show and tell-imagined

This past week all my plans were abruptly changed drastically and I found myself five hundred miles from where I thought I would be, at my grandmother's funeral.

If this had not been the case, if I was in Kansas City on Wednesday, September the 30th, I would have attended the Show and Tell performance at the Fishtank performance studio.

This is how I imagine the night would have gone:

A few people who get up and show off new belongings: phones, children, etc.
A few people who share their past experience, a specific memory, or a place traveled.
A few people telling why they cherish a certain heirloom or a piece of trash they found in their neighbor's rubbish can.

I would leave the theatre feeling saturated with nostalgia.

What is so intriguing about these little stories, primarily unrelated to the grand scheme of life?
What if it was because they were the foundation to our lives. The small moments of joy, extreme sadness, or the broken toy you found on the ground right after you met someone who reshaped your life as you knew it.

These stories we tell and listen to let us know that we are real, we are not alone.


Maybe

I did attend a show and tell, just not the one on 1715 Wyandotte.
Many stories were told of when someone met my grandmother, of a utensil that she gave them and that they always think of her when they use it, the philosophies she instilled in her children, my mom, roadtrips they took with her, what her greatest fears were and how she overcame them, but most of all the love for her family.