At the radio station where I work we are pretty fond of stories. We want everyone to have a chance to tell their stories, and to be heard. There is a special feeling that we get when someone shares a story with us, especially a true story that impacted their life in a profound way. So at a local festival we set up a booth with a microphone and a recorder in hopes that people would stop by and tell us their stories, or at least answer some thoughtful questions we happily provided.
The problem is that people are generally more than happy to share stories if they are NOT being recorded. The moment you ask someone to record their story, they take a step back and get squeamish, like the microphone might inflict a poisonous bite. I even had friends of mine begin to tell me really great stories as a natural part of conversation but as soon as I said "hey, you should let me record that story" the magic disappeared, and they looked at me like I was being a total dick. One guy told me that he couldn't record a story because "Uncle Sam had done things to him" and it might get him into trouble. Uh huh.
This went on all day, although a few brave souls did let us record really wonderful stories about how they met their spouses, falling through the ice while ice skating as a child, and even one animated story about a Backstreet Boys concert. But for everyone that was willing to record a story, 20 others practically ran away from that hideous microphone. Clearly, the world is not ready to have their stories recorded, even with the assurance that they would not be broadcast on the radio. Which just made me wonder how Story Corps and The Moth got so goddamn popular.
But then, just before the rains came and we had to break everything down and call it a day, a timid Navajo woman approached our booth. Defeated, I just smiled and let her explore the papers and pamphlets, but my booth partner asked her "do you want to record a story?". OK, she said, and I sprang into action as she positioned herself in front of the much-maligned microphone.
What happened next was amazing. She proceeded to tell us about a paper her daughter had written for a college class about the labels we give to people, and in particular about the labels that people give to all Native Americans based on the "drunk Indians" in the city park. That on the reservation the aunts and grandmothers never drink, and that we should go and visit them to see for ourselves. She ended her story by telling us that her daughter died in 1989, her voice and our hearts breaking at the same moment.
All it took was one story by a woman who lost her daughter for me to resolve to always ask people to share their stories. I'll ask a thousand times to get just one story that matters.
