"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?”