Usher’s Hollow …The Story Tellers Story

(Upon my mid-life journey, empty nest loud and large…I, the story teller, entered upon a very tired place. Very. The bedtime stories I once made up for my children were each with different main characters. Stories created upon the spot, with intent to teach them about life’s ways both kind and hard. These 3 characters never met in any story, ever…until today. Because sometimes…well…)

Once upon a time…

On a Saturday in summertime, at dusk, after a long day of fun and play.

Mis-adventures in the small big woods called ‘Ushers Hollow’ continued. As they always had.

The woods were small because they only took up the space of a large backyard.

They were large because they contained the magical stories of three friends who never met after years of adventures there.

Until today.

Let me introduce you to my friends, I think you’ll like them too.

They’re getting older now, but they still love to follow the adventures inside their wild hearts.

Sometimes still getting them into trouble, but mostly just getting them closer to their next adventure.

Cuffy Bear is the oldest. He was best friends with my oldest James. He spent his days interacting with lots of not-bears because he was so curious. He sometimes made his mother furious. Especially when he got lost in the woods when the sun started to fall, and he was not home at the dinner table because he was following his best friend, his imagination. He loved eagles and peanut butter, and learned early on that grown up big boy bears, didn’t need to wear diapers anymore.

Jenny and Alley, these were my daughter Nikki’s friends. A freckle-faced girl full of wonder and loyalty, and her trusty cat Alley, who never left her side. Ever.

She mainly loved to travel in less mountainous places. Like parks and at the edge of the city, where all sorts of different kinds and sizes of people bustled and hustled each day. Jenny never got in trouble with her mommy and daddy, she always listened…her troubles mainly came from trying to help all sorts of people in distress, and not having what they needed….until the last minute. And then…she’d smile and go home to mommy and daddy where she felt safe.

Harry was best friends with my youngest Ryan. Or Ry-guy, or Baby Beaster as he was often called. Harry was the most fantastical of friends. He was a squirell, who had elephant ears and giraffe legs. All of his friends were animals who also each had two body parts that were from other animals. Harry learned alot and taught alot about how to get along with all sorts of different friends and to accept their differences and the wonderful parts of life, not the parts to make fun of. He was really great at teaching his friends how to stop drinking bottles and going to bed early…and praying for every one of his toys.

And so now you have met the most special of characters who have grown a little older, and wiser, and this brings us back to our scene.

A Saturday, at Ushers Hollow, which after many years and many lessons, was now filled with love and wonder and wisdom to face even the most difficult and scary parts of the hollow.

On this day…like no other day…in the warm heat of the falling sun, the wind carried the sound of tired and broken into all three characters ears at the same time. Cuffy, Jenny and Harry heard it and felt it at once…as though it was calling them to follow it. And because they learned to follow where adventure called, they did.

Just as the sun was laying to sleep on top of Usher’s Mountain, all three of them arrived at the Big Oak. The place where they were born. All of them. And they knew this even though no one ever told them. Not even a hint. They just knew. Because sometimes…you just know. And also as they met for the first time ever, they somehow knew eachother too. They felt all the stories inside of them blending with the others in such a wonderful way it could only be described in silence and stares into each others eyes.

After just a few minutes of smiling, they all looked down to the base of the Grand Oak Tree, and they saw what had they had heard and felt in the wind. It was him. The Story Teller. He was there, just sitting. The one who’d given them life and poured his words and wonder into them so they could have a life like no other.

He was tired, and old now. And he was silent. He had never been silent. He was sometimes tired. But never silent. Never was he without his crafty words which had built these woods and birthed each one of them.

And they knew the look in his eyes meant that something terrible had happened. Something he had warned them to be so very careful would never happen to them. He’d lost his words. He’d lost…his own story…in the story’s of others. He’d given all his words away.

It didn’t take more than the time it takes for a hawk to circle one time around…to know exactly what to do for the story teller. They did what you always do when someone loses their story. They built a fire and surrounded it with four logs to sit on. Four home-made benches. And they looked deep into eyes of the Story Teller, and for the rest of the night…they told him all the stories he’d told of them…until he believed them to be true…until the sound of tired and broken that beckoned them there vanished. And they finished their night with wild and raucous laughter and dancing and funny faces.

And then they all went to bed with the smell of campfire stretching out the largest smiles on their closedeyed faces. Pretending to be asleep…as they always did after story-time. Hoping they’d fall still into the dreamlands of James, Nikki and Ryan.

As they lay their heads down on fluffy piles of words which were like feather beds holding them safely…for another night, they were reminded again….

To never lose your words.

Never lose your story.

The End…for now