Not so good a morning
The city of Orem hosts an annual Storytelling Festival each August. It is packed with professional oral storytellers who mesmerize everyone who attends. This festival is a long running feature of our community. As a result, all the schools in the area hold springtime storytelling competitions. All the kids tell stories to their classes. The best storytellers then tell their stories for the whole school. The best from each school then compete at a district level and the winners get to tell their stories at the Storytelling Festival the following August.
Today is the day that Kiki’s class is telling each other stories. Kiki informed both me and her teacher that she doesn’t want to do it. Her teacher informed her that telling a story is graded and she would get a zero for the assignment if she did not tell one. I told her that if she doesn’t want to tell in front of the school she doesn’t have to, but that she should fulfill her assignment. All weekend I tried to get Kiki to practice telling a story. She dodged it all weekend. This morning before school I sat her down to make her tell me a story. She started, then balked and threw a fit declaring that she doesn’t want to do it and she just wants to get a zero because she never gets picked to go the the school competition anyway.
Kiki is a naturally gifted oral storyteller. My mother is a professional storyteller and Kiki has been absorbing that since before she could talk. At the age of four Kiki could repeat stories complete with gestures and inflections. She could do that after only hearing the story once. Kiki has a head full of these amazing and unusual stories all of which she can tell. Despite her repertoire and natural gift, she has never once made it past the class competition. This is because she has never practiced in advance. I feel guilty over this because during her early grade school years it was my job to keep track and help her remember to practice. Now remembering assignments is her job not mine, but she has already given up. She has decided not to try because it hurts too much to care and not win. And yet on this very same weekend she has been avidly practicing to try out for the part of Beatrice in her class play Much Ado About Nothing.
I am angry. I am angry at myself for not supporting her more fully when she was younger. I am angry at her for refusing to try. I am angry because she has the ability to totally blow all the other kids out of the water at this. She could have a glorious success which would build her self esteem and make her feel good about herself. Instead all she has is her mother insisting that she’s good at storytelling while she consistently loses to kids who have actually practiced. I am angry that my credibility is so undermined. I am angry that she’s been trying to pick fights with me and her siblings all weekend. I am angry that the argument over storytelling made both Kiki and Gleek late for school. I am angry that because I was late dropping Gleek off for school, I was also late taking Link to the dentist. I am angry at the city of Orem for deciding to tear up every major road surrounding my house all at the same time.
Whew.
Breathe.
I have now ranted. It is time for me to do as Gleek does and take all these “mads” that I have identified and just let them go. See there they go flying out into space. Hopefully when I pick Kiki up from school we can make the rest of today better than the morning was.