New Year, New Story

"I will tell you something about stories, (he said) They aren’t just entertainment. Don’t be fooled. They are all we have, you see, All we have to fight off illness and death." 

—Leslie Marmon Silko

My work with See Stories gives me the greatest privilege of traveling to amazing places and listening to stories, and watching those stories work in the hearts and minds of young people. Like most people, during the holidays I took a break from my work, which allowed me time to reflect on the power of story. I recalled Silko's Ceremony that beautifully outlines how stories can make or break us. Here is the story I told myself on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, accompanied by a beautiful sunrise...

This New Years Eve I stayed in. I watched Star Wars with my son (which embarrassingly I have never watched before),  and visited with a friend until it was time to toast the arrival of a fresh year. It occurred to me that New Year's Eve is one of the most inspiring and most pressure-filled holidays. There's the excitement of celebrating with those you love, of the sense that anything could happen with this new beginning. There is also the pressure to have a big grand time when perhaps that's not how you feel in the heart of winter, and sometimes reflection on the previous year that can come with mixed emotions. What are the stories we tell ourselves about our lives? The stories we tell ourselves about what our lives should be (in this coming year)? 

The idea of a New Year, of a fresh start, of rebirth, is as old as rocks. As humans we need to shed skins, to release the old ways and embrace the new. The Christmas story is one of birth in the heart of winter. A mosaic shows how old broken fragments can transform into something beautiful. In Greek Mythology Persephone goes to the underworld and comes back up in cycles. Each day brings the freshness of new potential, each baby born the promise that humanity can evolve and deepen. This is a beautiful and essential part of human existence. These are the stories that nourish and shape us, day after day, year after year. 

However, there's a cruel little trick we play on ourselves as we narrate our own story. Instead of gracefully releasing whatever has outgrown it's purpose, we shame ourselves for being the "wrong" way, and try to write a long list of all the things we want to be different about ourselves. New year's resolutions. I am not against new years resolutions by any means, but the idea that we start a fresh beginning thinking of all the ways we would like to be different can be dangerous. The obvious risk is that we don't make the changes and then have yet another thing to mentally beat ourselves up for. 

My quiet New Year's Eve celebration made me realize that New Year's Eve is like any other night. The sun sets, and it rises. Life moves forward. What makes it special and different is the stories we tell ourselves around it, our regrets and hopes, of whatever skin we are ready or not ready to shed. This year I would rather make a list of all the stories I love and cherish about myself. Some of those stories may have outgrown their time, and I will let them go, but with love.

If I am to make one New Year's Resolution, it would be to embrace my own stories and to practice that in my work as I witness the stories of youth, elders, and communities. Instead of trying to fix myself or to help others through leading film workshops and doing community work, I would rather just sit with the stories and let them work their magic.  

Happy New Year!