I thought very long and hard about this prompt. I have a lot of half-finished drafts that focus on writing. I say things like “Oh writing is my greatest love”, and “Writing is the one thing I can’t live without” but that’s not quite true. Of course, I love writing. I can’t sleep most nights unless I put at least a few words on paper, but it’s not the act of writing that I love. It’s storytelling.
The writing is just a medium for the soul-deep desire to spin a tale that will rivet and inspire. In the same way that I’m pulled to make art or speak, I’m drawn to create. It feels a little cliche to say in a storytelling class that my passion is storytelling, but I’m not here to be revolutionary. I’m here to be honest.
I have always loved stories. Reading, writing, watching. I’m in love with every part of our human desire to share all kinds of things with one another. Even just sharing our boring day-to-day thoughts is so exciting to me. I want to hear about your breakfast order, about how the cook at the Bodega lovingly fried the egg and toasted the bread for your baconeggandcheese. I want to hear about how nicely it was folded. How warm it was on the cold, cold new York City day (a commodity now) and how that warmth brought you to life. I’m obsessed with how you take your tea, no cream and two sugars. The smile you shared with the cashier as they wished you “a nice day mami”.
Our lives are all made up of these tiny stories that don’t feel like stories. We all forget how precious the small things are because we don’t speak of them. We save the relaying of our tales for things that seem important. The scholarship we won or the date we went on. The job interview we aced or dinners with our zany families. Something that feels big and meaningful, when it’s all meaningful.
One of my favorite storytellers is Hayao Miyazaki. He’s most known for his animation, filmmaking, and being one of the founders of Studio Ghibli. Through writing, animation, and a hundred other shared artworks, he, along with his team, creates a story that’s not afraid to linger on the minutiae.
The delightful sweetness of a cup of warm milk and honey on a rainy day.
The heat of a fire in the hearth of a house full of your loved ones.
The solitude of the view from your work desk window as you toil away on some repetitive task.
All of those small things make up the full story. The fantastical elements and high stakes are not more valuable than the small everyday things in this life. Rather, the stakes are so high because you have to protect those things. The journey to slay the dragon has urgency because you want to take walks with your grandmother or enjoy your afternoon tea at your window. You want to have lunch on Wednesdays with your best friend. Don’t you?
And even if you do, in fact, crave adventure and passion, it is made up of all those small pieces. Every day isn’t a fight to the death. You won’t find yourself battling day in and day out for over fifty years. This is not how the battle is won. You must bathe and eat, and connect with your comrades.
Maybe you will receive a letter from home and return one in kind.
You will wash your clothes and scold your companion for not packing correctly.
You will light a fire at your camp, you will fish in the stream, and, perhaps most importantly, you will dream.
Miyazaki’s work perfectly captures these feelings. The small gives value to the large and vice versa.
His storytelling feels like looking into a mirror of my vision for my work. I love the big conflicts, to portray those titanic battles between good and evil, right and wrong. But it also makes me so happy to show the joy people feel in the in-between moments. Just being with each other. Darning your sock because it has a hole in it and you can’t defeat Thanos unless you patch it. Kissing your aunt on the cheek just because you love her and, well, isn’t that why you’re fighting? To protect the people you love?
I hope that I’ll be able to further share my passion for storytelling with the world one day.
