Translated…
I’d shared the stories in the early mornings at the schools with the kids for, fourteen years on end now, compared to how good at storytelling I’d become to my former days, the first time I’d stood there, on the podium, telling the kids a story, there was this, sharp contrast.
this, was how it got started…
The moment I walked in, the cheers of the kids, and their expectant gazes of the stories I would tell that day, stole my heart away, it’d made me feel braver than ever, I was also, prepared to get up on stage, to tell the stories. But, things didn’t go as planned, the second from before I stepped on, and the second after I’d stepped onto the podium, I felt myself, shaking like a leaf, I can’t even, steady myself, what, am I to do?
I’d become, aware of how nervous I was feeling, then, I’d had an idea, I’d told the kids, “Can I, sit with you guys, and tell the story?”, and, out of my expectations, they’d love this closer interaction than I’d expected, and, I’d treated them all as my own children, and, managed my first time as a storytelling mom on edge.
how it’d become…
The second day, as I’d stepped into the classroom, the chairs are already placed in a semi-circle, the kids had set up the classroom like that, and, they’d surrounded me, it’d made me feel, so heartwarming.
These early morning hours I’d spent with the children, using the stories, to keep us all connected, and now, a lot of the kids I’d told the stories to are all grown, for instance, Yuan-Li who was from a single-parent home, is now, working at a super convenience store, to make his own tuition, he said to me, “Story mom, do you still recall that story you’d told called ‘Home’? Now, I will use my own two hands, and built a home, just as warm as in your stories!”, Shu-Li who is apprenticing at a bakery told me, that being a baker is her dream, and she’d hoped to bake the breads, to help feed the children who are from poverty stricken home environments, like in the stories she’d heard me told.
Seeing how the kids are all, working hard for their futures, along with the positive state of mind that they received, from the stories I’d told them, every single trying moment was, more than worth it, I want to tell the children, “Thank you all, you are the ones, who’d offered me the strengths, to keep telling the stories, and I will, keep on, telling the amazing tales, and, you guys will become, the main characters in the stories I will be telling from here on out.”
not my photograph…
This, is the inspiration that someone receives, and this “gift” happens both ways, because not only the listeners benefited from the stories, the storyteller too, took something away from the experience of interacting with these children that she’d told the stories to.