i feel like each month, each week, and sometimes each day in the past year has grown in me a deeper love for stories. at some point along the way in J-school i remember having an epiphany about what it was i was really learning to do: tell stories. not a particular craft or trade or manner of handling expensive equipment or acquiring a title buoyed by accolades. those were cobwebs of what it really was, what i was becoming: a storyteller.
the mediums change. sometimes the methods change (though perhaps less often). words, still and moving pictures, ink and dye, rhythms and melodies — they're all speaking to greater truths. sometimes you need many in combination to express it fully.
we're all innately storytellers, but that inherent part of human nature, that desire to convey, to impart, to pass on through stories, can be developed, just as compassion, respect, honor, peace, and love can be developed.
the way i've felt more and more pressed towards stories in the last year has been through so many people in my life who share the same passion. one of those is courtney, who graduated from J-school with me last may. she did something brave and stayed in our college town to pursue storytelling there. i was one of the many who wasn't satisfied with staying and ran away in search of other opportunities. however, courtney has done a beautiful thing: the stories she has been able to find and tell in her year+ of being in chapel hill have often moved me and have always challenged me to pay more attention, look closer, observe what others can't see. she does this in every area of her life, not just her professionally. i think sometimes i get tired of trying to figure out how to tell a good story, but it's so second nature to courtney that she does it with the loveliest ease, even on vacation.
http://courtney-potter.com/2010/09/carmel-by-the-sea/
other inspirations these days:
the selected works of t.s. spivet
to be told —> (warning: this book will shake up your life)