Written by Madison Bigelow, with support from the DAC Team
I happen to think a lot about writing. And storytelling.
This could very easily be the English student in me, but I’ve forever been fascinated by how people tell stories (and in particular, their own) – how inclusions, omissions, and perspectives not only articulate the characteristics of a given individual’s world, but how those observations mirror the author themself.
When I came across Laurie Anderson’s “A Story about a Story,” which is a smaller piece of a much larger film she made in 2015, I didn’t quite know what to make of it. First read to me in a creative writing workshop, it was obvious that Anderson’s narrative was supposed to offer some profound analysis on why and how we tell our own stories. I approached this explanation with skepticism; frankly, it seemed like a sort of cop-out answer. However, I found myself continuing to return this articulation, not for its meditations on the writing process itself, but rather how we understand disability in its ‘mythical’ and narrative constructions.
“There was always something weird about telling this story, that made me very uneasy. Like something was missing”
Laurie Anderson, “A Story about a Story”
While I can’t be certain, I don’t think Anderson wrote this piece to prompt her audience to consider disability. But, the crux of her argument surrounding storytelling centers around a childhood accident: trying to garner attention from spectators at the public pool, she attempted to flip off a diving board (with no prior experience) and broke her back at twelve years old. She recounts her experience in the children’s trauma unit at her hospital, reconciling with her temporary immobility, forced dependency, and the eventual back brace she was required to wear for two years.
she claims that “there was always something weird about telling this story, that made [her] very uneasy. Like something was missing.” What was ‘missing’ was her context: “It was the way the ward sounded at night. It was the sounds of all the children crying and screaming … And the way some of the beds would be empty in the morning.”
In hindsight, Anderson understands her experience as one part of many that culminate to make a whole: while she could technically tell this story without mentioning the physical/emotional settings of the hospitals or others that inhabit the space, it renders her retelling incomplete.
She concludes her piece by stating that “you try to get to the point you’re making – usually about yourself or something you learned. And you get your story, and you hold on to it. And every time you tell it, you forget it more.”
As my professor approached the end of this, what most appropriately presents itself to me as, micro-essay, I sat there in awe. How could this not be a statement about disability?
For those who have ventured into academic disability studies, the motif of the story is everywhere. While I don’t feel that Anderson is pioneering the metaphorical (or even, literal) usage of the story, I do think she inadvertently makes this metaphor much more accessible to a broader audience. The relationship between disability and narrative runs much deeper than its presentation at the surface.
Disability, just like a story, cannot be understood through a single individual. While we might look at memoirs as a microcosm of a person’s experience, even that does not occur within a vacuum. Instead, people’s experiences with disability, much like their stories more generally, are a result of an intricate interweaving of place, space, and other people that illuminate much larger social, cultural, and political phenomena. In other words, ignoring the infrastructure– physical and metaphorical– that surrounds a person renders their story incomplete.
For me, “A Story about a Story” speaks to the necessity of looking at the bigger picture. Whether it be in regards to writing or understanding disability (although, let’s face it– those two arenas are rarely, if ever, separate), narrative is all-encompassing. Despite the human instinct to individualize one’s experience, stories that lack such context, in effect, lack the ability to illuminate how universal the human condition might be. We are all shaped by stories and shape other’s stories. If you ignore your community as you reconcile with your own story, as Laurie Anderson conveys, “every time you tell it, you forget it more.”
Disability & Access Collective 