Editor's note: Each month, the CCW blog features one of our
members. This month, Kathleen Caron talks about how what we think is average
really isn’t.
“There are no ordinary
people. You have never talked to a mere mortal.” C.S. Lewis
Is your life fairly ordinary?
Maybe not so ordinary as you think.
Every night when we sit down
to dinner, our family shares stories from the day. The funny little occurences
in our humdrum routine become epic in the voice of a good storyteller. We tease
out the humor, pathos and drama of the tiniest tales, which then become fodder
for family lore.
Perhaps because of his
French-Canadian heritage, my husband Doric is a consummate storyteller who can
spin the thinnest little yarn into a tale that has us all in stitches. He has
passed on his keen observation skills to his children, who can hold their own
as storytellers and mimics.
“Did anything interesting
happen today?” someone will ask. Sometimes, it takes us a while to come up with
something, but we always remember an amusing anecdote or an encounter with a
flamboyant character that stimulates a great conversation.
Maybe there was a food fight
at Joe’s high school, which lends itself to a discussion about world hunger. Or
perhaps Marie, who is a nursing student, worked in geriatrics that day, opening
an opportunity to talk about how we treat the elderly.
Sometimes the best stories
are the smallest. Recently, Doric told about a visit to a home where he
unintentionally caused a big stir. Just as he arrived for an estimate (he owns
a home improvement company), the impatient husband was hustling the kids into
the car. The littlest boy, buckled in his car seat, wailed inconsolably, “I
WANT TO SEE THE MAN IN THE HOUSE!
I WANT TO SEE THE MAN IN THE
HOUSE!” The wife sheepishly asked Doric if he would mind saying hello to the
boy. Of course, Doric did, and the little boy was happy because he had seen
“the man in the house.”
Telling the story, Doric
became the impatient husband, the flustered wife and the sobbing little boy to
hilarious effect, and we laughed till we cried. “I want to see the man in the
house” instantly became a new catch phrase and an inside joke for our family.
If you’re thinking you don’t
have any stories of your own, think about where we live in and near our nation’s
capital. At the nonprofit where I work, my coworkers are from Ghana , Peru , Colombia , Mexico , Afghanistan and El Salvador , among other places. All of them have colorful,
sometimes tragic, stories to tell about what brought them to America and what they left behind. I could never have an
ordinary day, surrounded by such remarkable people.
You don’t have to be an an
international diplomat or a world explorer to have an interesting story to
tell. You really just have to be paying attention. Your life is far more
interesting than you think.
Do you tell stories at the dinner table?
Kathleen Caron lives in Chantilly with her husband, three children and two rescue dogs. She blogs abo{full of life} soul food and is collaborating on a book about pursuing your dreams.
ut food, faith and family at
