40 mins

Amid the lockdown, hanging out on her stoop, Marj Kleinman had a realization.  Stoops are where people sit, talk, and share stories and they are a perfect six feet from top to bottom. So Marj createdStoop Stories, a community portrait project documenting how Brooklynites are coping with the Coronavirus pandemic and racial injustice. 

Marj, photographer, award winning children’s content producer, and visual storyteller, with her team have curated over seventy features of families, essential workers, and small businesses. These stories have appeared in The New York Times, Time Out New York, PIX11 News and News 12. 

Marj also has a story of her own. Her life has been filled with many twists and turns and lots of loss.  At 50, she thought her future was dimming, but Stoop Stories has given her life new purpose and direction.  Marj shares a quote that her late beloved father used to recite and that she finds relevant to all plot twisters:

I thought my fire was out, and stirred the ashes…I burnt my fingers. ~ Antonio Machado

Stoop Stories on www.marjkleinman.com
 
@stoop.stories on Instagram

Stoop Stories on Facebook 

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22 mins

Did you know that you have a story?  

Do you realize that your story is fluid, complex, and even inspirational?

Bella tells the story of her trauma.  She tells it over and over again.  It was a story of abuse, pain, and helplessness.  And the story always ended with Bella on the floor.  

Until Hannah asked her this question: “What happens next?”

Psychologists, anthropologists, and scientists all agree; we are a storytelling animal. But what many of us don’t realize is that we are both the protagonist and the narrator of our own story.  That story can have many perspectives and transform many times.  It all depends on where we focus, how we see it, and who we are when we tell it.

We have noticed that most of us choose to tell only part of our story.  We often tend to leave a lot out.  Sometimes we leave things out for so long that we don’t even recall them.  Our identities get formed around the stories we tell, and these stories are often incomplete.  

Psychologist Dan McAdams studies the stories we tell and identifies what he terms “redemptive stories.”   His research indicates that life stories that include our strengths and triumphs predict health and wellbeing.  

What happens when we leave out the redemptive portion of our story? 

We get stuck.  

Bella started to tell the story of how she got up from the bathroom floor. The new story was still filled with pain, but also revealed the thriving parts of Bella. 

Now Bella’s story is complex and transformative; it’s truer to Bella’s evolution. 

This week Hannah and Cecilia talk about the power of telling and retelling your story.  When we explore our story, really listen, and delve into the complexity, we can loosen the grip of a narrative that no longer fits. 

This is the first step to becoming the writer of a new and artful future. 

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32 mins

Up until 50, most women have been going along following the rules and living their lives according to a preset roadmap.  We took our cues from families, social media, and cultural role models. Then we turn 50, and the roadmaps stop. The direction becomes vague, and the cues fade. 

We get hit with negative biases about aging, disdain for older bodies, and hints to our irrelevance.   We learn that we have lost our edge, our beauty, and our value.  Sometimes we even feel like we are losing ourselves.  We go invisible to the world and to ourselves.  

What’s complicated is that during this time of the fading self, a lot happens. Transitions are multifold.  Husbands leave, jobs end, career paths dim, loved ones get ill or die, some of us get ill, children leave, our appearance changes and menopause happens.   

This week we explore the impact feeling lost can have on our individual and collective stories. We explore how re-finding ourselves can be difficult, and sometimes painful. Listen as we share how to start the process of getting unlost.

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28 mins

Listen as Laura Dintino describes her surprise and shock when her husband of 29 years suddenly announced he was interested in a younger woman and ready to move on. It was a plot twist that turned the world she had built and the life she had known completely upside down. She had not only lost her partnership; she lost her identity. Who was she now? How can a woman in her 60’s remake herself?

Laura, a member of our 12 in 12 program, shares how she got reacquainted with herself. With the help of therapist, friends and family, she rediscovers her feisty, ambitious self and is channeling that energy into her new career. For her 12 in 12 project, Laura is working on creating a method that captures immigrants’ and refugees’ individual stories as well as their strengths, interests, and experience. Her goal is to use this information to help them find work in the community that better reflects their passions and abilities.  Laura’s own story of loss, acceptance and reinvention has fueled her commitment to help her students write a new chapter in their own stories.

Recently, Laura left the house that she had shared with her ex-husband and moved into her own new home. She’s back in the driver’s seat. Her strength and courage impressed her daughter who refers to her Mom as a badass.

Lets be clear, when you are a 60-something woman and called badass by a millennial, you have successfully twisted your plot.

Go forward Laura. For all of us.

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43 mins

When Ana Maria Seligmann moved from Panama to Houston, Texas, she focused on helping her children acclimate to a new school and a different culture. When everyone was settled, she began thinking about her next challenge.  What new purpose would she seek in her new country?  For guidance, Ana turned to her religious practice and what came through loud and clear was her innate desire to help people.  Ana set out on a path of introspection and self-discovery.  She began to look at her life with fresh eyes and a new perspective.  She trained in integrative nutrition and now helps other women regain their energy and focus. 

Join us to hear more about how Ana discovered her new purpose and twisted her plot in a new country.

seligmannanamaria@gmail.com

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48 mins

With my camera, I document the joy and the light of her last years of life – the ways that she circles back home, even as she is leaving.  Cheryle St. Onge in the New York Times, Sunday June 28, 2020. 

Photographer Cheryle St. Onge’s plot twisted when her mother was diagnosed with vascular dementia. Her mother began to disappear, and Cheryle grew increasingly depressed.  Her friends suggested that she make art instead of complain.  So she picked up her iPhone and took a picture of her mother. This led to an exquisite collection of photographs, Calling The Birds Home.  Cheryle describes the experience as “a silent conversation with her Mom in the process of making art.”  

Cheryle St. Onge was named one of the Top 50 Photographers in the country by TIME Magazine. Her work has been exhibited at London’s National Portrait Gallery, Princeton University, Griffin Museum, University of Rhode Island, Massachusetts College of Art, Rick Wester Fine Arts, and with the American Institute of Architects traveling exhibition. She has received numerous awards and fellowships, including the 2009 John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship. 

Listen as Cheryle talks with us about the creative process with her mother and what she’s learned about herself, her art, aging, and living.

Click here to see her work at Cheryle St.Onge.com

Follow Cheryle St. Onge on Instagram

New York Times: Photographing the Beauty of My Mother’s Decline 

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45 mins

As a little girl Charisse Brown would scoot across the floor on her belly to listen to the family stories told behind closed doors. Today, as an adult, she’s made a career of listening and holding the stories of others.

Charisse is a professional actor and a teaching artist. When she was 50 she started graduate school and became a drama therapist. She currently works with youth who are detained in the criminal justice system. They are children in trouble, children who have witnessed and experienced violence, children who have been neglected and deprived.

They are children whose stories often go unheard, and never told.

But Charisse hears them all. She keeps them inside of her heart and alive on her tongue. She has learned how to create safe spaces for the children to share what they know. She is currently helping them create a time capsule to capture their lived experiences and unmet dreams. The time capsule will hold the fragments of history that may otherwise be overlooked and misunderstood.    

Some people are born to be artists. Some artists are chosen to bear truths most of us prefer to take distance from. Some artists are then moved to share with the rest of us and help us evolve. Charisse Brown is overflowing with stories, and lots of feelings. She will be performing a one-woman show as soon as our theaters reopen.

We can’t wait to sit in her audience to witness her wisdom and share some of her burden.

Bring it on, Charisse. We will listen.

Charisse’s Email – charbrow7@gmail.com

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