Learning from other people's stories

At the Unitarian church my family attends, this past Sunday was the special day that the first graders receive their Bibles – illustrated versions designed especially for kids their age. 

The minister addressed in very simple terms the relevance of the Bible to the Unitarian Universalist faith, which has no written creed. She told them that the Bible contains stories about things that happened to people in the past and stories about how people lived. She explained that unlike some faiths, Unitarians don’t see the Bible as an instructional manual telling us what to do but rather a reference for us to learn about choices and actions committed to by other people.

It occurred to me as she explained it that this is really the value of almost all stories, whether fiction or nonfiction. I have often thought that biographies, memoirs and novels generally have far more impact than self-help books on readers like me. In a way, it’s a bit of a paradox. In order to make compelling literature, each character – whether actual, historical or fictional – needs to have a unique story. 

And yet in order to have meaning, stories must be universal, must have some element that resonates with any reader. So the goal of good story-telling, fictional or nonfictional, is to be able to home in on these universal elements while also telling a story we haven’t heard before in just those same words or under just those same circumstances or with just that same outcome.

My father, who taught English for 40 years, recently told me about a high school junior who marveled over a character in a novel she was reading for class, “That’s just how I feel! But I didn’t know anyone else felt that way!” My father told me that to him, she seemed a little bit old to be making this discovery for the first time; most readers discern this aspect of literature when they are still children. But in fact, most readers have this experience again and again, and for some of us it feels new each time.

When I interview article subjects or memoir clients, I look for what is unique in their story but also what will resonate most with readers. Unsympathetic characters are just less interesting than those with whom we have some small element, however small, in common. As our minister said, Bible stories tell us what happened – whether historically accurate or not – to other people and give us ideas about how to live (or how not to live) our own lives. So do novels, biographies, and memoirs. From each person’s experience, we derive common experiences. And from each character’s lessons, be they fictional or nonfictional, we all learn.

A very simple rule of thumb

Back home after a 3-day weekend in Maine, I briefly contemplated the story I needed to file for the Globe, the emails to be answered, the ticket form to fill out for Tim’s graduation, the popsicles to procure for Holly’s Field Day, and the camp registrations for both kids due in tomorrow’s mail, and then invoked what I call Gayle’s Rule for Returning Home: Always unpack before sundown.

Well, that may be a slightly romanticized version of Gayle’s rule, which I don’t think actually involves the solar calendar per se but merely states that you should always unpack before bedtime on the day you return from a trip.

And in fact, I don’t think Gayle herself even considers it a rule. But I do. For me, ever since I heard about it, it’s been a fundamental practice for self-organization.

Gayle was my sister’s college roommate, and my sister happened to mention a few years ago that she remembers being impressed at how no matter how late in the day Gayle might breeze in from the airport or how full her suitcase might be, she always unpacked right away. I was so intrigued by this basic notion that I emailed Gayle right away to ask about its origins. Was it something her parents had required when she was young? Did everyone in her family follow this tenet?

Gayle responded that she really hadn’t given it much thought. It was just something she always did and never really considered it a fundamental practice.

For me, it was just one of those times when a habit someone else takes for granted becomes something worth emulating. Until that moment, my typical practice had always been to consider unpacking a low priority. A suitcase could sit in the corner of my bedroom for days, its rumpled contents untouched. 

Eventually, when I needed something that was buried at the bottom of the suitcase, or when I was getting ready to do laundry, I’d get around to unpacking. Or at least partially unpacking. The rest of the job might go undone even longer, for weeks sometimes. Possibly, if I was feeling really busy, I might even wait until the next time I needed the suitcase.

But Gayle’s notion stuck in my head as a simple way to make homecomings more organized, to cut down even if only ever so slightly on the frazzle that often comes with the end of a trip. This weekend was a perfect example. I felt swamped by the number of little tasks, work deadlines, and matters of administrivia that awaited me.

But I unpacked my suitcase, and the whole situation somehow looked brighter. No bag of dirty clothes in the corner of my room: surely that proved I couldn’t be quite as disorganized as all that if I’d managed to accomplish that singular task.

Several years ago, there was a popular website called The Fly Lady, in which a guru of personal organization and housekeeping disseminated wisdom: her standard rule was to clean the kitchen sink every day. And Gretchen Rubin, author of “The Happiness Project,” writes that the single most popular tactic developed in her book, according to feedback from her readers, is to make the bed every day.

I still have deadlines and tasks awaiting me, and they won’t go away on their own. Gradually I need to tackle them all. But I still maintain that Gayle’s Rule is a fine approach. Put away those clothes and toiletries. Maybe even start a load of laundry. And somehow the rest starts to fall into place.

Determination, persistence, Tennessee Williams, and a stuck kitchen drawer

Dusty, cramped, and with an unutterable sense of triumph, I crawled out of the cabinet.

Rick said it couldn’t be done. And when it comes to questions of mechanical engineering – or really anything related to spatial relations, hardware, or infrastructure – I defer to his expertise. That’s the kind of stuff he knows. And I don’t.

But in this case, I couldn’t accept the idea that a drawer in our kitchen could never be opened again. 

Four days earlier, I’d unloaded the dishwasher and filled that particular drawer with its customary inventory of square baking pans, cake pans, loaf pans, and pie plates. Yes, it was fairly full, but not overly stuffed. There was a place for everything and it all fit together efficiently, if a little bit snugly.

At least that’s what I thought until I closed the drawer. Somehow, and I still can’t explain quite how, when the drawer closed, it knocked a cake pan off-kilter. The edge of the cake pan wedged against the inside of the drawer, making the drawer impossible to open more than a fraction of an inch.

And it did seem to be an intractable problem. Even though we could still open the drawer a fraction of an inch,  just wide enough to fit in an implement like a spatula or a butter knife, there was no place for any of the items to go. Nothing would budge. Especially not the item wedged against the edge of the drawer, keeping it from opening.

The situation bothered me in part because it made me feel like a character in a Tennessee Williams play. Kitchen Drawer Forever Stuck Shut, no matter how often family members yank at it and curse it, its contents forever denied to even the owners of those very same contents. Along with the paper lantern over the bare lightbulb in Streetcar Named Desire and the fragile figurine in Glass Menagerie, the broken drawer just seemed to be shouting its symbolism. This family has a drawer that won’t open! What do you suppose that might mean about them?

But the drawer also had all my baking pans, and life without baking just isn’t an option in our household.

I couldn’t take no for an answer. Opening the drawer a fraction and sticking things in – a butter knife, a frosting spatula, a metal skewer, a screwdriver, a wire coat hanger, a pie server – didn’t help at all. Above the drawer was immovable countertop, and the front panel of the drawer didn’t have any screws to loosen or any way of being removed either.

For four days, whenever I had a few minutes to spare, I contemplated the drawer. Or stuck things into it, or rattled it. But to no avail. Rick’s prediction seemed accurate; nothing was going to change the situation.

Finally it dawned on me. The front of the drawer didn’t open enough to be of any help, but if the front was moving, then by an obvious law of physics, the back of the drawer had to be moving as well, didn’t it?

I emptied out all the pots and pans from the cabinet underneath the drawer and crawled into it. Then I told my daughter to pull the drawer forward as far as she could, and I found I could just barely slip my fingers up through the back of the drawer. Just enough to inch the pans I could touch a tiny bit farther back.

Which meant Holly could then inch the items at the front of the drawer a tiny bit farther back as well. Not enough to nudge the offending pan loose, but enough that we could then open the drawer a tiny bit farther. And reaching from the back again, I could lift the items farthest back in the drawer over the top and down into the cabinet.

In less than a minute, the job was done. The drawer was open, the pesky cake pan freed. I crawled out of the cabinet and crowed immodestly.

“This is the most proud I have ever been of myself!” I said.

“Really? More than when you got into college?” Holly asked.

Yes, because my college wasn’t that hard to get into, I thought to myself, but didn’t want to set a bad example by making my kids think that cake pans were more important than college, so I backpedaled a little. “Well, getting into college is important too, but this is amazing!” I said. “I actually fixed something!”

Tennessee Williams and heavy-handed symbolism aside, that was the bottom line for me. I’d persisted. I’d figured out that the key was to forget about the parts that don’t move; find the moving part and figure out how to leverage it. And I’d followed a gut feeling that despite what more mechanically inclined people told me, somehow there was a way to fix this.

I’d like to think that even in my mid-40’s, I’m not too old to draw life lessons when they hit me over the head. Don’t give up. Believe in your convictions. Think outside the box. Don’t put all your faith in naysayers. Try and try again.

Okay, maybe the messages I’m taking from it are a little heavy-handed after all. Maybe the symbolism of the story is too obvious even for Tennessee Williams. But it was worth it to me. I surprised myself with a rare moment of mechanical aptitude. It was more exciting than getting into college. And now I think I’ll bake a cake to celebrate. Using every single one of my (only slightly dented) cake pans.