Happy Birthday Grandma Marge

Depending on how you know me and what you know about me -- it's very likely that you'll know one of the following things:

1. I'm something of a social constructionist

2. I'm a bookworm

3. I'm a "theater person"

4. I'm a debater

But the center -- the core -- of what makes each of these things true about me is this:

I love stories.

And further:

I believe that stories make people. I believe that story-ing is the fundamental human process.

And I have to pay a great debt of gratitude to my Grandma Marge for this value.

I'm pretty sure she wouldn't call herself a social constructionist, but she's been telling stories for the last thirty three years, and given her skill, she's been doing it a lot longer.

She grew up on a farm in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, her family having descended from William Brewster from the Mayflower and more recently from Kaiser Wilhelm.

Half the stories she knows (and that's a "half" based on the ethos of hyperbole) she learned by peering through the register in her bedroom floor and listening to the goings on below.

She had a lot of uncles who broke the heart of their mother and her mother alike, but the drama of their lives unfolding through the register made my grandma marge a keen observer of human nature and a natural relayer of human conflict, motivation and resolution.

I don't want to tell too many of her stories here, because she's still writing her own book of stories -- Through The Register. She has an amazing authorial voice where she has an ability to condense a whole world of human action into a quick sentence. Her stories are often told quickly, but there's always a hundred layers and nuances in each one.

But I do want to honor that its her birthday and i want to affirm that the stories she's passed on to me, feel as visceral and warm as the afghans, sweaters, & mittens she's made for me. They feel like they constitute me. And since this activity which combines: history and making and imagination and drama and performance and humor and tragedy -- is the one activity that i'm most devoted to in the world....

I wanted to tell you a little bit about her.

Peace~