It’s that time of week again – Five Minute Friday. Lisa-Jo Baker gives us a one-word prompt and we write for five minutes without pressure, just for the joy of writing. Why don’t you join us here?
This week’s word is Story.
Some words are like smells. They evoke memories from times past, some with smiles, some with sadness, and some a bittersweet mixture of the two.
Story is one such word for me. It takes me back to that half-island home of Papua New Guinea (PNG), back to our bush house of woven bamboo up on stilts on the side of a clay mountain. Nights of rain on a tin roof lulling us to sleep. Chilly mornings of woodsmoke and toast made in the woodstove. Because the word story is “stori” in tok pisin, the pidgin trade language of PNG.
But in tok pisin, the word stori carries with it various nuances. It can mean a simple story, but it can also be used in the vernacular as somewhat of a verb (in my limited understanding). You can stori with another person, communicate with them, swap information through the act of story-telling. So to my MK self, stori means more than just a tale; it’s sharing verbally with someone else either for the purpose of making friends or for the purpose of learning.
And I think I rather like the word stori better than our English word because that’s what stories are truly for. They don’t exist merely for entertainment, although many are entertaining, but they exist for a purpose, to teach us something, to impart some new truth, to open our eyes to a new understanding.
So, I would rather stori with someone than story at them. I don’t want my words to be things I just throw out there willy-nilly. I want them to serve a purpose.
I’ve always been in love with words, with stories, with learning new truth. And now, as a new blogger, I’m learning to be in love with stori, with sharing not just for the sake of sharing or telling for the sake of telling, but for the purpose of learning.
About others.
About self.
Even about the greatest Story-teller ever.
His story. My story. Together they become part of my stori with others.
Yes, I like this stori.
Jen 🙂
Similar posts:
http://ourwrightingpad.blogspot.com/2013/08/five-minute-friday-story.html