read on the Web") I was proud to get it!

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