Storyteller
Being a young writer is difficult; there is so much I want to learn! I wanna do my own thing, but I also want to learn how others write. Not because I wanna mimic them; Nah, I want to see how they craft, so I know how to enhance my own ways of writing. It’s the desire to be inspired by someone else’s art that keeps me on my toes and my heart open to the blessing of developing myself through their eyes.
Thinking about skills, I find it uniquely musing how other people story-tell. Let me be upfront before I get to the meat and potatoes; many ways of writing don’t have that inherent storytelling element through and through. I don’t think that the instructional manual for my laptop has that rising action and climax I need. Then again, that’s my view, and someone else could good case for it. Maybe, the truth of the universe lies within page 56 of how to turn on your $5,000 microwave oven. All it could take is some savant desiring to make something that manual, and BAM! The meaning of life before has been revealed. Huzzah!
But I digressed; storytelling is something that I work on dedicatedly. My fascination for telling stories derives from those my family and friends have been telling me all time. I want to know how they do it, and their technique and unique flow are all the time. And I know my desire to see this part of them comes from a place of admiration and love. From there, I wish to honor and appreciate them by finding my own way of crafting narratives.
And I’ll be honest: it’s challenging to want to do your way. It’s hard because I wanna do it in a way that gets me recognition and respect from other people. However, this desire to derive my self-worth from the eyes of critics has hampered my love for writing. The reason is that I’m not staying true to what I need to share out with the world. Heck, I be making myself palpable for someone else. That doesn’t sit well with me, and I feel that way because I want to express my voice authentically just as much as I want to witness others in the same light.
This, to me, is beautiful because a genuine connection with others can be made here. That we can bridge ourselves together not out of judgment but out of natural curiosity. I want to know and accept you just as much I want you to do for me. My feel is that we can cultivate an understanding for each other to allow our love to blossom fully in appreciative admiration for each other.
This is authentic storytelling, the art of bearing witness to each other unedited, is the place where real spiritual growth can occur. Because we can then see each other fully and push each other to rise to our divine potential. And that’s a beautiful way to live and write; we are going beyond wanting to just express and be suitable to committedly desire each other to be ourselves.
So, I accept that our voice already matters; I’m working towards a place of giving within my writing. This place would be somewhere within me where my soul etches itself to the surface, allowing for my lovely vulnerability to say what I need to say. In other words, I work on being myself both on-page and in-person. From here, I only wish to inspire the people I love to be themselves too and share their stories. My faith derives from all of us having a seat near the campfire and that we can all give time and space to intently listen to each other. When I write and storytell, this is my life goal; I have faith that our stories are worthy of being told and heard so that we can lay the path for others to follow.
This endeavor to create and share my narrative is an honor I wish to live up to. I wanna do right because of I-the son of working-class, Brown, Mexican Immigrants-wants to their stories too. I want to uplift my voice simultaneously for my community, family, and friends. I like their voices do not get lost due to them or myself not fitting that cookie mold.
Because at the end of the day, we choose to make our lives and those of others matter when we share and be listened to Nuestros Cuentos y historias. And I ask you, my reader, to look into yourself, and see that beautiful story that I and anyone hear both needs and love to hear. All of our voices matter; how will you tell it, and why will you tell it? Those are the questions we need to ask…
