I moved four days ago. (I now both work and live in Sunnyvale!) During a lull in the packing frenzy last weekend, I cleared out the fridge and freezer and composed a gigantic one-pot meal from whatever edible hangers-on I could find. I started how I start so many meals – by sautéing onions, ginger and garlic in olive oil. Then I added shredded carrots, diced celery, frozen peas and green beans; then I threw in some leftover cooked rice – both white and brown – and chopped chicken and fried tofu nuggets. Finally, I seasoned the whole mess with soy sauce, Sriracha sauce, the last of some kimchi from 2012, several handfuls of peanuts and sesame seeds, and…voila! I had a dish that you’d find in no self-respecting gourmet cookbook anywhere.

But not only did it use up a crazy amount of leftovers, it was healthy, delicious, and absurdly easy. And as I sat there with my family, surrounded by moving boxes, eating our Last Supper (the symbolism that it was Easter weekend was not lost on me), I thought back over the hundreds of meals I had prepared in that kitchen over the course of the past year since moving to California. It was as if this meal, one made from what were truly the staples of my kitchen, was telling a farewell story about this little nook of a kitchen, a small depression in the footprint of my overall life, perhaps, but still one in which I had spent countless hours standing, chopping, stirring, dancing, all in the service of preparing meals for my family; sometimes accompanied by feelings of peace and calm, at other times frustration and distraction, but always reaching towards gratitude.

Humans are unique among the animals in our ability and our need to tell stories. Each one of us tells stories constantly, if indirectly, through our choices: what foods we nourish our bodies with, what clothes we cover and decorate our bodies with, what friends we surround ourselves with, what books we display on a new home’s shelves. Each of these decisions tells a tiny story about what we as individuals deem important, and by extension what we want other people to know is important to us.

When we think about storytelling in the more traditional sense, we tend to think about books at bedtime and small children on laps, or else about professional performances; or reaching even further back, to primordial times, huddling around fires as predators lurk, dawn a long way off.  Storytelling has been used not only to entertain, but to educate, to instill communal values, to keep the mind off dangers, real and imagined.

April is the month of the big Storytelling Festival here at the library, and it’s in its 24th year! Both professional and amateur storytellers will be spinning tales on April 27th starting at 2pm. Have a family-friendly yarn to share? Contact children’s librarian Kathleen Coleman at 408-730-7312 to see if there are still time slots available.

And coming up even sooner, Saturday, April 6th, master storyteller BZ Smith and champion ukulele player Peg Reza team up to combine music and tales into a magical concoction of fun for all ages.

Being a member of an audience sharing in the performance of a great storyteller is a truly uplifting experience. So come on out to the library for one of these special events, or for both! And so what if you’re running a few minutes late that day, or if the kids’ socks end up not matching, or if your hair doesn’t get brushed? Perfection is overrated, usually boring, and rarely makes a good story.

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