The Naked City

I was born in 1958. That same year, a television show was born that had a run long enough for me to remember it. I didn't watch it, of course. I was into Bozo the Clown, Captain Kangaroo and Romper Room. My parents must have watched it a lot, however, because at the end of every show I remember an ominous voice that came on saying "There are eight million stories in the Naked City. This has been one of them."

I thought about that line today as I drove to work from having breakfast with a friend. He's someone that I've not known long, and whose experiences I have only begun to hear. He has a life that has been full and treacherous and uplifting and heartbreaking. He has a story. We all have a story.

I am a man most blessed with friends and loved ones who have heard or are willing to hear my story. I have found over the last ten years that telling that story is important. Telling your story solidifies it in your mind. It brings reason and truth to your experiences. It puts the chapters together for you, because until you tell your story, you don't realize that the parts you choose to tell connect in amazing ways to the parts you keep secret.

The chapters already written cannot be edited. The characters are already established. Many of them have had a major influence on the plot while others are bit players. The villains are in place, and the heroes are yet to be fully discovered. When you tell your story, you become the narrator, sharing only a chapter at a time and adding emphasis and drama for flair when appropriate. You skim over the mundane details to hold the interest of your listeners. It's your story, after all. It has to be interesting. It's what put you on the page today, now, this very minute.

Look around you. Make yourself aware of where you are, what you are doing, where you are sitting , how you are feeling. That is where the story has led thus far. It didn't just happen, it's part of the plot. What's next? How will it end? Will your character develop? Will your story matter?

Remember that there are "eight million" other stories out there. You are in many of those too. In some you are a major player - maybe a villain or a hero. In most you are a walk-on, a "man in doorway" or "women walking dog." What if you decided to be part of a happy ending - if not of the story, at least of a chapter? Would it change your role?

Tell your story. If you aren't connected to someone who will listen, then go out and listen to the stories of others until it's your turn to talk. When it is, tell it the way it was written without the edits and without the eraser. You will see it in a way that just mulling it over on your pillow at night never allowed you to.

You will see that you can have the editor's pen and decide how it ends. You're the hero, it just hasn't been written as such. Yet.