It’s coming together!
I osculate between two emotions, the first of which I’ll delineate for you bellow.
HtS is going to be huge. To the thirty-plus of you who showed up last night, I hope the hipster cred takes you far. Next year you can be all like, “Pffft, of course I know about HtS? I basically invented that shit.”
The second emotion is one more acute, and more complicated. After a show I can’t help but be shocked as to all the things I do wrong: the little awkward quips that stick in my head, the missed beats, and nervous jitters. I don’t know how apparent it was to the majority, but as one guest was leaving he kindly quipped, “Take care of that cold.” That sort of thing, I’ll always review in an attempt to do better work next time.
But there was a particular musing I wish to explore with you now.
There was a man who came early hoping to see The King and I, but was coaxed into staying for our show by Nathan. In that moment of, “Well yes, I guess I’ll stay,” there was a glimmer I feared acknowledging.
Janna had been talking about stories, being open, and how people get the stories they came for even if they didn’t know they were coming for a specific story. That idea appealed to me, appealed to me in a way against my nature. I don’t believe in magic. But when this guy said yes, my heart made a little move, one my cynicism couldn’t stop, and it said, “He’ll tell the story you need.”
I became nervous because I wanted it to be true. I wanted his story to be my magic moment, but I didn’t want to mess it up like a birthday wish spoken aloud. So I rush up and tip my hat or do a crazy meet and great glad handing and . . . at the end of the show he left without having told a story.
When I told Janna about this she said, “Yeah, I remember him. I was really glad he came. Sorry he didn’t tell your story though . . . maybe he’ll come again and tell one next time?” She also said she thought the night was pretty magic even so, because so many people told so many good stories, and so many people got to just listen and enjoy. “And the thing is, we did what we set out to do, to make a place where people could tell or not tell if they wanted to. We trusted people and they trusted themselves. We got to be there for that.” And I think now, that’s the story I needed to hear.
*
There are a million things I want to talk about and recap but for now, I’ll just say thank you for telling stories and trusting yourselves. I hope everyone had a good time and I suspect I’ll see a lot of you next month. Oh-oh-oh! We love feedback and we want the website to be a place where, if you’re so inclined, you can just post comments about the shows. So like, if you wanted to say hi to someone, or tell them how much you loved their story, or you wanted to relate a story that related to a story that was told 3 stories prior and so you didn’t get a chance, well–the comments below are good place to do it. Ahhh, thanks for coming and always remember it’s an invite everybody event!
