Artist-in-Residencing
I woke up bright and early to get in my 90 minutes of PT before heading to my first storytelling spot. This was no easy feat after a night of moonshine drinking with a couple of the park ladies wherein I heard so many details about one of their soon-to-be-ending marriages that my inner child (of divorced parents) wanted to go hide in a closet and listen to Brandy’s Have You Ever Loved Somebody on repeat for the rest of the night. Fortunately, childhood nostalgia was fulfilled in a less pathetic way as Shaniqua and I sat around trying on our host’s incredible jewelry and chatting about her boy sitch.
Armed with a pot of black tea, a few clip on lights, some blankets, fabrics (shhh!), a bottle of gatorade, and the AiR signs I printed yesterday that took the combined efforts of three of the guys from Fisheries and one from that creepy animal pelt office, I headed out to my favorite trail. Once at the Chimneys, I stationed myself at the base of a bridge a quarter-mile in and took a deep breath.
No sooner had I set up than Brian, the wonderful Park Ranger who works in the backcountry hiking office who has been answering my questions almost daily since I got here and is even lending me his hiking pack next week, passed by on his way down from the peak. He told me a story about the time he and Nick(another fine gentleman from the backcountry office) climbed to the top of Mount LeConte to fix a privy and on their way down had to administer an 18-hour S&R (Search & Rescue) on the toughest trail in the park during a torrential thunderstorm and St. Elmo’s Fire style Lighting Storm. Christ. Way to set the storytelling bar high Brian, thanks a lot.
My original plan was to offer tea and lemonade to passersby to whet their whistle and induce them to share stories with me but being rebuffed by bureaucracy, I relied on charm and my official Smokies apparel to entice people. And it worked! I met dozens of people over the course of the morning, heard a score of stories, and told a half-dozen stories of my own, some of which weren’t half bad! I had some great raw material to work with. You’d be shocked how many people hike these trails to recreate hikes they went on during their honeymoons 30–40 years prior. I even met a man who’s been coming to the park for 19 years and has yet to see a black bear. It was joyful and invigorating getting to know people and riffing on their travels and travails to create weird adventure stories.
You see, I tell stories fairly often but only to a small, select group of people. Usually it’s people that I travel with and people who already think I’m nuts. I tell stories on road trips, on hikes, by campfires, or in a dark bedroom. The kinds of stories I am naturally inclined to tell usually have a magical-realist/ghost story/otherworldly bent and a questionable ending. I love telling them but if you put me on the spot I would undoubtably blush furiously, mumble something incoherent, and slink out of the room. I’m not shy but I’m not a big fan of speaking extemporaneously in groups. I can give speeches, perform theater and dance, converse one-on-one, but addressing a medium-sized group of people make me want to throw up. However, as evidenced by diving eyeballs first from a cliff into a deep pool of water this week, I am determined to overcome my fears.
