Coming Soon: The Further Adventures of Steff

Storytelling is a passion. When telling stories is your thing, there are certain elements you seek. Holding an audience’s attention. Knowing what it takes to be surprising. Understanding the language shared by those you seek to entertain, in both literal and figurative senses.

There’s something spellbinding about telling a good tale. You think it’s great hearing one, but there’s magic in the telling.

I’m a storytelling junkie. I mainline it like any dirty freak would. It feeds me, drives me, and keeps me going. It's a high I can't get enough of. One that leaves me grinning like a giddy fool when the fix comes in right.

I’m a paradox. I can work a crowd or a room like no one when I’m in the mood to do so. But I love to be alone. I keep to myself as much as I can, but when I decide to be in people’s company I drink ‘em in, but mostly, I tend to enjoy either telling a story, or simply hearing myself talk.

I enjoy a good written story, sure, and I’m proud of myself if I’m the one done the writin’, but the real heart of the beast for me is in spoken word.

I have these rare, beautiful nights when even I’m amazed at the tales I’m telling. Whew. It’s like something aligns and I’m just in a zone where everything’s got this believable, diggable vibe to it, and people are just soaked into me. It’s so fucking rare, but god. On those nights it’s like I’m my perfect self, a perfect storm of Steff, and the connections and bonds I develop with people when I’m in that place, it’s just magical. I wish I knew the combination. I wish I could be that person all the time. It’s the healthiest addiction I’ve ever had, and something noble I try to pursue.

When I lived in the Yukon, I volunteered at the Yukon Storytelling Festival. It was a June weekend, and… a sad moment just hit me and I realized I haven’t seen that t-shirt in years. Shit. The stupid things we keep, and the significant things we toss – how incongruous it all is.

I was in the Yukon, living at 702 Strickland Street, in a shitty rundown house separated into 7 different apartments. (Mine: Blue shag [I shit you not] basement suite with a shower stall only It was 11’ wide by about 32’ long, in entirety. Like a trailer. I’ll tell you about it another time.)

Tangent. I knew I wouldn’t be in the Yukon forever, so I decided to do everything I could to meet people and experience it while I was there. I volunteered everywhere I could, met tons of people, and had phenomenal experiences.

It was a June weekend when I was at the festival, I heard a series of native storytellers doing their thang. It was such a great experience. I completely forget the stories, mind you, but I certainly remember the vibe of that day. I remember looking around that tent on the river and soaking up all those rapt faces and thinking, “Why, I want to do this.”

And while I certainly need to try harder to do it in writing more often, telling stories is something I do every day of my life. I can’t help but relate stories, and they’re always slightly entertaining, but some days they’re just great. But that’s life for you. Some of the happenings are just wild, and being able to tell them in a way that’s true to the event is a pretty wonderful thing.

What a fitting time to learn a new love, too. A time that was simply one of the most amazing of my life.

And here I am, today, entering what’s bound to be a wild, wild summer, and I’m scared too much is gonna go down and my past is gonna slip further from me.

My goal now is to try and turn the Ditch into a uniquely me place. I’ll tell my stories of my experiences. If my older posts like When Friendships Die and the Legend of Tagish Elvis are your bag, well, my aspirations are to return to that. It’s arrogant perhaps to wonder if one’s about to tap into a dream or two, but I want to lay down my old stories for a couple reasons besides that.

First, I’m getting older. Who’s kidding who. 33 in seven months. Second, I’m having trouble now remembering some things from the past and it scares me. I’ve led a rich and interesting life, and to forget any of it is an insult to the experiences I’ve been blessed to enjoy. This is an active attempt to really appreciate my roots. Third, because it might be fun to remember more consciously the past that preceded The Bad Things of my mid-20s. We can forget those good memories. We’d like to think we won’t, that the bad memories are easily blocked. But happiness is a fleeting thing, and it’s an impossibility to remember. Recalling happiness is like recalling scenery in fog. You may have a very good impression, but the true essence will never be there.

So, that’s where I hope to go. To storytelling. I’m not a fiction writer, not really. Maybe one day I’ll toy with it again. I’ve had successes in flash fiction (1,000 words or less) but never the long form, and it’s the latter I wish I could do. One day.

But telling stories… I do it a lot. I don’t know why I haven’t laid down more of the great, fun experiences I’ve had in my life and I sometimes wonder if I don’t appreciate them as I should. And here we are.

Stay tuned for the Further Adventures of Steff. ;)