Telling Our Story

If you listen to National Public Radio, odds are good that you have heard about the StoryCorps project in which ordinary people tell stories from their lives. These are recorded and permanently archived at the American Folklife Center in the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.

I have heard these stories for years -- some interesting, some boring, but all fascinating in their own way. And now, Matt and I are part of the 30,000 stories that have been recorded and archived.

Today, after waiting for years for them to come to Phoenix, Matt and I did a StoryCorps session. We talked about growing up in Phoenix, how we met and got married, and the ups and downs of the effort to get same-sex marriages legalized in America.

I was so excited when I went online and registered at the specific hour the reservations opened up. (We found out today that all 120 slots filled up in less than five minutes!) I was even more excited when I told Matt the good news -- which he did not greet as good news. Matt has always been reticent to talk about himself (which is totally puzzling to me) but I slowly eroded his resistance. Surprising both of us, he did really well today and talked and talked. It was really great.

We especially enjoyed meeting the three women who work at StoryCorps. They were all really nice and supportive.

Now, our recorded story will be sent to the Library of Congress where it will be available for researchers long into the future. That's just so neat!

Then, as if that was not all wonderful enough, StoryCorps called us yesterday saying a local television station wanted to come down and interview someone who had participated and wanted to know if we would be interested. "Hell, yeh," I told them, "we'ld love to." So, we additionally got interviewed by a local television station and our story will be on the news (probably next Tuesday)!

You can learn more about Story Corps here.