The much-touted
Kansas City Here We Come Road Trip is an accomplished fact, and we’re home
after traveling over 2,000 miles to Kansas City, MO and back. Unfortunately, I
was unable to transmit reports during the trip, but this remarkable success
story unfolds now and in the following weeks as I reprise the most unusual trip
ever undertaken by a storytelling guild.
Imagine seven
disparate people, whose main tie was initially storytelling performance,
melding into a cohesive performance troupe. For ten days, we traveled and ate
together, sharing motel rooms and personal space, all with one goal – planting story
seeds along the path. Breaking new ground in the world of storytelling, we are
the first guild in America to undertake such a mammoth journey. Ask any one of
us and you’ll find that after the initial discomfort of being so close, our
differences became less important as dedication to our goals grew more dear.
We left
Jonesborough, Tennessee’s oldest town, after a raucous send-off by our fellow
storytelling friends, sponsors and the local newspaper, the Herald &
Tribune. Driving away in a comfortable van loaned to us by the Ford dealer in
Erwin, Tennessee, we were in high spirits, eagerly anticipating what lay ahead.
Beginning at
Corbin Elementary School in eastern KY, with each performance came revelation,
joy, and confirmation for the journey, as response to our gift of story grew. Met
by enthusiastic staff as eager to hear
our stories as their summer school students, we regaled them with tales of
wonder and woe, success in the face of certain failure, and the knowledge that
dreams can come true. It was the perfect
gig from which to begin our storytelling travels, and we headed towards Georgetown, Kentucky, stoked by their obvious enthusiasm.
As the week
goes on, I will add to this journal, providing anecdotes for those of you who faithfully followed
our preparations prior to departure and those who have just now found us.
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