What’s Going On
Roman a clef @ Firehouse Theatre
Marie, her sister, Pat, and I attended the staged reading of a play in development. Roman a clef by Chandler Hubbard tackles domestic and sexual violence in an intriguing manner. I’m looking forward to when the play premieres. I was deeply moved by this haunting portrayal of the abuse of power, betrayal of trust and abdication of responsibility.
How Black Mothers Say I Love You
Marie and I are season subscribers to Richmond Triangle Players
Saturday night we went to see How Black Mothers Say I Love You. Dynamic drama of the sacrifices mothers make for their children. The shows running for another week, catch it if you can.
Saturday afternoon, I attended Part II – Master Class Workshop with Jesse Vaughan: How to deepen the experience of the actor and their connections at the Visual Arts Center.
I ran into my friend, Greg Provo, one of our storytellers and the CEO of Strategy Café. It’s been 20 years since he started Strategy Café and 40 years since he toured as an actor in Are We There Yet? For Richmond Theatre Company. I’ve invited him to be a guest on my radio show. I hope we can make that happen.
Stories Matter! – Helping Leaders Transform Lives.
Our guest this Friday is Dan Schultheis another of our storytellers and the former head of IBM’s Richmond office. Dan’s another personal friend. He’s the co-author of Willing to Buy and The Willing to Buy Coach
One Million Cups
One Million Cups is a program of the Ewing Marion Kaufman Foundation hosted in Richmond by Open Trellis’ RVA Works at the University of Richmond’s Robins School of Business. Every Wednesday in over 100 cities across the country entrepreneurs gather to listen to presentations by fellow entrepreneurs to share the stories of their ventures and to answer questions.
Tomorrow, February 15 at 9:00am ET, I will be the guest speakers. Click on the link and scroll down for the Livestream link. I will be talking about the changes here at The Storytellers Channel.
There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.
– Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Love
Spoiler Alert – I love my wife.
It’s Valentines Day and I’ve been looking for a way to demonstrate how I feel. Something beyond the ordinary, the everyday. You would think this would be simple. A box of Chocolates. She loves chocolate. Unfortunately, she’s allergic. Wine? Allergic. Flowers?! Ditto!
Anybody who’s spent time with us has heard me say, “The number one way I show my wife I love her is I cook for her.” Over the years, her allergies have become such a problem that we tend to fix our separate meals in the kitchen, sometimes together, sometimes sequentially.
She loads the dishwasher. I help put the clean dishes away. I wash the pots and pans because, again, she’s allergic to the dishwashing liquids.
I asked her, “What can I do for you for Valentines?”
She said, “You don’t have to do anything. I know you love me.”
In the past, I would never have settled for this. There was no big gesture, no theatricality, frankly, no way for me to show off.
The more I thought about this the more I realized my propensity for big gestures were a way of showing off. Drawing attention to me and what a great boyfriend, lover, husband I was.
I have decided I am going to listen to her. I’m not going to do anything extraordinary for this holiday. We’ll make dinner together; we’ll eat together, and we’ll clean up together. And probably we’ll go to bed together at the same time.
I decided years ago that love is a verb. It’s about how we behave. Marie and I read The Five Love Languages book early on in our relationship and discovered we both experience and express love the same way: by kind words and touch.
That insight has made our relationship relatively easy to navigate.
But there’s one more gift I give her. I consciously strive to listen to her.
When she walks in the room I give her my undivided attention. Mute the TV, and turn my back to it so I’m focused on her and listen.
In that sense, Valentines Day will be no different than any other day, but in terms of a lifetime of making big gestures, this year I’m going for the simple act of hearing what she said and honoring it.
Happy Valentines Day, one and all.
I’d Love to Hear from You
Tune into Stories Matter! Helping Leaders Transform Lives this Friday and hear Dan share his impactful stories.
Til next time,
Gayle Turner
Executive Producer