StoryCorps Has Animated Me!!!

Recently, and/or a lifetime ago, before this pandemic made the world fall apart, I was contacted by StoryCorps. I was thrilled. I love StoryCorps. Whenever I’ve been in touch with them, it has changed my life.

My first encounter with them was back in 2009, when I lived in Jacksonville, Florida. I signed up to do a StoryCorps interview about what it was like to be a bridgetender. By then, I had been at it for 8 years, and I was chock full o’ stories. At the time, I figured that I have a unique job, so why not talk about it?

Anyone can record an interview with StoryCorps. And that 40 minute conversation is now easier to do than ever before. Check out their website for details. And the coolest part about it is that you become a part of history. The recordings are archived at the Library of Congress. I genuinely believe that everyone has a story, so I strongly encourage you to contact StoryCorps and tell yours. And also support them while you’re at it!

It was really fun, entering that little trailer and speaking in that sound booth. And they gave me a CD of the interview to keep. Nifty!

I have to admit that I didn’t think much more about it after that. Part of it was played on my local NPR station and some of my friends heard it, so that was cool. But the world continued to revolve around the sun.

Having done that interview planted a seed in me, though. It made me realize that I could tell stories. Maybe I had something to say after all. But back then I was so weighed down by poverty and depression that I really couldn’t see my way clear to do anything about it.

I didn’t start this daily blog until December of 2012. I thought it might be a 6 month experiment, because surely I’d run out of things to say by then, but no, it’s been going strong ever since. I genuinely credit StoryCorps for planting that seed within me.

So imagine my surprise when StoryCorps contacted me again, wanting to include my interview in an anthology that their founder, Dave Isay, was putting out entitled, Callings: The Purpose and Passion of Work. By then I had moved to Seattle, and was building my life back up from scratch, so needless to say, I was thrilled to participate! I’ll take whatever positive energy I can get! The book came out in April of 2016. You can find me right there on page 17.

From there, things got really crazy. Dave Isay did a promotional tour of the book, and one of the stories he featured in the tour was mine. And he sort of called me a poet. Wow.

Next, as part of the book’s promotion, I was featured on NPR’s Morning Edition, in Parade Magazine (which you’ve probably seen inserted in your local newspaper, back when people still read actual newspapers.) From there I wound up in O Magazine in the September, 2016 issue. Which means Oprah Winfrey knew my name for about 2 seconds. Imagine. I was also mentioned in Time Magazine and Forbes. When I googled my name just now, I got well over 3,000 results. It still blows me away, just thinking about it.

Needless to say, all this positive attention gave me a great deal of self confidence, and from there, with a lot of help from friends, I had the courage to publish an anthology of my own. Taken from some of my favorite posts from my blog, it’s called, “A Bridgetender’s View: Notes on Gratitude”. I donate a dollar from every sale to StoryCorps. Sales are modest in the extreme, but hey, every penny counts.

Fame, of course, is fleeting, and all the hubbub died down eventually. Which was actually fine with me. I didn’t become a bridgetender because I enjoy the roar of the crowd. I started settling into life in Seattle, where I could write my daily blog while at work on my bridge, and I could come home and hug my dogs.

Every once in a while someone will recognize me as “that bridgetender who blogs”. It always startles me. It also makes me proud.

My husband-to-be actually got to know me through my daily blog. That’s what won him over. So I guess you could say that StoryCorps is what caused my happy marriage, too.

Even though they have been an integral part of my life, I was not at all expecting to hear from StoryCorps again. And yet hear from them I did, just prior to the pandemic. They asked if it was okay to turn excerpts of my 2009 interview into one of their animated shorts. Uh… heck yeah!

They said that they had been wanting to do so for years, because they felt that what I said was poetry. (Again with the poet thing! It makes me blush.) But each season they pick a theme, and my story never quite fit the theme. But this time it did.

After that, they asked me to send pictures of the bridge I used to work on, and pictures of the view, and of me, and they had me sign a release. Then there was nothing to do but wait.

Once the pandemic came along, all deadlines sort of fell by the wayside, and if I’m honest, I kind of forgot about it unless a friend asked the status of the project. I didn’t really want to think about it, because I didn’t want to jinx it or get disappointed. Life went on, and my bridge continued to open and close, day after day.

And then suddenly in August they contacted me with a link to the preview! I was under strict orders not to share the link with anyone. It’s their copyright, after all, and it hadn’t been released yet. But that was hard. I wanted to share it with the world.

It was beautiful. They really captured the view from Ortega River Bridge perfectly. So perfectly, in fact, that it gives me goose bumps. It’s a work of art. And they drew me skinny! Woo hoo!

I kind of feel bad, because the first thing I say is that the pay is horrible and the benefits are worse. That was and still is true for bridgetenders in Florida, a “right to work” state, but it’s not at all true here in Seattle, where I have a union, and the pay is fantastic and the benefits are even better. So I have all of the joy for the job that I had back then, but none of the anxiety. Life is good.

So there you have it. I’m now animated. If you’d like to see The View From Here, here are the links. You can see it on the StoryCorps Website, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

Right now I’m feeling like the luckiest woman on earth.

Thank you, StoryCorps, for all that you’ve done for me.

Author: The View from a Drawbridge

I have been a bridgetender since 2001, and gives me plenty of time to think and observe the world. View all posts by The View from a Drawbridge