We all need to have our stories heard

Last weekend I read a piece by Dan Hurley, a man who’s had a pretty quirky habit for the past 38 years: he writes 60-second novels about the lives of total strangers. Hurley, who makes a living as a freelance science reporter, goes to different public spots with his typewriter and, for any fee you deem worthy to give him, he’ll take about 60 seconds to write down the story of your life that you narrate to him. 

Because of the pandemic, Hurley has been on lockdown for most of the past year. But with new guidelines easing up Covid-19 restrictions, he recently parked himself in front of the main branch of the New York Public Library, ready to hear the stories of complete strangers. 

What Hurley does might seem an odd pastime, but I was struck by the sense that he is meeting a public need that few of us are willing to admit: the need to have our personal stories heard and acknowledged.

When we hear the word “story”, we probably think of books and fiction. Perhaps it is less often that we consider our own lives as a library full of stories. Yet stories are at the centre of our existence, and practically all our communication is a version or part of a larger story. The accounts we give of our lives reveal not just the facts of what has happened to us, but also how we make sense of them.

I think we all have stories we want to tell someone, chapters about our days that would probably reveal more about who we are than we typically let on. But I also think most of us are a little wary of being more deeply known by others because it makes us feel vulnerable.

There’s a striking silkscreen work by conceptual artist Adam Pendleton called “Untitled (Mask)”. One of a four-part series, the piece shows a seemingly simple photocopied image of a black mask from the Dan people of Liberia, transposed on to transparent film. A loop of thick banded white swirls fills the background, visible through the mask’s eye sockets and other openings on its surface.

Pendleton, whose collaborative exhibition with British-Ghanaian architect David Adjaye opened at Pace Gallery Hong Kong this week, is known for his historical re-contextualisations and for playing with language, form and shape. Within their cultural context, Dan masks represented protection and transformation for young male initiates preparing for adulthood. But I thought of Pendleton’s rendering because in our western cultures, we too tend to slip on masks as we enter into adulthood.

As children, we have a hard time hiding our emotions from the world. But when we grow up, many of us walk around every day wearing metaphorical masks that we imagine can protect us from one another. We aren’t forthcoming with the stories we hold about our lives because we’re wary of being judged, misunderstood, blamed or not taken seriously. Or because we simply find it hard to believe that our particular stories matter. We’re also hesitant because the reality is that listening to someone and really hearing their story requires a fullness of engagement that many people simply aren’t willing, or don’t feel they have the capacity to offer.

In our fast-paced, competitive, filter-enhanced world, we aren’t terribly skilled in either listening or sharing. Not only is our technologically inundated world decreasing our attention span, but we have less patience for one another, less of an ability to be present without expecting or needing more stimulation from somewhere else. I have to think hard about the last time I had a long face-to-face conversation with someone (on Zoom or otherwise) without checking my phone. But technology notwithstanding, many of us might admit that disclosure of ourselves, or listening to someone else’s disclosure, makes us a bit uncomfortable.

It helps to be given that sense of ‘Yes, what happens to you matters. Your aches and your longings matter. You matter’

And yet I think one of the unifying aspects of humanity is that whatever face we put on, we all have a desire to communicate the truths about our experience. I think we all want to have someone bear witness to the events of our lives. It helps to be given that sense of: “Yes, what happens to you matters, your experiences matter. Your aches and your longings matter. You matter.” 

In the 2018 painting, “At The Table”, emerging New York-based artist Tajh Rust shows us a scene we are all familiar with in one way or another. A family sits at the kitchen table. It’s a wonderfully colourful scene, with watermelon-coloured tiled walls, a mint-green floor, and a mustard tablecloth. But the subjects’ body language doesn’t seem to match up with this vibrant backdrop. A young wife in a sky-blue patterned dress faces us. Her gaze is undirected, as if in her discomfort she doesn’t quite know where to rest her eyes. Her husband sits across from her, legs jutting out, caught sideways in the frame. We only see his profile as he lightly touches the rim of a small bowl on the table, avoiding looking at his wife. The disconnect between the parents is made more palpable by the small child with her back to everyone, peering inside an open fridge.

There are quietly powerful emotional triggers on this canvas. We are left with the feeling that there is so much each adult wants to speak into the silence. Yet, as many of us know, it can sometimes feel the hardest to tell our stories and to listen to the people to whom we are supposed to feel the closest.

The sign that Dan Hurley uses to advertise his services reads: “Your Life Story in About a Minute”. Now, no one can tell their entire life story in that short a span of time. But in the act of being invited to tell their story, knowing that someone was waiting to listen attentively and then to leave their lives likely forever, people opened their hearts to a total stranger. There was nothing to risk. 

The British-Ghanaian artist Lynette Yiadom-Boakye’s 2018 painting “To Improvise a Mountain” is part of the first major survey of her work at London’s Tate Britain, Fly in League with the Night, which runs until May 31. The image draws us into a private storytelling already in progress. A young girl dressed in a light-blue mini shirtdress stands barefooted on a black-and-white checked floor with her back to us, twirling her hair as she presumably relates something to the older woman reclining on a purple floor pallet. The woman props up her head with her hand as she listens with attention, her open-eyed expression suggesting it is a story of interest and perhaps even concern.

There is something that feels revelatory about the combination of the title of the work and the girl’s figure, looming in the foreground of the canvas. I’m left wondering, can being given the space to tell our stories to an attentive listener help to enlarge and expand the way we take up space in the world? Can having the courage to speak our stories aloud in all their uniqueness and complexity, without editing out what we think might not be acceptable, give us a fuller sense of our lives?

Enuma Okoro writes weekly for Life & Arts

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