stories

 Most days, Lucy will ask me, “Shel, can you tell a story?”

She just means anything. Retell any moment from my life - funny, crazy, gross, scary, touching - and “start from the beginning.” 

Like how I once sat on a fire ant hill. 

Or when I broke my arm at a friend’s birthday party. 

Or when my friend and I carried a deck railing all the way down to the forest to make a ladder into a big tree. 

Or when my sister and I became convinced our beanie babies were alive. 

Or the time we made a blueberry milkshake and spilled it all over the kitchen right before mom got home. 

Or when I ate insanely hot chicken wings at college with Vaseline all over my face. 

A lot of the favorite stories are from when I was in China. 

Like the time four of us rode on a motorcycle along the Yellow River. 

Or how I used to always shower in the public showers. 

Or when I spent two days trying to find the post office. 

Or how the subway would get so packed with people that when it started no one could get their arms up so we all just fell on each other and righted ourselves as the subway gained speed. 

Or how Wednesdays at Dandelion School meant a chicken wing with rice and spicy paste, my favorite meal. 

Or how I slept in a mosquito net and couldn’t sleep if I heard that high pitched buzzing anywhere near me. 

It’s made me realize just how much I have stored up in me, a wealth of adventures and experiences already. 

It’s made me realize how most of these stories weren’t really “stories” as they were happening, they were just moments. Just another day. Something I never knew I’d be retelling dramatically across the kitchen island.

And that makes me think about the “stories” that I’m living out right now, stories we’ll be telling for years to come. 

I like living that way.