Act Break

Act Break
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As I began working with these stories as part of my graduate thesis, I realized that I had unintentionally divided the stories into three clear groupings that - to my mind - reminded me of a Three Act Play format -

Act 1: The Accident
Act 2: Time in Hospital
Act 3: Home Recovery

I have found this organization useful in how I think about the work.

For that reason, when I perform Who Am I, Again, I have a scripted moment at the end of Act 1 where I take a drink of water.  This action serves two purposes - First - I’m thirsty and want a drink of water

- but -

Second - to give the audience a moment to reflect upon what just happened.  With that in mind, I’m going to take a moment in this entry to share my thoughts on Act 1 as a whole.

The intent of this act is to demonstrate the immediate effect of a brain injury upon lives in a community.  We have recognized this theme several times throughout these reflections, so here, I won’t do more than mention that when a traumatic brain injury occurs, everyone is affected.  With that established, I suggest that, while community members may feel the impact of such a tragedy in different ways, common emotional experiences unite these stories in a shared storyline.  I use the situations presented in “Who Am I, Again?” as a specific example of how this occurs, but I would love to expand my knowledge on the topic by learning your stories - please share in comments.

This sort of shared journey highlights the benefits of storytelling after such a tragedy - by sharing stories with people who have gone through similar journeys, storytellers and listeners are able to recognize common experiences through the journey of recovery - common experiences and emotions can be recognized and appreciated.


There are many books focused on personal stories after brain injury - and I don’t mean to imply that any of these stories are anything less than wonderful - but I believe that the physical performance-action of storytelling does something more than either reading or penning an experience.  Below are three examples of what storytelling adds.


First, storytelling is a dynamic, live experience - each presentation of a story will be altered by the situation.  In an unscripted (yet still prepared) presentation, the storyteller may be moved by unexpected memories that emerged as the events of the story are shared, or words that leak from the tellers mouth may enlighten an unexpected moment.  If the story is scripted (as is “Who Am I, Again?”), the performer may provide a different emphasis to the words, or stumble across a forgotten memory about the experience that emerges through repeated retellings.  These variations can help the storyteller to gain more insights into his or her personal story as well as allow listeners receive new insights from the piece, even if they have heard a story multiple times.

Second, the intention of storytelling is to create a dialogue between the storyteller and the listeners.  This allows for feedback from the audience to inform a storyteller about his or her own story as the experience is shared.  This feedback may come from observing the reactions of the audience during the story or through discussion after the performance - either way, hearing how other people react can help to create a clearer understanding of the events for the audience and the storyteller.  In tandem with the storyteller listening to the audience, a live event provides the audience with an opportunity to share their reactions and perhaps encourage elaboration on a moment that caused confusion.  This form of feedback requires interaction between the audience and the performer - perhaps in a discussion planned after a performance or through informal interaction - but this sort of interaction (formal or informal) is not hard to arrange.

Finally (for this article), because storytelling is a live performance, it inspires a different sort of concentration and attention from listeners - we tend to pay more attention when the performer is directly in front of us.  To draw a parallel, you will almost certainly pay more attention to a live concert than an album you downloaded - you may love the album, but even if you insist on stopping everything else in your life to just sit and listen to the album, there’s a clearly a different sort of attention - one that triggers multiple senses - given to musicians onstage.  Watching a live performance of a story encourages audience members to pay more attention to the details of the work.

These are three things that a storytelling performance will allow that is different than what relating a personal story using other mediums allows.  I do not suggest that storytelling is “better” than books or recordings, just that storytelling provides a set of conditions that allows for different types of introspective exploration by the performer as well as listeners.

When studying for my graduate degree in the Art of Storytelling, it was often said: “We all live the same story, its just the details that are different.”  By sharing stories, we can develop better sense of common themes and the emotional experiences that accompany a recovery, and thereby come to better understand our own details.

Those are my thoughts.  I look forward to reading your thoughts below.

Scene 12 - It's Not Your Time

**************Scene 12 - It's Not Your Time*************************************

For Tony,

Well like I said, I don’t actually remember the day of accident,
but I remember just AS the accident was happening -

Waking up - I’m in my car
Though the windshield I see the front of my car smashing into this
Roadside embankment,
while the back wheels of my car keep pushing forward, pushing the center of my car straight Up,
throwing Me straight up
though the roof of my car,
straight UP
into the air
Up a good two…three thousand kilometers -

and I remember getting into this line.

It’s a long line,
but I’m about halfway through, and its moving fast,
doesn’t take

And I remember at the front of the line is this Big man,
I mean, he’s strong, he’s-

He’s an angel.

And he looks to me, says, “It’s not your time yet.”

And I remember falling -
wind rushing past my face -
I look down I see the Earth -
The World getting larger - Larger
and I remember SLAMMING into my body.

When I woke, I had been in a coma for 9 months.

*************************************************************************

 As a storyteller, I love this scene - the powerful imagery - shock at being thrown through the roof of the car…wonder at arriving to Heaven’s waiting room…horrific grander when falling toward earth - each creating a dynamic picture.  Whenever I perform this scene, I revel in the frames as they pass through the movie reel of my mind.  Verbally painting these pictures for an audience is a pleasure and a privilege.

That said, when observing this experience from the frame of strictly rational inquiry, the “reality” of this scene could be called into question.  Please note, as of yet, no-one has actually called the truth of this scene into question, but the fantastic images really beg the question - did this really happen? 

To which I respond, does it matter?

The objective “reality” of Tony’s situation is irrelevant - we cannot refute his experience - it is not our experience.  This memory clearly has an effect on Tony’s character, therefore it must have some sort of reality, even if that reality is only in his mind.  In truth, the only “reality” any memory can have is in the mind - and the way it affects a person is dependent upon the story constructed around that memory.

That said, this story realizes a truth after brain injury - if you survive a serious injury, brain injury or otherwise, it is necessarily true that you have survived.  Be this the result of fate, destiny, biological luck, or something else, the result is the same - “It’s not your time…” - you are alive. 

In a previous entry (Scene 6: God’s Lap), we discussed one’s necessary decision after a traumatic incident:
to accept the accident/situation and work with the new reality
    or
to attempt to deny what happened and returned to life as it was. 

This scene has a more fatalistic tone - for Tony, “it’s not your time…”.  Whether he was fated to keep living or simply not to die is irrelevant - he has woken into a new existence and he has decisions to make.

Scene 11 - Forming a Community

****************Scene 11-Forming a Community***********************************

Well, the news was out -

And - now - remember, Bloomsburg is a small town,
And that means - in a small town -
once one person knows something, Everybody knows it…

and soon,
there began to appear,
at the hospital,
PEOPLE
showing Love, Support,
giving offers of Help to my parents.

And my parents were gratefully Accepting all these offers of help,
and on the phone with insurance companies,
and running back and forth between the hospital,
work,
my sister at school,

and trying to figure out What the Hell the Doctors are saying!

And I’m told about my mother being in this room,
filled with doctors throwing this conglomeration of technical terms,
and pushing papers -
some they should sign, some just read -
and the pedologist wants -
but the cardiologist needs -
the orthodontic history -
and your son might need to have Brain Surgery -

and my mother,
she finally stepped forward,
and she said,

“STOP!
Get into line!
One at a time, Please!

Okay, what do you need?”

And still more offers of help continued to arrive at the hospital
and my parents,
they were thankful for this love,
they were honored,
they were…

exhausted.

and they didn’t want to turn anyone Away, but they didn’t want to -
they couldn’t deal with All of the People All of the Time -

So they finally got this idea that maybe the could have…a prayer service.
some Event where they could bring the people together,
and anyone who wanted to show their support could come,
offer help,
and then go away.


They were given use of the hospital chapel for the event,
but didn’t make a big deal of it -
told a few close friends,
people at church,

the evening of the service came
and the chapel was filled.
Extra chairs were brought in - people were standing in the back.

And once everyone had come in, found a…place
No one really knew what to do.

My parents had decided to run this service in the Quaker style of worship,
that’s where everyone sits together in silence to pray, meditated, be with one another,
and if anyone was “Moved by the Light”, they could stand a share a thought,
prayer,
joke, whatever felt right -
and my parents thought this would be a good, nondenominational, all inclusive style of worship,
and they were right,
In theory,

Unfortunately, for the majority of the people present, the only thing they actually knew about Quakers was that Maybe it had something to do with Quaker Oats
and Nobody knew what to do.
So the service began…
Silent.

There was some shuffling of chairs, whispering in the back,

and no-one said a word for thirty-five minutes.

and my parents were just starting to think that maybe they had made a mistake,
that they should end this early and try something different another night,
when Susan,
a friend from elementary school,
suddenly felt Moved by the Light,
and she stood and shared a story…

and this Story, it hit something -
it - opened a floodgate because stories began to pour out of the people

Stories about laughing together,
working together,
classes, parties, dates,
stories about that time we all got naked and went streaking downtown…

So they told a few stories I had hoped my parents would never hear.

But people began to laugh,
to Smile,
and a transformation…from a service of sorrows to a celebration of Love,
Life,
of Community coming together.

And the next morning, I woke from my coma.

*****************************************************************************
This is a beautiful story - almost too beautiful - and, in a TV movie friendly environment, could easily be interpreted as “Lethan was loved back to life” (or some variation thereof).  I, however, will begin this entry by stating I do NOT agree with such an interpretation.

Maybe that’s too blunt - let me dissect what I mean.

The life situation surrounding the events of my accident was a blessing created by circumstance - things my family’s life were by no means perfect, but we did live a moderately comfortable, safe, and stable lifestyle.  Bloomsburg - my home town - is a rural college town in central Pennsylvania. (Please note, the following is a dramatically oversimplified representation of the cultures in Bloomsburg, but I feel it highlights what was beneficial in my recovery process)  In Bloomsburg, there exists a juxtaposition of cultures - aspects of the the old-time-small-town lifestyle meld with progressive-intellectual-artistic pursuits brought by the faculty and students at the university.  My family has long been active in many parts of this socially diverse community and thus, when my accident occurred, people from a variety of social groups flocked to me and my family.  An inspiring amount of goodwill and assistance was heaped upon us and it seemed that every corner of the community was praying/hoping for my recovery.

Were love quantifiable - there was indubitably an adequate amount to “bring me back to life”.  It is touching and moving to see how the love of the community surrounded me and to think that when the community came together, I awoke from my coma - this idea, however, has no objective reality.  If we suggest “love saved me”, how do we account for the countless number of people who did not have similar success after a traumatic incident?  Were they not loved enough?  Is there some sort of love/trauma ratio that must be reached to successfully save a person after an incident?

These questions should sound absurd - they are.

There is absolutely NO objective proof of love’s ability to save a life, and to suppose any subjective proof based upon one’s fate and/or karma seems narcissistic and arrogant.  In my experience, I was lucky and I survived.

That said, while there is no basis for the community playing a part in my immediate physical survival, the community did create a network that my family and I utilized throughout the recovery process.  This network provided comfort and assistance to my parents as they learned how to adjust their lives to my recovery - created a series of safe social outlets for my sister to save her from feeling that she was forgotten in the midst of the storm - and helped to teach an active group of caregivers who willing learned how to help me cope with and accept my new situation.  The community was not able to bring me to life after my coma, as the above scene seems to suggest - but they were able to provide a support network that kept me on my feet, kept my family sane, and created a good environment for my recovery.

I feel it is important to make this distinction because, while many of the physical aspects of recovery are determined largely by chance, a community that provides support for a recovery is created by those close to the survivor and can be found with - at most - only a little effort.  In this internet age, a survivor - or caregiver - can quickly find formal and informal social support groups from which one can begin to build a community.  These groups may come through reaching out to friends, community organizations, religious groups, TBI support networks…anywhere you can find people who will help uplift a survivor.  More commonly than not, people like to help other people, especially if these peoples share a social network.

Granted, in the situation with my family, we were fortunate to already have already formed a variety of social and professional relationships with groups that came to us offering support, but that needn’t be the case - if you are not socially embedded in your community, start embedding yourself.  To be specific, there are dozens of TBI support groups that can be found with a Google search, and finding these groups can provide an invaluable resource.  As expressed by TBI survivor Barbara Webster, ”What I hear regularly from support group members is that the most valuable benefit of a support group is finding a place where you feel comfortable and can talk with people who ‘get it,’ who truly understand your issues” (brainline.org).  The urge to retreat into solitude might arise after an injury, but doing this is not only potentially dangerous, it also unnecessarily limits the resources available for survivors.  Furthermore, by finding support groups, survivors are able to better know that their difficulties are not unique - by meeting other people, sharing, and hearing stories survivors and caregivers are able to better prepare for and anticipate the stages of recovery.

And one needn’t focus only on organized medical support groups - by becoming involved with community events and organizations, a person often discovers unexpected friendships - these friendships can help with simpler, non-trauma related tasks.  While friends formed in this manner might not provide the same empathy or share difficulties, they do provide a relief from the occasional intensity that comes up in recovery based support programs.

I am a strong believer that a social group and support network exists for anyone who is willing to reach out for it - it is up to the survivor to reach out for what is there.

There is no proof or likelihood that a community will perform spiritual miracles for an individual - if it happens for you, that’s great, but don’t count on it - miracles do happen, but you should never bet that they will.  That said, a community can console survivors and caregivers and is necessary in creating the base from which a successful recovery can grow.


To wrap up, I’m going to say that I recognize a response to this scene could have talked about several other subjects - the overwhelming plethora of actives involved in recovery, the excitement felt after a crisis, the importance of finding a balance when dealing with the post accident drama - and perhaps I’ll approach these questions at a later date, but I decided to discuss creating a community because I feel it is a necessary part of creating the foundation for a positive recovery.  Thanks for reading - please share and comment below.