This episode features Grace Pettit, a student in Campfire’s Advanced Storytelling class. You can learn more about Grace Pettit on the Campfire website, https://cmpfr.com/events/fall-2018-advanced-storytelling/.
These episodes of The Campfire Storytelling Podcast showcase students who went through our Advanced Storytelling class. These students take a six-week class to prepare to tell a story about life and how they live it. Season 32 students told stories about false narratives.
This episode was originally performed in August 2020, produced by Jeff Allen, and recorded live via Zoom.
This episode features Grace Pettit, a student in Campfire’s Advanced Storytelling class. You can learn more about Grace Pettit on the Campfire website, https://cmpfr.com/events/fall-2018-advanced-storytelling/.
These episodes of The Campfire Storytelling Podcast showcase students who went through our Advanced Storytelling class. These students take a six-week class to prepare to tell a story about life and how they live it. Season 32 students told stories about false narratives.
This episode was originally performed in August 2020, produced by Jeff Allen, and recorded live via Zoom.
Hello, Internet. I'm Steven Harowitz, and I'll be your host for this episode of Campfire at Home recorded here in St. Louis, Missouri. Almost every month, we gather at the Campfire to hear stories about life and how we live it from the everyday voices that live around us. Campfire at Home is how we bring that live storytelling experience to you, wherever you are. In this episode, I have something special for you, as I always try to, because we have stories to share from the capstone event of our recent Advanced Storytelling class, featuring Grace, Katie, Lizzie, and Nokie. These students signed up for the class way back at the beginning of 2020. And we held one class in April in person, and then the pandemic settled into our bones as a reality. We postponed the rest of the classes to the summer. We were thinking hopefully we could return to in person classes by then. And when it became inevitable that the pandemic would continue to wreak havoc on our daily lives, we went ahead with holding the class online. All this to say, this has been a long time coming. Over six class sessions, after a brief refresher on what we'd learned in Intro to Storytelling. This class took a deep dive into ensuring that, as public speakers, our intentions align with our impact. We also practiced learning to really listen and love our own voices. Students also practiced giving and receiving constructive peer feedback throughout the course. This process required deep reflection centered on the season theme, false narratives. The story you'll hear in this episode represents the storyteller's interpretation of the false narratives theme and how false narratives have impacted their life. This brings us to the Campfire at Home episode you are listening to right now. This episode will highlight one of our four student storytellers. You can catch the other storytellers by subscribing to Campfire at Home wherever you get your podcasts. And now let's head to the Campfire to listen to Grace's story on false narratives.
Grace Pettit:You don't remember this night, um, but Patrick, this was a defining moment in our relationship. It was late. You had just gotten home. I was in bed. You were taking off your shoes and placing them in the closet. You turned around and started pacing the width of our room back and forth. You were, you were moving through the process that we had to do, uh, getting your dad out of the month long stay at the hospital and successfully moved to the however long stay at the rehab nursing home. I don't know if it was the movement of your body back and forth or maybe just the stress that you and I had both been under, but your track of thought changed. And you, you started talking about your relationship with your dad and asking these questions. Now my brain even actually tries to close down as I try to remember, because the questions that you were asking were so intimate. They were so ingrained in me. Um, but you were walking through your dad's decisions, his choices, and, and these questions, these questions that they were like,"How the hell did we get here? How did this happen? How, how in the world could we have prevented this? How could we protect your dad? And how could we protect you? How could you protect us?" I'll speak from experience that these questions that you ask of or to an alcoholic or an addict very rarely are ever answered, but nevertheless, you were asking them and I was so enthralled and in awe of you. And as you were moving back and forth, back and forth, like these waves, I was moving with you. And within an instant, I began to feel these, these hands pulling on my brain, trying to get my attention. And I batted them away. I pushed them down because I was with you. I was with you processing, listening. I had never heard anyone do this before, but the hands came back, and they came back with force, and I subsided under the wave. And I went into my mind to follow those hands and see who and where they connected to. To no surprise, they were connected to me. They were connected to young Grace, about 11, 12 years old. I found myself crying in my closet at my childhood home, 9403 Bickory, that big green house on the hill. A few minutes, a few moments prior to finding myself in the closet, my parents had just sat down myself and my two oldest siblings to tell us that my sister, Emmy, who I'm the youngest of four and she's the next in line, eight years between us. Emmy had just been arrested. She was on her way to Truman State University, and she got pulled over in Macon, Missouri with a bong and some weed on her. Pretty surprising of a college student. But growing up with Emmy, and at that time, especially, our relationship was pretty bad. We fought every day, and, to make it even more dramatic, our bedrooms were on either side of the house. So just imagine the slamming of the doors, the stomping of the feet, the constant contest to, to win. It was like WWE on Friday night, every night. But I grew up fighting. I grew up fighting my sister. I grew up fighting my family, and I grew up fighting myself. And while fighting with my family was relatively normal, fighting with my sister was on a whole different level. And a lot of the times it was because we could see each other. And I mean, that in the way that I saw how she was different. I saw what I, as a child, um, interpreted as fighting tactics, uh, personality changes, outbursts, behavior shifts. I now know that those were indicators of mental health. Um, but at the time growing up, those were the hot buttons that we pressed on each other. But after being told that, after being told that my sister had been arrested, um, I did what I normally would do. I closed up. I Walked upstairs. And I released, um, privately. Internal processor. I don't know if it was something that broke, something that shifted, something that softened. But in that moment of me sitting down on my knees in my closet, I could see the root of my and my sister's relationship. And the only thing there was love. I emulated her. I wanted to be her. She was, God, she was brilliant and beautiful and confident in everything that young Grace was not. But as I sat there, I started asking questions, and, Patrick, they were verbatim the exact same questions that you were asking yourself. How could this have been different? What could I have changed? How could she have done something different maybe a few days, weeks ago? Why didn't I protect her? I knew all of her fighting tactics. Why didn't she protect herself? And the answer, the answer that I left myself with for years was that I, young Grace, had failed to protect my sister. I began to hear you again, Patrick. I began to hear your voice. I was coming back to our bed and our bedroom and our two dogs. And I could see you again, and I could hear you. And you were talking about forgiveness and acceptance and things that... I just, I was just in awe of you again. I couldn't fathom because, Patrick, you did things that night, um, intentional or not, but you chose to acknowledge your and your father's relationship. You named and questioned out loud, articulating these thoughts. And you connected with someone outside of yourself. All of these things that I had never practiced or even thought to put in place, um, until that moment where I came face to face with myself and saw the shame that I had been carrying like a blanket, the shame that has that walls and broken relationships. That night, you you helped me meet myself. You helped me connect with someone outside of myself and accept these things that I could never control. So I don't know if you'll ever get your answers to these questions. Maybe you will, but, Patrick, has we swim closer to August 28th, 2020, our wedding, I just want you to know that any question that weighs you down, any story that makes you feel shitty, I will always be here, and I will always listen. Thank you.
Steven Harowitz:And that's a wrap. You can make sure to hear the other episodes from our Advanced Storytelling graduates by subscribing to Campfire at Home, wherever you get your podcasts. And if you liked what you heard and you're able, please leave a review. It helps others find our podcast and it supports our students. If you were listening to tonight's episode and thought that's pretty cool, well, we'd love to have you come out to an event or take a class. You can visit cmpfr.com. That's C M P F R.com for all the details. And whether you live in St. Louis or nowhere nearby, there are ways to take classes and attend our events virtually. You can find out more cmpfr.com. That's C M P F R.com. As always a big thank you to the Campfire team, our podcast producer Jeff Allen, and everyone who attends these live events. Tonight's stories were recorded live on Zoom from across the country. Thanks for listening to Campfire at Home, and thanks for letting me be your host. I'm Steven Harowitz. Until next time.