TaleCatcher

High five

Elena, who's fast approaching her fifth birthday, has discovered some old-fashioned ways of communicating. One is two thumbs up with a cheesy smile and a wink. Nice. Thaks Mr Murray (her music teacher).

The other is a high five. She asked to do it in the bath tonight. It was a bit splashy, but fun. And got me thinking. What's a high five about?

When we're driving up the tiny Ketteringham Road and another car pulls to the side so we can get through (the road is only wide enough for one car at a time, but the countryside is stunning), we wave to the other driver. Nearly every time Elena asks why I waved.

It's for the same reason that when I was leading her, age 3, and Kim's three boys through Wymondham, we put our hand up to the driver who let us go across the pedestrian crossing. I said to the boys, 'Give him a wave.' They all gave big flappy hello waves. It wasn't quite what I had in mind, but made the same point: it's about acknowledging the polite gesture he made.

In most of our interactions there's something else going on besides the words. I've discovered the word for this is 'subtext,' and it's actually the space where our relationships live or die - where we build rapport or destroy our faith in each other.

I haven't thought all of this through, completely, but I'm sure there's something to the high five. If you think back to the people who used to do it - who weren't five years old - and really meant it, for them it was about really being in tune with each other, and understanding where the other was coming from, and sharing sheer delight in being there together.

What you see

I should update you.

On the basis of some storytelling coaching I did with the right people in the Company, I've been given a month's extension, to poke around in an area and find out what stories can do for them. I present on Thursday. I'll let you know how it goes.

In the meantime I'm working on my cv/resume, and trying again to capture myself on one or two pages. That's what poetry is for, getting all of something into a small space, with huge power. I may be a writer, but despite my brother-in-law's trying to goad me into poetic play on FB, a poet I ain't.

This works for me, though.

Flint

An emerald is as green as grass,
A ruby red as blood;
A sapphire shines as blue as heaven;
A flint lies in the mud.

A diamond is a brilliant stone,
To catch the world's desire
An opal holds a fiery spark;
But a flint holds fire.

Christina Rossetti

Piano

I went to London today to run a session on tone of voice for some of our outside suppliers. It was okay, and has given me lots to think about, regarding whether we're going deep enough, and how you get to the next layer.

But an absolute uncompromised pleasure, almost worth the journey in itself, was that on the busy street corner, lunchtime, there was an upright piano left there with the words 'Play me, I'm yours' across it from all angles. And people were. They were stopping in their business suits, putting down their brief cases and lunches, and the piano suddenly burst with songs: classical, jazz, love... people are walking around with music in them, just waiting for an opportunity for it to come out.

Thanks, whoever left us the piano today.

Be like the bird

Be like the bird, who

Resting in her flight

On a twig too slight

Feels it bend beneath her,

Yet sings

Knowing she has wings

- Victor Hugo

By contrast

I've been thinking about the virtues of contrast recently.

I'm not sure where it's come from. I've just finished reading - no, savouring - the best book on writing or story that I've ever read. Robert McKee's Story is not for beginners. It gets to the guts of how stories are developed and how they work. There's no mamby-pamby advice like "write every day", but he goes deep and illustrates character constellations, delineates value systems, and goes to the nature of conflict itself, showing how it develops, deepens, and then destroys.

I love this book.

One bit that really worked for me was about how it can be boring to describe goodness, but describing badness - where you'll find all your conflict, and therefore your character and the rest of the stories - that's what makes your good look better and better. I guess the contrast grows richer.

I'm now reading John Simmons' Dark Angels (another writing book). And I've learned a problem with contrast: the value I place on one thing can seep across, and I can struggle to enjoy the next on its own merits. Making me forget that different is good.

I'm having quite a converstaion with the author in the margins of Dark Angels...so I'm completely engaged, and learning. And using the ideas as well, those that are new as well as those that are refreshers.

It's good to learn.

A different story

I've alluded previously to lots of change going on at work.

I've found myself telling a pretty good story about it. And it goes down well, too, and is making a difference, I reckon.

I wish I'd told it before. A friend was quite down because she'd had a job interview - she'd decided, very bravely, that the new team didn't fit her, and that step out and see what else the future could hold for her. Her first interview was with a team that were pretty relentless, pretty intense, pretty full of themselves from what I could make out. And they asked her what she thought of the fact that our team had been disbanded. That it wasn't about being good to each other anymore, but about showing the company how to improve its processes for the customer. (Still not a bad cause, but too far a stretch for some of us, from where we were before).

She was stunned. She stammered. By her own admission, she blew the interview.

I told her a different story. I tell it again and again:

It's true the team isn't about what it used to be. But we got through. After five years of persuasion, demonstration, illustration, our point got through TO THE TOP, and it's now company policy, globally. We weren't a failure. We were an enormous success story. We've got a lot to be proud of. We need to shout about it.

I'm still winding down my days there, but leaving on good terms, happy to have had the time with them. My big adventure's still unfolding. I'm getting a lot done in the meantime.

And helping all the others see what a contribution we made, along the way, to where we are now.

PS My friend got a better job

Still here

At a birthday party at Melsop Farm on Saturday, my friend Alison complained that five-year-old Abi had her hands over her ears while her friends sang Happy Birthday to her, because of the noise. She was worried that the photos were spoilt forever.

I told her: 'It's made the memory. There's more to rememer now, than just a girl smiling over her birthday candles.'

Alison thought about it, and commented that I always see the positive side.

For a while I've been feeling like this blog is just one big positivity log. And I've been quiet lately - but not because I've not been positive. Sometimes positivity needs to be more private. When the circumstances are more personal.

I'm actually treating uncertainty as a big adventure. I got into this situation because of my values, my beliefs, and my clarity about what I want out of life. I'm going to stay on that mission as long as I can.

Some good things happen. Some annoying things happen. There are ups and there are downs. But I'm still here.

Piano

Rachel sent us this. It reminded me of Momo's piano playing.

And it also reminded me of this:

Little Boy At A Big Piano

Author Unknown

Wishing to encourage her young son's progress on the piano, a mother took her boy to a Paderewski concert. After they were seated, the mother spotted a friend in the audience and walked down the aisle to greet her.

Seizing the opportunity to explore the wonders of the concert hall, the little boy rose and eventually explored his way through a door marked "NO ADMITTANCE." When the house lights dimmed and the concert was about to begin, the mother returned to her seat and discovered that the child was missing

Suddenly, the curtains parted and spotlights focused on the impressive Steinway on stage. In horror, the mother saw her little boy sitting at the keyboard, innocently picking out "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star."

At that moment, the great piano master made his entrance, quickly moved to the piano, and whispered in the boy's ear, “Don't quit. Keep playing.” Then, leaning over, Paderewski reached down with his left hand and began filling in a bass part. Soon his right arm reached around to the other side of the child and he added a running obbligato. Together, the old master and the young novice transformed a frightening situation into a wonderfully creative experience. The audience was mesmerized.

That's the way it is in life. What we can accomplish on our own is hardly noteworthy. We try our best, but the results aren't exactly graceful flowing music. But when we trust in the hands of a Greater Power, our life's work truly can be beautiful

Next time you set out to accomplish great feats, listen carefully. You can hear the voice of the Master, whispering in your ear, "Don't quit. Keep playing”

Cool sheep

I've discovered someone on the web who I thought I liked. Actually I love his Ignore Everybody, but seeing the top post on his blog today, I'm wary of just saying I'm fully behind him.

Anyway, I'm getting a lot of mileage out of his sheep cartoon, while I figure out where I'm going. Where I can best nurture my dreams. Whether there's a future for me in our company.

Things are interesting at work at the moment. Some of the right people have discovered me as a storyteller, and are switching on to the powere there is in it. I'm finding myself expounding on Hugh's idea. I told someone this week that if I'm going to be an interesting sheep, I'd better expect to find myself in some pretty odd fields.

I'll send you a postcard. :-)

37, and laughing

I had occasion to talk to a bus driver the other day. On Tuesdays and Thursdays Ray collects Elena from school and I slum it on public transport (actually it's not bad at all now they've rebuilt the bus station).

I'd just caught it before it pulled away. It  was full and I had to stand, right at the front since I was the last one on. On my way out of the office I'd taken a call on the mobile that I couldn't make at work, and I was just finishing up. And the driver said to me, 'Look at you on your phone. Don't you have anything better to do?"

I have a soft spot for a)opportunities to explore people and situations I don't usually come across and b)for bus drivers in general. Rachel Simon's excellent Riding the Bus With My Sister (disregard the film) has opened my mind to find truths these always-opinionated guys might have observed.

We chatted. He has two teenage sons with Asperger's syndrome. He works eleven-hour days and still helps run a charity that takes disabled children for days at the seaside and such in the cabs of Big Trucks. And yes he was opinionated. But his opinions were in the right direction. I told him how good it was that his boys had a dad like him.

And then he said it. This middle-aged guy is the same age as me. My heart fell. There's no way I'm as old as he is. I started looking at myself differently in the mirror. Have I just been fooling myself, to think I'm younger than I am?

A few days later, I was washing up, but the girls wanted to play. Elena wanted to be a doctor, and insisted something was wrong with me. She was exploring my back and legs. And then it happened.

She found a spot where I'm still ticklish.

I'd assumed that I'd lost the surprise, that the fun had worn down. That I'd got too grown-up.

But I squirmed uncontrollably. I couldn't stand the touch. I laughed out loud.

Which the girls thought was hilarious.

And gave me a thrill. 

I want to find more places where I'm ticklish - not just on my skin, but places in myself that make me laugh out loud, places to be in life where I'm relaxed enough to feel the things that touch me, even with my hands deep in dishwater. I want to be ready to play the game even when I'm busy. This is the person I want to be. Now and forever. Building up those laugh lines, so when I look in the mirror, when I'm an age that really is old, I will be glad, and will remember the fun I had getting them.