One fall weekend every year, thousands of silver-haired couples descend on the oldest town in the state of Tennessee, crowd into five enormous circus tents, and listen to hour after hour of nothing but stories.
Of course, the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough isn’t exclusive to the older crowd, but that’s definitely the demographic that embraces it most. As a 23-year-old writer, I was ecstatic to be in attendance with them this year, partly owing to the fact that hardly anyone my age gives a damn about it. But to ten thousand people, this is the biggest thing to give a damn about each year. It’s their Bonnaroo.
And although there are similarities between a storytelling festival and a music festival from the outside, they quickly diverge once you’re inside a tent. Why? Because you can’t carry on a conversation with your friends while you listen to a story. You can’t get lost in background music. You can’t tune out for a while and pick back up whenever you like.
With storytelling, there is only a person and a microphone, in front of 2,000 people sitting in uncomfortable folding chairs for an hour at a time. With storytelling, the art isn’t created by a soundscape. It’s inside the words coming through the speakers, and if the audience isn’t listening the whole time, they’ll never know what the world was like.
The storytellers know how precious a gift that listening is, too. All weekend, every teller mentions how great the Jonesborough crowd is. Everyone comes just to listen, they say. And it’s true – the audience is captive, hung on every word. The reactions are big and varied. Couples traveled from literally all over the country, and parts of the world, to be there. They’re invested. They beg for the smallest reason to laugh, to gasp, to cringe – to respond.
It’s an amazing display of the power of listening.
Among the storytellers, it’s common knowledge that a good storyteller is fundamentally a good listener. That might not sound like a deep truth, but I think it might actually be – especially when compared to other parts of life.
In our industry, you can’t be a good designer if you don’t already pay attention to the world around you.
In any industry, or in life itself, you can’t be a good leader if you’re not first a good follower.
In terms of family, you can’t be a good father if you refuse to heed wisdom from older men.
Or to say it thematically, you can only inspire actions you’ve already practiced.
To return to listening, Storyteller Kathryn Windham maybe said it best, although she didn’t say it first – “God gave you two ears and one mouth, and He expected you to use them in that proportion.”
I heard the audio clip of Miss Kathryn’s shaky, comforting, wonderful old voice delivering that sentiment as I prepared to go to the Festival and was hypnotized by her gift.
Miss Kathryn actually passed away only a few months before this year’s festival, in June, at the age of 93. She was a master of her craft and a dear friend and mentor to every storyteller at the festival – and many in the audience – and much of the festival was spent remembering her, as teller after teller shared stories about listening to Miss Kathryn.
Listening to her, and reflecting on the weekend, it makes sense why the older crowd is more oriented toward storytelling than anyone else. While we’re young, life is about listening for only as long as it takes to get what we need from someone. We’re too busy going, doing, moving, and building to give a gift as rare as our time – to truly listen to anyone else.
It’s generally the older crowd that has learned that what counts is what is shared, that stories hold more wisdom than any tricks of a trade, and that we can actually save a lot of time by listening to what others have to say before we try exactly what they did.
Here’s a clip of Miss Kathryn from last year’s festival (her last), about life lessons and the power of listening.
http://www.youtube.com/user/StorytellingFestival#p/a/u/0/QQEI6j9DS3Q
