Many stories matter. Stories have been used to dispossess and to malign. But stories can also be used to empower, and to humanize. Stories can break the dignity of a people. But stories can also repair that broken dignity.
They themselves mocked Africa, trading stories of absurdity, of stupidity, and they felt safe to mock, because it was a mockery born of longing, and of the heartbroken desire to see a place made whole again.
… What happens is of little significance compared with the stories we tell ourselves about what happens. Events matter little, only stories of events affect us.
Each affects the other and the other affects the next, and the world is full of stories, but the stories are all one.
It is not until much later, as the skin sags and the heart weakens, that children understand; their stories, and all their accomplishments, sit atop the stories of their mothers and fathers, stones upon stones, beneath the waters of their lives.
No story sits by itself. Sometimes stories meet at corners and sometimes they cover one another completely, like stones beneath a river.
There are two stories for every life; the one you live & the one others tell
But behind all your stories is always your mother's story, because hers is where yours begins.
The world is full of stories, but the stories are all one.
