Storyworthy

by Matthew Dicks

  “Why do you say it’s going to be hard?” I ask.

  She takes another deep breath. “I know that when you were a little boy, you didn’t always have enough food to eat, so taking away food from Charlie is going to be hard for you.”

  This is true too, but I’ve never told Elysha about my childhood hunger. I’ve never told anyone that when I was a boy, I was hungry most of the time. It’s a secret that I’ve kept close to my heart, hidden away for decades, because when you’re poor and hungry, the last thing you do is tell anyone in the world that you are poor and hungry. It’s a source of great shame and embarrassment, especially when you’re a child.

  But my wife has spent almost ten years with me. She’s listened to me talk about my childhood. She’s heard my stories. She’s figured it out. She knows my secret.

  Then she tells me that every morning, when I put together Clara’s lunch for school, I pack more food into her lunch box than a child could ever eat in a single day. Then after I’ve left for work, Elysha comes downstairs and unpacks the lunch box. She’s never wanted to tell me this, because she knows how important it is to me to send my kids to school with enough food every day. More than enough food.

  I’m sitting at my dining-room table, staring across at my wife, when I realize that she knows me better than any person in the world. She probably knows my heart better than I do. It’s a moment I will never forget.

  Here’s the thing about that story: We experience moments like this all the time. This one may sound special and unique and maybe even beautiful, but only because I’ve crafted this particular moment into a story. In truth, these moments are everywhere. They exist in multitudes for all of us. They’re like dander in the wind. They exist all around us. More than you could ever imagine. The problem is that we don’t see these moments. We fail to notice them or recognize their importance, and when we happen to see one, we don’t reach out to catch it. We don’t record it. We don’t save it. We fail to keep these precious moments safe for the future.

  Years ago, I found a way to recognize and collect these moments, and it has changed my life. It’s turned me into a storyteller with an endless supply of stories. Stories that don’t rely upon near-death experiences or unlawful imprisonment or homelessness to be effective. It’s also made me a happier person.

  Let me explain. Back in 2013, I was becoming desperate. I’d been telling stories onstage for almost two years, and I was head over heels in love with storytelling. As I continued to perform night after night, I realized two things:

  1.I needed more stories. If I was going to continue to perform, I was going to have to generate more content.

  2.The stories that my friends initially thought would be great — the near-death experiences, the arrest and trial for a crime I didn’t commit, sharing a bedroom with a goat — are all good stories. Audiences love them. But the story about Charlie throwing his food and my wife uncovering my childhood secret — a tiny story that takes place at a dining-room table between a husband and a wife — that’s the kind of story that audiences love best of all.

  Here’s why: If I tell the story about the time I died on the side of the road and was brought back to life in the back of an ambulance, it’s going to be challenging for an audience to connect with my story and with me. It might be exciting and compelling and even suspenseful, but audience members are probably not thinking, “This is just like the time I died in a car accident and the paramedics brought me back to life!”

  There’s nothing in the horror of a car accident for an audience to connect to. Nothing that rings true in the minds of listeners. Nothing that evokes memories of the past. Nothing that changes the way audience members see themselves or the world around them. But if I tell you about my secret childhood hunger, that story is much more likely to resonate with you.

  Why? We all have secrets that we hold close to our hearts. Maybe it’s a secret that you never want anyone to know, or maybe it’s one that you desperately wish someone would uncover. Or maybe, like me, you had a secret that was discovered by a friend or loved one. Either way, we all know what it’s like to have a secret like mine. We know how powerful and painful secrets can be.

  We all know what hunger feels like. We know what it’s like to want something important and essential — food, friendship, acceptance, love — but never to have enough of it. And we all know what it’s like to feel embarrassed or ashamed of never having enough of something that you so desperately need.

  If you’re a parent, you also know what it’s like to want your children’s lives to be better than your own. You understand the desire to fill that lunch box to the brim with food.

  This is why tiny moments like the one at my dining-room table with my wife and children often make the best stories. These are the moments that connect with people. These are the stories that touch people’s hearts.

  The story about my wife uncovering my childhood secret, in the full seven-minute version, is one of the most popular stories that I tell, but it’s not terribly funny or suspenseful or extraordinary. It doesn’t involve a near-death experience or law-enforcement officers or indoor farm animals. It’s a simple moment between a husband and wife that has come to mean so much to me, and in turn to many of my fans.

  This is not to say that the big moments, like the time I died on the side of a snow-covered road two days before Christmas (I tell this story in chapter 13), can’t make a great story, but it turns out even these big stories need to be more about the little moments than the big ones. We’ll get to that in a later chapter.

  As I said, there was a point at which I realized that I’d need to start finding more stories to tell. I couldn’t wait for the next time my heart stopped beating or the next time I was arrested for a crime I didn’t commit. I needed to find these little moments. I needed to hunt them down. My goal was to identify the small stories that existed in my life already.

  I’ve been a schoolteacher for almost twenty years, so it was only natural that I assign myself homework. I assigned myself Homework for Life. This is what I did:

  I decided that at the end of every day, I’d reflect upon my day and ask myself one simple question:

  If I had to tell a story from today — a five-minute story onstage about something that took place over the course of this day — what would it be? As benign and boring and inconsequential as it might seem, what was the most storyworthy moment from my day?

  I decided not to write the entire story down, because to do so would require too much time and effort. As desperate as I was for stories, even I wouldn’t be able to commit to writing a full story every day, especially if it wasn’t all that compelling. Instead I would write a snippet. A sentence or two that captured the moment from the day. Just enough for me to remember the moment and recall it clearly on a later date.

  I also allowed myself to record any meaningful memories that came to mind over the course of the day, in response either to something I added to the spreadsheet or something that came to mind organically. Oftentimes these were recovered memories: moments from my past that had been forgotten for years but had returned to my mind through the process of doing Homework for Life.

  To do this work, I decided to use an Excel spreadsheet. It works well for several reasons. First, it forced me to capture these moments in just a few words. As you can see, my spreadsheet is broken into two columns: the date and the story. That’s it. As a result, I don’t allow myself to write more than the story cell allows. For a novelist who is accustomed to writing hundreds and sometimes thousands of words per day, the temptation to write more was great, but I believe in simplicity. I believe in strategies that are easy to apply and maintain even on our busiest days. This is the best way to develop a habit.

  10/29/15

  Jaime and Monica’s wedding: First family wedding ever. So much was missed that can never be recovered. Always feel like an outsider.

  10/30/15

  Hit the ball onto the first green again.

  10/31/15<
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  Elysha is horrified by my Meatloaf Pandora station.

  11/1/15

  Didn’t connect my work voicemail until November 1. Only missed one call. Kids answering phone. Kids protecting me from phone call.

  11/2/15

  Started taking yoga.

  11/3/15

  I couldn’t wait to get to school today to see David and hassle him about the Giants. More than anything else. Crazy.

  11/4/15

  I went through the tollbooth on the bridge without any money or my EZ Pass. Terrified. Worried about strangers when I normally don’t care. Berated by tollbooth operator. Ticketed.

  11/5/15

  Taught Clara about the Rolling Stones while lying in bed with her.

  Walked Kaleigh. 2:00 AM. Underwear. Birds. Rain. Beauty.

  When I’m 12 years old, I find out that Measleman, our childhood dog, is named after the doc who gave my father his vasectomy. Tonight, for the first time, I realize that my father lost his dog in the divorce, too. How awful.

  I’m 18 years old, and I’m having sex with J. on the 18th green of a golf course in Walpole. Sprinklers kick on at midnight. SO MUCH WATER. SO MUCH LAUGHTER. Never laughed while naked with a girl so much.

  Woman in vet had brand-new puppy. So excited. Wanted to tell her the joy and heartache ahead. Yikes! Same with my kids?

  11/6/15

  Dog humped my leg at Petco. Woman is less than apologetic. I guess rightfully so. Meaningless apologies.

  11/7/15

  I prefer to write at McDonald’s because I like racial and socioeconomic diversity as opposed to cashmere and American Express (divorced dad, employee).

  Sam emails me about life coaching. Friends divorce. Susan as a divorce consultant.

  11/8/15

  Faculty hoops game. Same strategy as Pete Dechecco game. Not much changes.

  11/9/15

  Man gets in line at Southwest Airlines, has moment with me, now my best friend, now trying to skip line, now a jerk, but still, my only friend.

  11/10/15

  I make dinner. Hot dogs and macaroni and cheese. The only dinner I can actually make.

  11/11/15

  I brought canned jellied cranberry sauce to my class’s Thanksgiving Day feast and was loved for it.

  11/12/15

  Megan is so disappointed in Chris. I made Megan into the manager she is today. Mommy too.

  11/13/15

  I made Haley cry by accident by accusing her of pushing when she was not. Later, kids came to her defense and Stacey explained to me that girls are more complicated than I know.

  11/14/15

  Clara makes snowman almost without my help. So proud. So afraid that she won’t need me much longer.

  Charlie has taken to head-butting me and gouging my eyes out. Considering that he was ignoring me prior to this, I see the violent streak as an improvement.

  11/15/15

  I hit on Elysha by spending an hour of my morning getting the kids dressed, folding laundry, doing dishes, and cooking pancakes.

  By creating a system requiring that I write only a few sentences a day, I was also sure that I’d never miss a day, and this is important. Miss one day, and you’ll allow yourself to miss two. Miss two days, and you’ll skip a week. Skip a week and you’re no longer doing your Homework for Life.

  Moreover, by placing these most storyworthy moments in a spreadsheet, I could sort them for later use. I could copy, cut, and paste these ideas into other spreadsheets easily, allowing me to ultimately separate the truly storyworthy ideas from the ones that merely had potential.

  Finally, by placing the stories in a spreadsheet, I was better able to see patterns in my life, and sometimes these patterns became stories too.

  For example, Elysha and I never fight. We may disagree at times, but even those moments are rare. We have never raised our voices to each other and have never said anything that required an apology. It’s disgusting. I know.

  Then one day last year, at the onset of the summer, Elysha asked me to install the air conditioners in the windows throughout our home. I didn’t want to. When we were looking at houses years ago, we both agreed that central air was a nonnegotiable. We had to have it. Then we caved at the last minute and bought a house without central air. I was admittedly on board at the time. I liked the house a lot and agreed to the concession.

  But I’m annoyed at myself today for not holding out for a home with AC. Putting the air conditioners into the windows each year is a reminder of how I failed to hold the line on this nonnegotiable point.

  The air conditioners also get heavier every year, which of course is not the case, but it certainly seems as if they do. They serve as annual reminders of my slow march toward death and the inevitability of my mortality. Each year I grow weaker and frailer. I hate it.

  I don’t handle my mortality well at all.

  So I told Elysha, “No. Not today. I’m not putting in the air conditioners. I don’t feel like it!”

  “Okay,” she answered from the living room. “No problem.”

  Then I stewed for ten minutes. Thoughts swirled in my head: Easy for her to ask me to install the damn air conditioners. She doesn’t have to carry them up from the basement. Besides, I grew up without a single air conditioner in my house. She can handle one more hot day without her precious cool air. I have things to do. More important things than carry four air conditioners up two flights of stairs and jam them into window casings.

  I quietly grumbled and groused for ten minutes, and then, in a huff, I stomped down the stairs to the basement and started bringing the air conditioners up, banging them around a little more than necessary and grunting as I did so.

  “Are you okay?” Elysha called from the other room.

  “I’m fine!” I called back. “I’m bringing up the air conditioners.”

  “Oh,” she said, her voice as sweet as pie. “Thanks!”

  She had no idea how annoyed I was. In truth, I don’t think she cared one bit if I brought the air conditioners up on that day or three weeks later. She had no idea how I was feeling. I jammed those air conditioners into the windows while stewing in my own petty, infantile anger.

  That was the story I recorded that day. Not exactly a storyworthy moment in its own right, but perhaps an anecdote for a larger story someday.

  Two months later, I reacted the same way when she asked if I could mow the lawn. I protested. I grumbled silently about her request. I paced back and forth in a huff. Then I mowed the lawn. Angrily. Pushing that lawn mower as if I wanted it dead.

  Seeing that same behavior appear twice on my list made me realize something surprising: I do fight with my wife. I just don’t fight with words. I fight by grudgingly and loudly doing chores that I don’t want to do. I yell at her by banging air conditioners into walls and pushing my lawn mower furiously across the grass in neat, even rows.

  Best of all, she has no idea that any of this is going on.

  This pattern-turned-realization became a very funny story about my marriage that audiences love, and I learned something about myself and my marriage in the process too. My spreadsheet allowed me to see this pattern.

  When I started my Homework for Life, I didn’t know what the results would be. At best, I hoped to find a handful of stories that I might be able to tell onstage someday.

  Instead, something amazing happened. As I reflected on each day of my life and identified the most storyworthy moments, I began to develop a storytelling lens — one that is now sharp and clear. With this lens, I began to see that my life is filled with stories. Moments of real meaning that I had never noticed before were suddenly staring me in the face. You won’t believe how plentiful they are.

  There are moments when you connect with someone in a new and unexpected way. Moments when your heart fills with joy or breaks into tiny pieces. Moments when your position on an issue suddenly shifts or your opinion of a person changes forever. Moments when you discover something new about yourself or the world fo
r the first time. Moments when a person says something you never want to forget or desperately wish you could forget.

  Not every day contains a storyworthy moment for me, but I found that the longer I did my homework, the more days did contain one. My wife likes to say that I can turn any moment into a good story, and my friend Plato has said that I can turn the act of picking up a pebble from the ground into a great story. Neither of these statements is true. The truth is this: I simply see more storyworthy moments in the day than most people. They don’t go unnoticed, as they once did.

  I discovered that there is beauty and import in my life that I never would have imagined before doing my homework, and that these small, unexpected moments of beauty are oftentimes some of my most compelling stories.

  Look at the highlighted item on my spreadsheet, for example. It reads:

  Walked Kaleigh. 2:00 AM. Underwear. Birds. Rain. Beauty.

  What does this mean?

  My dog, Kaleigh, wakes me up at two in the morning. She almost never does this, so I’m surprised. Annoyed too. It’s clear she needs to pee. I’m wearing a pair of Valentine-themed satin boxers, given to me by my mother-in-law (a fact I try hard to forget every time I put them on), and nothing else.

  I have a decision to make: take the time to get dressed or bring the dog out while I’m wearing nothing more than my boxers.

  It’s early November, but we’re in the midst of a bout of warm weather. I live on one of those short side streets that you don’t drive on unless you live on the street. I know all my neighbors. None of them are the type to be awake in the middle of the night. And it’s two in the morning. I’ll likely have the street to myself.