Some favorite published storytelling comes to mind: Frank McCourt's tribute to family in Angela's Ashes; An American Childhood spent well by Annie Dillard; all the events that contributed to Russell Baker's Growing Up; the hilarious and poignant yarns spun by David Sedaris such as those found in Dress Your Children in Corduroy and Denim; Maya Angelou's celebratory pronouncement that she Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now; Lynne Cox shivering in her tales of Swimming to Antarctica. What is it about the story? Stories are not about our lives; they are our lives.

I joined the four philosophers pictured here as part of a dynamic philosophizing circle. When I think back on that summer day and the people I met, it is through their stories that I remember them: playing outside past dark as a child with no sense of time; feeling alone in a stern, unforgiving family; asking patients to use your first name; singing the blues for real; loving the challenges of owning an independent bookstore; remembering a long ago conversation with a son; striving for a more simple lifestyle; quitting a job and finding a fulfilling one; watching nods of unspoken agreement between two mother and daughter pairs. Important points were made and new insights were gleaned through narrative.

                   
I repeatedly watch storytelling work its magic. Hosting workshops for teachers and parents eager to share philosophy with children, I hold dear the stories that reveal so much about the participants; these tales make it possible for us to know each other well for two days and somehow always. One parent asked me at a workshop's end if I thought storytelling was valuable in and of itself. My immediate response was a resounding "absolutely," and I rarely answer any question quickly much less with that word! He laughed and described his nightly ritual with his daughter, the expected delivery of a new story from his youth as he tucks her in bed. He is amazed at how much she loves and counts on these tales and confessed that he had almost run out unless he ventures into his teen years. "Aye! There's the rub!" he worried along with Shakespeare. My college students relate philosophical theory to their lives in uniquely productive ways, grasping the relationship between the personal events they describe and utilitarianism or pantheism, for example. And what a treat it is to sit back and watch the faces of child philosophers enthralled in a story recounted by their teacher. No longer teaching math, she's teaching lessons from her life.

My cousin Maria wrote just weeks ago about storytelling at its warmest. Here is a bit of her account: "The quilt I decided to undertake began as an idea 18 years ago when my son was 5 months old. A neighbor had created a cottage industry out of turning cotton T-shirts into commemorative quilts. She had made quilts for her kids from their favorite childhood T-shirts. These quilts were her gift to her kids when they went off to college..... My son was in a Onesie at the time, but I felt relieved that I had already decided what to give him for his high school graduation present. I started collecting T-shirts in a drawer, then a suitcase, then a footlocker. Eighteen years later, my son finished high school.... I still had strong memories of him in those T-shirts--of his body in them--the chubby newborn, the toddler, the frog-collecting kid, the elementary school kid, the soccer player, the growing adolescent, the rock guitar player, the muscle-amassing high-school wrestler and rower. Cutting them up produced a nice square for the quilt, but meant I lost the physical reminder of my son's body in the T-shirts. But I had to cut.... I stitched the binding by hand and I imagine myself sitting in our rocking chair in our kitchen, sewing in bad light in a hideous pair of green reading glasses. I will hand the needle to my son to thread, the way he remembers his great grandmother doing years ago. I will sew my way around the edges of the T-shirt, holding a different part of the quilt in my lap as I go. I hope to cherish each tiny stitch. I hope the quilt is not soggy with tears when I finish."

Imagine the countless pieces of himself Maria's little big boy will rediscover night after night. Today Will sent me, from his room at college, this close-up photograph of the section featuring shirts I've given him. It's not just Will's story after all; we're all stitched together.

                     
What's your story? Take the time to tell one and ask for one in return - at the dinner table, conference, dog walking, sitting on the steps. Mine? Gathered in my father's lap in the wooden chair on rollers by his desk in the basement, he tearfully told disbelieving me that it was pretty much definite that I would not grow up to play second base for the New York Yankees. Weeks later he took his inconsolable eight-year-old daughter to the park to try something else. Replacing the bat with a tennis racquet, I found that the stringed instrument was lighter and the furry ball easier to hit. Many years later, looking through his desk and sorely missing the man in the cardigan sweater with the big laugh, I uncovered the tennis ball he saved from my first tournament. The basement smells the same. The furnace still clicks on with a confident growl, small casement windows allow the same beams of natural light, steps creak in the usual places, and the chair rolls on. The basement smells of youth and love and hope...the best place in the world to hang out and do laundry.