My first memory revisited

Building empathy through storytelling and music

<Welcome to Sandwich Season, adventures in middle age, sandwiched between aging parents and growing children ... and other duties as assigned.>

Hi everyone—

In my experience, this middle-age time of life, juggling the interests, needs and blessings of three generations, requires a lot of processing.

In the physical world, this means sorting through the stuff—photos, china, doilies, housewares and papers. But I also find myself sorting through memories and experiences.

Last week I wrote about how writing has been a healing tool for me in this season of change, loss and gain. I also mentioned how I have appreciated the empathy from you who have reached out to share parts of your stories.

Storytelling can happen on the fly—we do it every day with quick texts or phone calls, with comments on a blog post, with conversations over tea.  

But there are also more structured processes that can inspire us to dive deep in new ways. This week I want to share one that I was invited to experience.

Did you know I am a bit of a communications nerd? My job titles have included science writer, newspaper reporter, public relations practitioner, college writing instructor, communications manager and memoir author. I am fascinated not just by what people say and write but also by how their stories come to be.

Over the past three decades I have written thousands of stories and informational pieces, and have taken umpteen courses and workshops.

But last fall I experienced a totally new (to me) type of storytelling called a Story Exchange. As we say in Minnesota, it sure was different.

What was the result?

• I explored my first memory and developed a deeper understanding of my relationship with my dad.

• I received a musical composition created in response to my story.

• I listened deeply to a story told by a college student.

• I had the opportunity to experience empathy in a powerful way.

I’ll share the full process at the end of this post, but first, here is the story—the processing—that emerged from the Story Exchange writing prompt I received and the musical composition that resulted.

The story prompt

“Tell a story about a 'first': first kiss, first time riding a bike, first time visiting a new country, first time riding a rollercoaster, first time of anything”

My story: Dad at the beach

The writing prompt about “firsts” caused me to think about one of my very first memories … and thinking it through actually helped me gain a fresh understanding of my dad.

My dad is known as an encourager. Even today at the retirement community he lives in, I see him working really hard to remember people’s names and drawing out their life stories, reflecting back to them about their interesting lives.

Dad and me on my birthday in the late 1970s at my cousins’ house in Saskatchewan.

He used to be a professor here at Concordia, in the English department, and I know lots of students loved him. When I was in elementary school, we’d get student teachers from Concordia in our classroom. When we’d go around the room introducing ourselves, they would light up when they heard my last name. “Are you Dr. Coomber’s daughter?” they’d ask. “He’s my favorite professor!” I’m sure it’s because he was an encouraging person.

My dad was an encourager at home as well. He told me in so many different ways that I could do anything I put my mind to. Study whatever you want. Play an instrument. Run a race. Make a new friend. Of course I could. I would do great! When I felt doubt creeping in, he would encourage me keep going, to face my latest challenge. Sometimes my mom and I would give each other a look, like, really?

But my dad has also sometimes baffled me, because there have been some times when he has discouraged me in areas I have felt confident in.

For example, for college, I went to St. Olaf and majored in biology. The first semester of my senior year, I literally woke up one morning—on a biology program in India, no less—and knew that I was done with biology. I was going to be a writer. So I graduated in biology, moved home to my parents’ house and found some writing internships in town. A mentor suggested I apply to grad school in journalism, so I did that too.

What did my dad say? “I don’t think you’re going to get accepted into a program. You haven’t even taken a journalism class.”

I was gutted. But as it happened, I got into multiple programs and even got a scholarship to the one at the University of Minnesota. He was happy to be mistaken.

Just before I entered grad school, I got married, and it didn’t work out very well. So after my first year of grad school, my then-husband and I separated, and I spent the second year working on the divorce … in addition to teaching, writing for the university paper and doing my own coursework. I was burning out fast and didn’t have it in me to write my thesis. So I decided to put grad school on hold and go teach English in Japan.

What did my dad say? “If you don’t finish your master’s degree now, you never will.”

Augh, that stressed me out. Why would he say that? As it happened, I wrote my master’s project in Japan and defended it when I returned, two years later. (And some years later evolved it into my memoir, The Same Moon, Camphor Press, 2020.)

There have been a few other moments in my life, where my dad has seemed uncharacteristically unencouraging. But as I thought about one of my earliest memories, I came to understand better why. Here it is:

When I was nearly 3 years old, my dad was doing some post-doctoral studies that took us to Santa Cruz, California, for the summer. In my memory, we lived right by the Pacific Ocean. One evening, the three of us—my mom, my dad and I—walked down a path to the beach. The beach was rimmed by huge rocks, one even forming a natural arch nearby. As the sun sank lower in the sky, the whole beach glowed orange. Mom sat on the beach as Dad and I played in the waves.

Dad, Mom & me in San Francisco on my 3rd birthday. (I can’t find the beach photos … maybe they are in the boxes of slides …)

In my memory, we had the beach completely to ourselves. Dad put me on his shoulders and ran us into the waves, water splashing, over and over again. Sometimes he put me down on the sand, took my hand, and together we ran into the waves, chasing them, jumping over them, over and over. I loved the water and the power of the waves. I wanted to run into them and play with them myself. I let go of my dad’s hand, but he wouldn’t let go of mine. I tried to pull my hand away and to push his hand away, but he held me fast. I remember thinking, “I can do this! Let me do this! Why won’t he let me do this on my own?”

It’s one of my very earliest memories. And although it’s a joyful memory overall, it contains that note of discouragement and frustration.

Looking back from this vantage point, it’s so clear to me what was happening. I wasn’t even 3 years old. If he had let go of my hand, I could have been pulled out to sea. The reason he discouraged me was to keep me safe, to keep me alive.

Thinking through that early, early memory caused me to revisit some later moments of discouragement, which have caused me to feel some resentment toward my dad.

But what came clear to me in a fresh way is that in each of those moments, his goal was to keep me safe from disappointment and danger.

A musical response

My Story Exchange partner was Kenny, a senior at Concordia College. He graciously granted me permission to share his reaction to my story and the composition he wrote in response to it. (Thank you, Kenny!) Here are his thoughts:

“I took one main lesson away from your story, this main lesson being ‘no’ doesn’t mean ‘I don’t love you.’ Disagreement doesn’t have to end a relationship, and sometimes it’s easy to forget that. …

“I had the opportunity to write a piece based on this theme of disagreement and yet a strong bond of love. The piece I wrote is named On the Contrary. It’s an invention for two trombones …

“The theme of disagreement runs heavily throughout the piece—one disagreement being the disagreement in the harmonic direction. You think that the piece is going one way when it actually ends up going a completely opposite direction. Second, a rhythmic disagreement between the two parts. … The third is a disagreement in register. Both of the parts end up sometimes high, sometimes very low, This is on purpose in part to connote the theme of disagreement.

“And yet by the end of the piece, there is still an ‘I love you,’ because, as you’ll soon find out, there’s a very playful ending.”

Listen to Kenny’s composition here.

Kenny picked up a beautiful lesson from my story and articulated it so well. I felt as if I was learning something from him as he reflected on my story.

And I love his composition—for two trombones, of all things. My dad, as it happens, is a lifelong trombonist and still plays in a local band. My brother also plays trombone. It seemed truly amazing that this story about my dad and me would inspire a composition for an instrument that is so meaningful to our family.

Dad playing the trombone in concert in April 2024.

The Story Exchange process

So how did we get here?

The Story Exchange is based on a model created by an organization called Narrative 4. Its website states is mission as “Equipping young people to harness the power of stories to drive change in their communities.”

The Story Exchange I was invited to was part of a course titled Music and Empathy, offered to music majors at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota. One of the professors leading the class, Anne Jennifer Nash, invited me and others from the community to join the class for a couple of hours one afternoon. We were given story prompts ahead of time and asked to come prepared to share.

When we arrived at class, each of us was paired with a student. We took turns, one on one, telling each other our stories. This required deep listening, because we would later reconvene as a full group and each share our partner’s story.

But wait, there’s more. Not only did we share our partner’s story—we shared their story in the first person.

So pretend I had a partner whose story was about losing her cat when she was 10 years old. When we reconvened with the group, I would tell her story like this: “When I was 10 years old, I lost my cat. …” 

As if her experience had happened to me.

So imagine that. You’re in a classroom with a dozen pairs of eyes trained on you and a dozen sets of ears listening to you tell a story that belongs to the person sitting next to you.

You become that other person’s voice. You feel what it’s like to tell their story, to live a brief part of their life. You observe how others react to it.

Now imagine this: Your partner then tells your story as if it is theirs.

Suddenly, it no longer feels as if you’re the only one holding that story. It made me wonder, How would I feel if this really was my partner’s story, not mine?

Narrative 4’s website says, “By inhabiting someone else’s story—even for a moment—we are better able to understand each other and better equipped to change the world, student by student, school by school, story by story.”

So for a brief period of time, my partner and I lived each other’s stories, stepped into each other’s lives. I got to be a college student again. My partner stepped into the shoes of a woman who had graduated more than three decades ago.

We experienced empathy.

For me, it was a fascinating trip. For Kenny and his classmates, the story was just the beginning. They had that extra assignment, to compose pieces of music using the lessons learned from the stories they had heard and shared.

Final thoughts

As I said earlier, the Story Exchange is a specialized process. Still, I think it is instructive for everyday life.

It demonstrates the value of sharing our own experiences—both positive and negative—rather than just keeping them inside.

And it shows the power of deeply listening to the stories of others, of imagining ourselves in their shoes … and finding we just might have more in common than we thought.

All my best to you and yours,

Sarah

Dad & me in 2023

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