STORY MEDICINE AND THE CURE

Story medicine is what you see and hear.

Think of it like going out for music:

Is it, “Let’s get tickets and go see Taylor Swift?”

Or, “Let’s get tickets to hear Taylor Swift?”

It’s both. Around here we call that, “The Deuce.”

If you want to listen to music you can stay home and listen to anything ever recored.

Early Blues? 

New Blues?

Stevie Ray Vaughan?

If you want to see music live, two of the three blues links point to people who aren’t walking through any doors any time soon.

But you can still hear them.

Are The Blues story medicine? Read these lyrics before you decide.

I did and I’m feeling better.

 

 

Since we’re all agreeing, let’s agree that a thirty-four year old woman at the top of her game, the top of her profession, and with any luck she will transform the music business even more as her gets older, is a great story?

I’ll admit I’m slow to warm up to cultural phenomena.

I thought Michael Jordan would have a few good years, win a scoring title, and fade.

Telling myself that softened the impact of the Portland Trail Blazers passing on him when they had a chance to draft one of the greatest, if not The Greatest, (with apologies to Muhammad Ali.)

Jordan faded away after winning three straight NBA titles, then came back and won three more.

And beat Portland along the way.

My sports buddy got two tickets to the last game Jordan played in Portland and he invited me.

If I remember right, the Bulls won on Jordan’s last shot.

 

It looks like Taylor’s trajectory will land her in my Pantheon of Greatness.

She still has time to screw up, but getting past twenty-seven alive is a good sign.

Not in the 27 Club, or the 33 Club,

My hope is she joins the married club, the wife club, the mom club, the empty nest club.

In other words she seems capable of handling ‘Normal Life.’

But I’ve been wrong before.

When Ben Affleck married Jennifer Garner I had the best hopes for them.

After the movie Purple Rain I was a Prince guy.

Why pick a side when Michael Jackson was thrilling his way to the top of the pops?

Being able to choose, to actually have a choice, isn’t always on the table.

For examples, click here.

If you have a choice, use it. If you feel like you don’t have a choice you might need some story medicine.

 

The Old Story Medicine 

The bedtime story was a highlight of the time when my kids still listened.

It didn’t last as long as I thought it would.

On one hand I told stories so bad that my youngest kid taught himself to read, then the older picked it up, and my three and five year olds graduated to their own reading lamps.

Was I a bad story teller? You tell me:

 

Once upon a time Jack and Jill went up a hill to fetch a pail of water, but they got lost on the way and ended up in the woods.

One of them had a piece of bread and left a trail of crumbs that Winnie the Pooh found and ate.

They came upon a house in the woods with a big bad wolf dressed like a grandma.

 

First one kid: That’s not how the story goes.

Then the other: That’s not how mom tells us.

 

I used a similar technique during my caregiving days with my father in-law.

He had Parkinson’s and dementia, a lethal combination.

Every morning I gave him a news report from the past until he interrupted me.

 

“Did you hear the news? Man has landed on the moon with one small step. They rode a rocketship to the stars.”

 

I’d act out the liftoff, the landing, and stepping out on the lunar surface until he asked me what I thought I was doing.

It’s called reality orientation.

Once he figured me out I got him up and cleaned up and started the day.

Professionals called the way I worked with him, Heroic Caregiving. It wasn’t a compliment.

My return was, “Caregiving is easy if you don’t care.”

 

Why Story Medicine?

From Stories Are Medicine:

The narratives we construct about our experiences have a profound impact on how we understand and move through our lives.

Sharing a story is an effective means of imparting wisdom to others and a valuable tool for processing our own experiences.

Most of the stories we hear about depression come from advertisers or entertainers, and those stories are mostly triumphant narratives of overcoming.

This is not the case with the stories presented here.

It is my hope that the act of bearing witness to these narratives remedies some of the distortion, stigma, and shame around the experience of managing a life slowed by depressive episodes. 

 

It’s my goal that boomerpdx is a medicine blog. 

Why would I want that? Because I’m a former U.S. Army Medic, a prolific writer, and I give a damn about things.

I care about those things people my age give a damn about, but instead of a soapbox, I have a blog.

Unlike my canceled brethren seeking a voice they understand to tell them what to do, like storm the Capitol on Jan.6, my experience is different.

It’s impossible to convince true believers in Trumpy Time that their idol is false.

Also impossible to understand is how our Ivy League educated congressman can stoop so low to appeal to their constituents.

Instead of story medicine to heal the invisible wounds of Trump, too many of the smart people nod their head in approval of bullshit old and new.

Taylor Swift isn’t new at thirty-four, but she is wise beyond her years.

How wise?

Smart enough to make it on Boomerpdx.

Call her the Patron Saint of Pop Music. Like Bruce Springsteen she uses her platform as a classroom.

Topic of the day: How to use personal influence to move public awareness to a better place.

What’s that sound like? Story medicine? That’s what I see.

And hear.