“The worms go in, the worms go out, they eat your guts and spit them out…”

“The Hearse Song”, New Jersey shore version

Hurricane Sandy cancelled many events the last few weeks, but she could not stop the storytelling duo of Bady and Estroff in The Green-Wood Cemetery on November 4, 2012.

Oh for so long I have wanted to tell stories in a graveyard.  It started with my falling in love with an old cemetery on a hill in the village of Chatham in upstate New York that I drove past each day. The stones were worn down, tablet style, and dated back to the founding of the town. The place called to me. I responded, “Yes!”.  I knew I needed to create a theater piece that would be performed in the graveyard.

Well, that was a long time ago.  That theater piece never happened in that cemetery, and I switched my love for performance to storytelling.  So of course, now I wanted to tell stories in a cemetery!  But until a few weeks ago I had only gone to cemeteries for the customary usage…to bury someone or visit a grave. 

Then, drum rolls, on November 4, despite the after effects of Hurricane Sandy, I co-led a storytelling tour of the fabulous, famous, historic Green-Wood Cemetery!

We weren’t sure if anyone would be there; we had had so many cancellations from people in Manhattan and Queens, and on Long Island, who could not navigate the mess of the subway system post-Sandy. Or drive without gas. But to my surprise, there were lots of walk-ins and the tour was almost completely filled!

My partner in this artistic endeavor was Steve Estroff, the Manager of Public Programs and an incredibly knowledgeable expert on Green-Wood.  He seems to know where everyone is buried, who they are and what their story is.  We spent many hours tramping up and down as I learned the stories of the different people and breathed in that magical atmosphere.  I mean, George Tilyou, who practically invented Coney Island, is buried there.  And more mobsters than you would imagine in such a beautiful and reverential place.

If you do not know anything about Green-Wood Cemetery:  It is huge!  It is almost as large as Prospect Park in Brooklyn, which is also enormous.  It was designed to be a rural cemetery, with hills and small lakes and winding paths.  Green-Wood has always been a destination to walk through, filled with beautiful statues and magnificent mausoleums along the hillsides.  It was a privilege to be there.

We had so much fun planning this!  We created a tour that combined ancient mythology with the true stories of the dead buried there, and took them deep into the cemetery, up on the highest point of Brooklyn overlooking the harbor and the Statue of Liberty, to the magnificent chapel by the small pond of water. 

The tour started at 4:00, and ended at 6:00; started in light and ended in darkness.  Sitting in the chapel drinking champagne and Martinelli, we drank a toast to the coming dark of winter.  My toast was also to that first long-ago cemetery, to the beautiful Green-Wood Cemetery and to the storytelling that Steve and I will make happen at Green-Wood in the Spring.

"Float Like a Butterfly, Sting Like a Bee"

by Muhammed Ali

Report from Brooklyn 2:

Yesterday, I went back to the shelter at John Jay High School in Brooklyn.  I had a show on Sunday (at the Green Wood Cemetery) and the weekend was consumed with preparation and performance.  On Sunday, I called and they gave me a specific time to tell stories on Monday, as there were other performers wanting to offer their time and talents for the children.

When I got there, all of the kids were at school (yay!) except for two little girls who came in. Plus an older woman who came up to listen and volunteers who wanted to sit in.

One of the volunteers told me, “We tried to get more people. We put up a sign.  But, there are so many signs around this school so that no one knows which signs mean anything anymore. People are hard to round up or they can’t wait to go walking outside in the sunlight.”  It was after lunch. I can certainly understand needing fresh air and sun! 

The children wanted to draw, so I suggested they draw something they could tell a story about later.  They smiled and happily began to make art.

The adults sat down in a circle of chairs.  We decided, as a group, that we would all tell a short story or anecdote. The topic would be: 1. my worst experience during or after Sandy; 2. my most hopeful experience during or after Sandy, or 3. my scariest experience during or after Sandy.  Each chose to tell of her worst experience.

All the stories were moving and emotional, and we all nodded and laughed during the tellings.  But one story will stick with me for a long time.  It is the story of a woman who is a home health aide for an elderly woman in Brooklyn. 

When her shift ended, she couldn’t get home and her replacement could not get into the city. She called her family in the Rockaways (the sandbar island off Queens that was slammed hard by the ocean, wind and rain), and her husband told her they all were going to tough out the storm and stay. After the storm passed, she was able to again connect with them. Her husband told her they were staying put so they could protect their home from the looting that was going on.

So there she was, in a shelter in Brooklyn, not able to get back to her family in the Rockaways even if she wanted to because no one is being let in, not knowing what is happening to them or their home.

Then it was the children’s time.  First the oldest girl, age 9, came and sat next to me.  She had drawn a butterfly and also pictures of a worm, an egg, and a cocoon. She introduced us to the butterfly then she backtracked, and using her pictures, she told us the story of an egg which opens and out comes a worm which makes a cocoon.  Then the worm goes inside the cocoon and stays there for a while as it transforms and becomes a butterfly.  The pictures were beautiful and vibrant. Her telling was strong.  Most lovely to me was that she started with the butterfly and then told the story of its development into a beautiful butterfly. 

Her younger cousin, age 5 or 6, then came up with her pictures.  She too had a progression of story pictures. 

A unicorn lived in a house.  Outside was a pumpkin.  The unicorn was afraid of the pumpkin and other “things”.  The unicorn went inside her house; she was so scared!  But the next day, when the unicorn looked outside, there was a scarecrow, with the pumpkin as its head, scaring birds away from the vegetable garden.

Interesting about this one:  the small garden with the scarecrow in the middle looked like a boat floating on a curvy line below which looked like the sea, as if it was floating to safety.

I showed the girls how to turn these pictures into a visual story.  We taped them together in order, rolled them up from the end, and then retold the story using the pictures like a moving picture show

I left the shelter feeling as if it had been as good as it could be.  But there is no way it could be different right now.  There is no sense of organization, though yesterday was better than the first time. There was somebody in charge and the kids were not roaming the hallway.  People are being sheltered and fed.

I was planning to go back today, but when I called to find out when they wanted me, I learned that the refugees were being moved to the Bronx at that very moment.  The shelter are in flux; they are being “consolidated”.

So we have to be in flux too.  “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.”  Quite a few of us NYers want to do something with storytelling.  Hard to figure out what we need to do, when to do it, where to do it. Things keep changing. The ground keeps shifting. We hope to have a meeting to see if we can make an organized plan.  And we will persevere. What else can you do?

“Storytelling. If not now, when?”

"We want bread, but roses too"

(Song from the Lawrence, MA Textile Workers' Strike of 1912)

Report from Brooklyn 
Five days after Hurricane Sandy

Yesterday, finally some action! My friend Dixie and i went to two shelters to volunteer as storytellers. The first had all seniors and at that time the staff did not want to do anything but check them all in and make them comfortable. The seniors were from three nursing homes in the Rockaways (a sandbar/island that hugs the coast of Queens/Brooklyn.) They had not been taken until very late, and were still agitated. 

The second shelter was at John Jay High School, in Park Slope, and had families. There were two playrooms, full of NYC workers not at their usual jobs, and kids unaccompanied by parents. It was a bit chaotic, but we went ahead and told 2 stories. With the older kids we told stories that could be acted out. In the younger kids playroom, I sang songs and led them in movement games. Not one of them could sit down to listen, or even listen while jumping!

In the middle of the singing, a woman stormed in complaining that there were kids roaming the halls and wanted to know who if anyone had vetted the volunteers. She was very upset, and worried that one of the volunteers might be a pedophile. 

The atmosphere is as organized as it can be (considering that shelters in schools will have to be relocated and no one knows where or when) and the children are unfocused and bumping off walls. It seems that there is an overflow of volunteers, including musicians and artist for the children, at least in Park Slope. I saw friends of mine, 2 clowns, and musicians entering and leaving the buildings!

However, the children and the staff appreciated the storytelling and songs and mostly our presence. One 9 year old little boy really ran with the acting, and then told a story of how his family escaped from the flooding in Rockaway.

I am going to call the office of emergency management today to see if there is any way to coordinate storytelling volunteers or find out what is needed where in terms of story. So far I have only the names and numbers of Brooklyn shelters. I will see if I can get more.

I do not know what can/or cannot/be organized since no one in the shelters really knows what is happening much in advance. But we NYers are hardy folks, and determined, so we will go where we can. After 9/11 we organized ourselves. We will do what we can now also.

And we do need bread, and we need roses too!