Earlier this term, I surprised myself by casually telling a new-to-me version of the story of how a uniformed Russian soldier once street-harassed my friend an me. I told the story to a student in my office; we were chatting while he was waiting for other students to arrive. 1/
In this new version, I had an unexpected understanding for the soldier. And also for how my father responded to my and my friend tearfully telling the events the minute we made it to my home (the soldier was blocking the path to her home; she took a half hour detour to mine). 2/
We were, I'm not sure, between 10 and 12 years old at the time. It was winter, we were walking home from swim practice in the late evening. It was dark. There was no-one else in the street. He approached, then followed us for a while, talking in Russian; we didn't understand. 3/
It was a narrow passage with walls on either side and we couldn't turn away from him; when we reached the fork in the street which would have led us to her much closer house, he wouldn't let us go there. 4/
Long time ago now. I'm not telling this story because of what happened then. I want to record how, as the student and I chatted about our experiences of moving in public as children, this story came into my head. I turned it around for a moment, wondering if I could tell it. 5/
When I decided I could, it was because I saw how to create a custom version that was framed by a new kind of my own bravado. My bravado was demonstrating empathy and understanding for the position the likely teenaged, probably drunk soldier stationed in a foreign country. 6/
Such framing was necessary because I'm the student's instructor, this was my office, and there needs to be some mutual safety in that. Ensuring such safety rests mostly on me in that situation. And so my story became a simple story of resilience. 7/
I did not mention what utter fear my friend and I had. I told that story almost as if we'd just walked along and handled the situation, albeit with some tears and a long detour. And in a way, we had. But there was also this dark pit in between. 8/
Fear of what that soldier could do, what some ways were of how this encounter might end. The mental and physical contortions of trying to act as if that fear didn't exist. The not letting on that if some bad outcome was indeed what he was thinking, we were thinking it, too. 7/
I didn't mention any of that to the student. Our conversation moved on.
But now I have these new, slightly surprising versions of an old story, and I'm even willing to tell them here on public Twitter. 8/
But now I have these new, slightly surprising versions of an old story, and I'm even willing to tell them here on public Twitter. 8/
We constantly assemble and reassemble the parts of our difficult stories in trying to tell them. Sometimes the right narrative techniques come to our aid, and the telling seems to work in the situation. Other times it doesn't. We might also end up not telling our story at all. 9/
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