Drivers
Listen to TinaO read this poem here.
Four wheels don’t make a driver
Some of us are gap fillers
Never considering how long it takes to stop before we start
or leaving a space between the cars
or a breath before the accident
–
Drivers read the room
they notice the way the rain hits
the window
It’s the rhythm of our repetition
and our listening through the weather
that keeps us rooted,
We drive through the exhale we can no longer hear
–
Drivers always take in
what doesn’t move around them
they drive conversation so they don’t sputter and fall
they grab up all the discomfort
like doughy circles of bread
squishing them into cubes
between our fingers
and palms
smaller and smaller
until just dense enough to stomach them
in one
efficient swallow
–
We drive the impossible
into the wreckage of exhausted potential
–
We’re weird like that
Drivers
–
We think anything can be done,
rescued,
revitalized,
made into something it’s not
and never has been
–
We tell ourselves
capacity
is a moveable thing
and not a boundary
or a sign of where something ends
where we’re so full we simply cannot take any more in
Drivers look at these lines as cartoons,
something we can erase and redraw
or pick up and put down wherever we need them to be
–
But drivers don’t read maps this way
on paper
on the road
or in actual life
where breathing back and forth
can happen,
No,
valleys, cliffs and deserts are not
merely suggestions
there
We are drivers
and we will drive til it’s done
–
I am a driver
I have driven the things I want into what I want them to be
Til I see a moment like it’s not
Til it’s better
Because I made it that way
–
I get shit done,
I make up new rules for the road
and I can see in the dark
–
So why?
Why would I stop driving now?
–
Listen to this poem ready by TinaO here.
Story Hit #3 – Hold on to What You Know
(or How Live Your Best Story Came to Be)
From Where We’ve Been: TinaO’s Story Hit’s Compilation
From October 2016 – almost three months post cancer treatment
These vlogs track where we’ve been together over the last seven years. I share them with you to close one story and open another.
This year on December 25th, which is both Christmas Day and my 50th Birthday, I am stepping into a new story…and I know what I know what I know about how stories work:
Stories won’t let go until they’ve been fully heard.
This is release #3 of sixteen weeks of Story Hits (vlog) from as far back as 2013. Some are my favourites, some are yours. If you missed week #1 and #2 and want to start from the beginning, you can start here with: Out of the Water.
I will be writing more about these moments in both my upcoming book: STORY STONES (coming fall 2021, and in my one woman show: O MY GOD (touring spring 2021).
On my 50th Birthday, if you’re on my VIP list, I’ll be sending you 50 Days of Christmas Story Gifts from Dec. 25th to February 12th. If you want some story goodness filled with sneak peeks into the creation and rehearsal process, plus be able to pre-order the book, and order tickets to the show, click here and the let the gifting begin! (You’ll get a bunch of cool story right away).
Thank you for listening.
xT
Tina Overbury is a core-communications specialist who works with individuals and organizations who feel called. She is a storyteller, performer, and a professional listener who works with narrative and story structure as a vehicle for human connection. Her work is rooted in Myth, Mysticism, and the practice of personal faith. She brings thirty years of collaborative storytelling in theatre, film, marketing, team based selling, and workshop facilitation. She is the founder of Live Your Best Story, a weekend retreat of deep listening held on Bowen Island, BC, Canada and is the voice and story behind TinaOLife, home to Story Stones, TinaO’s online gathering of listening in to sacred stories. Tina is a proud associate of PowHERhouse media where she listens and supports the ‘stories’ of whole and integrated leaders of tomorrow.
If you’d like to know more about TinaO’s approach to STORY and receive updates about STORY STONES the book, and O MY GOD, her one woman show, click here and you’ll be added to her ‘stay in touch’ list plus she’ll send you a few short intro videos about what story means to her. CLICK HERE for TinaO Story stuff.