It was my first time on a storytelling course. My first time at Emerson College.

“I don’t mean to be rude,” the taxi driver said. “But they’re all weird there.”

But oh for such weirdness! Every day of my life! Such playfulness and kindness and warmth for each other. And for stories.

In the magical Story Hut, hidden behind a green archway in the garden, we learnt to embrace the bones of a story, to cherish it and be emboldened by it to draw on our responses and experiences to make its flesh. Old spent feelings were transformed in their fresh disguises, reaching out in surprising new ways. The story I learned to tell, I am still learning from: The Crinkum Crankum Tree, a tale of growth and change and self-acceptance.