‘A Winter’s Tale’ and other Seacoast events foster the ancient art of storytelling.

Storytelling is probably the most ancient form of entertainment. Early homo sapiens surely gathered around the fire on chilly evenings to share tales of hunting bravado tens of thousands of years ago. In that singular respect, little has changed.

We all have an endless supply of anecdotes in the vaults of our memories, and sharing them is a free and intimate source of amusement. We allow that some details may be embellished—that only adds to the appeal. At a time when the weather is cold and many pockets are shallow, storytelling is a foolproof way to pass the time. And several events on the Seacoast are aimed at celebrating the art. 

“A Winter’s Tale,” a three-part storytelling series held at The Red Door in Portsmouth, returns for its second year beginning on Sunday, Jan. 23. A number of local presenters will speak on the theme of “starting over,” sharing autobiographical stories about beginning again. On Sunday, Feb. 20, other speakers will reflect on things, thoughts and people “lost and found.” The final installment, based on the theme of how “money changes everything,” takes place on Sunday, March 20. 

Among the presenters are many of those who participated in the inaugural “Winter’s Tale” series last year, including John Herman, Tammi Truax, Bruce Pingree, Rachel Forrest, Bob Halperin, and Pat Spalding, along with several new participants. Each presenter has up to 10 minutes to share a personal story from memory. A total of eight storytellers will address the crowd each night. There is no prize awarded to the best story, just a community spirit of fun and camaraderie.  

Each of the events runs from 7 to 9 p.m., with cocktails available at the bar beginning at 6 p.m. The Red Door is at 107 State St., Portsmouth, 603-373-6827. Admission is $8, with advance tickets available at RiverRun Bookstore. Proceeds will benefit Seacoast Local’s (H)EAT campaign, as well as the Blue Ocean Society for Marine Conservation. For more information, find “A Winter’s Tale” on Facebook.

There are other local opportunities to share stories in public settings. Crackskull’s Coffee & Books in Newmarket is offering a “Seacoast StorySlam” event on Thursday, Jan. 27. Guests are welcome to listen and tell tales of their own during the live storytelling open mike. Eight presenters will be drawn from a hat, and each will be given 10 minutes to speak. It begins at 7:30 p.m. at Crackskull’s, 86 Main St., Newmarket, 603-659-8181. The recurring event takes place every few months.

The region abounds with other storytelling events. Bob Chadbourn and Becky Rule served up humorous anecdotes at the third annual “Dead of Winter Story Swap” at Chadbourn’s Restaurant in Northwood on Jan. 15. Storyteller and children’s author Shawn Middleton will spin yarns at Water Street Bookstore in Exeter on Saturday, Jan. 29 at 11 a.m.

Anyone can get together with friends or family members at a local café, bar, or in their own home to exchange stories around a cup of coffee or beer. It’s a cozy way to spend a winter’s day, and it sure beats most of the crap on TV.In the spirit of “A Winter’s Tale,” a number of Wire contributors have shared “starting over” stories from their own lives.

Beware, the tongs

I was once a happy, worriless being who lived cozily in a warm, safe, rent-free womb. All that changed abruptly, though, when I was born.

 The notion of “starting over” never once entered my fragile head during the blissful nine months between late 1977 and mid 1978. But, then again, few notions did. I was like Descartes at the outset of his Meditations, happily devoid of worldly knowledge and only vaguely acquainted with sensory perception. 

Man, I had it made. I spent most of my time in a deep, narcotic sleep, stirring only occasionally to kick my feet and admire the swift development of my extremities. Even the faculties of chewing and swallowing were beyond necessity, as I was fed by a curious tube that deposited nutrients directly into my stomach through the bellybutton. I floated in this heavenly substrate for months on end, thinking of nothing, utterly unaware of such odious concepts as fear, hardship or labor.

Then, on the fateful day of July 24, 1978, something terrible happened. One minute I was lying half-asleep and dimly conscious in the tropical ambiance of my snug shelter, the next I was sliding precariously toward a blindingly bright passageway. Strange, urgent voices beckoned me toward the excruciating light, and I unwillingly complied.

Oh, I resisted. Indeed, I grabbed and clawed at my surroundings with feeble fingers, desperately attempting to halt this involuntary migration. But soon, with a frigid rush of dry air, my head entered the horrid light. Like a frightened turtle, I tried to duck back inside. But, all of a sudden, I found my temples gripped by what looked and felt like a pair of giant salad tongs. And then, all at once, I was cruelly tugged into the cold, harsh reality I have known ever since. 

I made my objections known with the most plaintive, earsplitting fit of wailing my nascent vocal cords could muster, only to be answered by a series of sharp spanks to my backside, which, at that time, was tender and smooth. All the while, I was held dangling like a fish on a hook, aware for the first time of my own nakedness. 

Why had this happened to me? What new horrors awaited? I didn’t know. I still don’t know. The familiar Jacuzzi I’d called home to that point had vanished, my feeding tube had been grotesquely severed, and my bellybutton had become a useless lint collector. Like it or not, I was starting over. 

But this is not an entirely sad story. Although I never intended to begin again, I’m pleased to say that the 32-year journey since has featured more highs than lows. Sure, I have to pay bills now, and brush my teeth twice daily, and shovel out the car when there’s a blizzard. But I’ve met many fascinating people, who, astonishingly, experienced the same “starting over” story as me. They’ve got other stories, too, and sometimes, of a snowy day, we get together and share them. —Matt Kanner

starting over is different than starting

For something you want to do, starting brings with it hope, excitement, novelty, and maybe a bit of nervousness.

Starting over, on the other hand. Ugh. In order to start over, you have to stop doing something, and sometimes admitting that you’ve stopped—that you no longer do the thing you were once committed to, known for, or took time out of your life to do—is painful enough on its own.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve quit and rejoined gyms, the half-life of my hope growing weaker with each new registration form, canceled check, and free T-shirt. I always start strong, stop going, say I’m going to go back, keep not going, and then finally end my membership. Sometimes quitting comes easily—I accept early on that I’m just not going to go and that there’s no point in beating myself up about it. Other times quitting is more difficult, ultimately motivated by regular membership fees and irregular visits, adding up to a cost-per-visit that approaches the price of a decent meal in this town. Failure acknowledged, membership canceled.

A few years ago, I embarked on a very regular yoga practice. I had an unlimited membership and the thrifty Yankee in me wanted to maximize my investment. Daily, I’d relish in the ritual of getting my yoga gear, heading to class, and spending the only time during my day not focused on someone or something else. It was wonderful. And I remember thinking, “I’d better keep coming every day, because I don’t know how I will get back into it if I don’t.”

This continued for about a year. Pretty regular practice with Saturdays off, or Saturdays on if I had to miss another day. Then I started taking a few more days off. I went two, sometimes three days without going to class. And guess what? The world didn’t end. But, as my practice grew more irregular, I found it harder to sustain and finally, last April, I threw in the towel. The hot, sweaty, yoga towel. Since then, I’ve been back once.

Although a lapsed practitioner, one of the greatest lessons about starting over is what I learned from these abandoned yoga classes. The hardest part about class isn’t what you actually do when you get there; it’s getting there in the first place. And then once you’re there, it’s not so much about going through the postures perfectly, but giving it your best—not anyone else’s best, not your own personal or yesterday’s best, but the best you can do today. And when, not if, you fall out of a posture, you have to get right back into it. Each day, each posture, each movement is an opportunity to succeed or to start over.  

The real failure isn’t in quitting, you see, it’s in not trying, or retrying, to begin with. So here’s to new starts. And to starting over. —Sarah Lachance

almost up and down the mountain (and then back up again)

My first hike up Mount Major ended in sweaty disaster. It was last August, and though I didn’t outwardly look like a bulky behemoth, my short 5-foot, 8-inch frame hid 230 pounds of girth. It was a mild summer day and Kari, my girlfriend, wanted to take advantage of the sunshine and go for an easy hike. 

For me, it turned out to be not so easy. Physical activity has never been my thing. Chronic asthma and serious bouts with bronchitis and pneumonia kept me inside as a child. I couldn’t play sports, but I could eat junk food like a champion. The asthma faded away as I entered my 20s, but the junk food (aided and abetted by a love of good beer and rich treats) continued to hold sway. Go for a hike? Why not just sit on this bench and eat this delicious brownie? 

Things started out well. We had a backpack full of water and light snacks, and at the beginning of the trail, I found a fallen branch that made a perfect walking stick. I stopped to pet the dogs walking down the mountain with their owners. “I can do this,” I thought. I could see Kari and myself at the top, lost in the view. “It’s an easy hike.”But as the trail grew steeper and rockier, my resolve flagged. My blue T-shirt was black with sweat, my breath ragged. An even steeper hill loomed before us. I now saw myself not at the top of the mountain but collapsed in a crumpled heap. 

“Let’s take a break here,” Kari said. I slumped down and sat against a rock, defeated. Meanwhile, families, most of them full of children and old folks, happily bounded up the mountain. I looked at them with envy. “I know we’re almost there, but I can’t make it,” I said. We trudged back down the mountain.

The next week, I slashed the junk food out of my diet, along with a lot of other stuff. I said goodbye to foods with wheat, dairy, and added sugar. And I started exercising, though intermittently and without real seriousness. The new diet did the trick, though; I dropped 30 pounds in a month. Kari and I returned to Mount Major in October, and this time, I bounded up the mountain, as light as the newly fallen leaves. —Larry Clow

tabula rasa

In the fall of 1993 I spent a semester in Budapest. To better explore the region I bought a motorcycle, a red MZ 250, light and quick and easy to hide in the bushes at night. I named it Loki, and, once acquired, the power it gave me to hop the border and range farther abroad was irresistible, so I wandered north across the empty country roads of Slovakia and wound through the snow-covered Tatra Mountains of southern Poland, delighting in my newfound mobility.

Then I decided to ride to Istanbul. It was only three countries away, after all, only a few hundred miles, really. Probably just a long day’s ride, maybe two.

It took five days, instead, to cross the rain-soaked plains of Hungary, then slog through the wagon-laden mud roads of Romania, the long gas lines, past the campfires along the roadside, before finally reaching the sunnier, golden cliffs of Bulgaria, where kind women manned the gas stations. 

I was tired by then, having sucked in diesel smog and rain for days, having slept poorly from the sound of angry voices in the dark all through the night, and I was not well equipped: having brought no riding gear from home, I’d improvised badly, a long Canadian Air Force wool coat, cheap sunglasses, a military surplus combat helmet that I’d spray-painted white, flimsy knit gloves I’d found at an almost-empty roadside market, the whole suit underlayered with trash bags that poked out here and there. By the time I reached the Turkish border, my face was black with streaked road grime, and the border guards stared at my passport in puzzlement because I was not any sort of American they were familiar with; lunatics, though, they could recognize.

Within 20 minutes of arriving in Istanbul, I sold my bike to a man at the fish market for $160. I would spend a few days in Turkey, try to lose my hacking cough, then find an easier way back to Budapest. 

Istanbul spun at an incredible velocity, old and new blended, East and West layered together over millennia, men in suits and shifty smiles lounging everywhere and ready to sell you anything, garbage piled in the streets while shiny black Mercedes whizzed by, the endless covered streets of the Grand Bazaar rippling with commerce as the domes of the great mosques floated over the city like alien ships. 

I took the train farther inland, past Ankara, and saw some other things, but then it was time to head back, and I found a bus home.

Back at the Turkish border, a man came onboard the bus to check our passports and stopped when he looked at mine, and pointed at it, and had questions. Where was my motorcycle? The stamp on my passport said I had a motorcycle. 

In his view, bringing a vehicle into his country and selling it under the table was smuggling. 

It was the job of the smug, swarthy man with the submachine gun to keep me in a room and find out who I worked for, and who I sold the bike to. No one, a guy at a fish market. His name? Which market? I didn’t know. Could I please use a telephone? No, tell us who you sold the bike to. I explained again, but he shrugged, palms upward, smiling, unconcerned. 

It didn’t help that the six Germans held in the room with me were actual car smugglers, who had driven down in a caravan of vehicles when they got caught. Their spirits were high since they had a friend who would come get them out, they said, because that’s how it worked. We sat in the room, and nothing changed, no phone calls or explanation as to what might be next, just shrugging and smiling and the gun on the table. The Germans found out it was my birthday and sang a rousing rendition of “Happy Birthday,” and gave me their last can of Coke.

In the morning, we were moved to another room, then someone came in to say the Germans’ friend had come for them, but they’d have to take a van to go meet him. As they drove away, the guard turned to me and made a gesture, his two wrists crossed in front of him, and laughed: they were going to prison; it was just easier to tell them they were going to meet their friend. 

I had been reading Thoreau, but his words were like ash in my heart. I was young and stupid and weak, and I was to be punished for my arrogance and idiocy. It was their country, and their rules, and their guns, and my lungs filled with the black water of despair.

Then I got a new guard, and he let me use the phone. I called my uncle, who called the American consulate, who called the border, and half an hour later I was loaded onto a bus back to Istanbul, $20 stuffed in my hand to help ensure I got out of their hair as quickly as possible.

I was anxious that the people at the consulate would lecture me on how stupid I was and the trouble I was in, but they wanted only to help, and the woman who talked with me dissected the problem with great clarity. Since my old passport, we agreed, had been stolen, I had no choice but to start over with a brand new one, free of any entrance stamps at all. I got my blank new passport that afternoon, and flew back to Budapest.

Every year on my birthday, I think of that. —Dave Karlotski

undiscovered country

When I tell people I have some deeply held and diligently cultivated self-destructive tendencies, they usually take it the wrong way. Sure, I’ve been seen poisoning myself with the best of them on occasion at The Press Room on pint night, and yes, I did take up smoking for the first time at age 40 (probably not my most sound decision), but that’s not what I’m talking about.

I am a firm believer that true creation can only be born as the child of some kind of destruction. It took the sacrifice of a perfectly good canvas to bring the Mona Lisa into the world, for example. The cow hides I use to make my leather masks are beautiful in themselves, but I sharpen my scissors and cut into them anyway, hoping to do them some justice in the new forms they take. The oak that remains an acorn will cast a meager shadow, or so I once told my boy. I hold that broken eggs produce not only omelets, but occasionally eagles. Either way, to get there, someone must crack the shell.

 Beyond my petty fascinations with the random surprises my aging body might visit upon me, and my philosophies on the application of physical craft on the world around me, I really do believe that, as a wise man said, it’s better to regret the things you have done than the things you haven’t done. I’ve also been known to quit a dead-end job, sell all my junk and hop on a motorcycle to nowhere. This practice of abyss jumping definitely becomes more difficult as the stakes grow higher with the tethers of age, family and community, but for anyone who’s never hit a highway with no more destination than, say, “west,” I’d heartily encourage it. 

There’s a particular, joyous liberation to just chucking it all, blanking the slate, and seeing where the whirlwind might carry you.

Life, as I see it, is an endless process of discovery and re-creation. We are, all of us, whether we choose to look it in the eye or not, caught in a constantly shifting state of continual becoming. Anyone who’s ever felt that weird, weightless moment when a plane’s tires leave the earth should identify with the exhilaration of potential energy transforming into kinetic. That, to me, is the lightning of being alive. The quickening, if you will, and I’ve learned to see it in almost everything around me. A close shave, some clean sheets, the morning’s first coffee or a fresh new kitten in the house. The excitement of figuring out how my new phone works, even, or a tasty new bit of software in need of exploring. I swear, I’m like a baby, consistently surprised by how delicious my dinner can be. 

All of these are training exercises to me for the great becoming we all have coming; my way, I suppose, of preparing myself for the inevitable trip into the big Undiscovered Country. When I hit that horizon, as we all eventually will, I can only hope that I’ll be able to recognize the moment as just another in my long series of “starting overs.” I’ll shed this old skin once again, and face my own unavoidable destruction with adventure in my heart and a spark in my eye.—Trevor F Bartlett