LIFE STORIES from Old Dog Documentaries on Vimeo.

Life Stories opens up the creative process for a group of older people who are willing to turn off the soaps and sitcoms and begin the adventure of writing down their lives. “This workshop gave me permission not to worry about whether the writing was good enough. This wasn’t college. It wasn’t ‘should, ought.’ We had the freedom to write whatever we wished.”

They come together twice a month to share with each other the gems they have mined. They take risks. They delight in their eccentricities. They become–as Ellie Porter, a former Mardi Gras queen, puts it–a “beloved community.”

Bob Harvey, a former dockworker, says, “If it weren’t for the group, I probably wouldn’t share these stories with anyone else.”

“We are claiming our lives,” Tina says. “Your life is a bunch of stories, and then you put it down, and it has form. You think, ‘This is my life, and it’s OK.”

Dr. Thomas R. Cole, who has worked extensively with life-story writing, explains it this way:

“I have seen that the deep mutual experience of storytelling and listening can be a profound process of healing, leaving both the listener and the teller changed forever. Disciplined life-story writing contains the seeds of wisdom; the possibility of transforming the ordinary into the extraordinary, of seeing one’s flawed and vulnerable life as a unique precious gift.”

Broadcasts

PBS special