The kitchen is the center of our home. It is the place where friends and family gather. Here, we cook together. We listen to music together. And when the meal is ready, we share a meal, and tell stories together.
I believe we are hardwired for story telling and for listening to stories. They are what has bonded people together throughout the ages. They give us perspective, guidance, and occasionally wisdom and new insights. In simple terms, stories build a common ground from which we understand that we are all travelers moving through a constantly changing and evolving life journey.
“Real stories take time,” writes Rachel Naomi Ramen, M.D. in her book, Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories That Heal (Riverhead Books, 1996). And I believe we have forgotten to make time for story telling. We also have forgotten to value the time it takes to tell stories.
During the last twenty years, we have been consumed by time as defined by the internet and the digital economy. We live, breathe, and connect with people at the speed of software and our digital devices. Speed is the goal and the desired outcome.
In particular, during this rise of the digital economy, we have forgotten the experience and the memory of sharing around the kitchen table. I like to call this kitchen table time. When we gather around the table, the goal is not speed as much as deep sharing and listening, a connection that bonds and transcends digital or clock based time.
When we choose kitchen table time, we come to understand something important. As Rachel Naomi Ramen, M.D. wrote, “The best stories have many meanings; their meanings change as our capacity to understand and appreciate meaning grows.” And when we hear the same stories, particularly ones shared over the course of our life, we discover new insights from the sharing.
Furthermore, we start to understand that story telling and story listening is a complex and living interchange. We are changed by the stories we hear, and we are changed by the telling of our stories. As Brene’ Brown reminds us, “We are the map maker and the traveler.” And as I like to point out, we are the story teller and the story, too.
Rachel Naomi Ramen, M.D. reminds us that “We carry with us every story we have ever heard and ever story we have ever lived, filed away at some deep place in our memory.” For me, this a powerful statement. It recognizes that stories, i.e. the ones we’ve heard and the ones we have shared, are integral to the very fabric of who we are and what we believe.
This past spring when my wife and I were having dinner with a single parent and her very young son, I also remember something else that Rachel Naomi Ramen, M.D. wrote. As she explained, “the kitchen table is a level playing field. Everyone’s story matters. The wisdom in the story of the most educated and powerful person is often not greater than the wisdom in the story of a child, and the life of a child can teach us as much as the life of a sage.”
As this little boy shared about his day in kindergarten and the fun he has with his many stuffed animals, I was grateful for the opportunity to listen and to be present to his sharing. Through his youthful eyes and story telling, I remembered that the entire world was filled with amazing new adventures to be experienced. I also remembered that from these new experiences, there will be many more new stories to share and to listen to over a good meal at the kitchen table. Rachel Naomi Ramen, M.D. reminds us that “Everybody is a story.” And I was grateful that evening for the opportunity to sit at our kitchen table, and to listen to such a wise young sage, sharing his story.
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