"Half heard and very badly told."

I’ve never read The Jungle Book. Truth be told, I’ve never even seen the movie (I know). I’m tempted to make this hole in my pop culture inventory make me feel like some sort of failure, but I just texted my friend Molly—who is both well read and a former English teacher—and found out she hasn’t read it either, so I’m going to assume that Rudyard Kipling’s most notable novel isn’t quite as well-read as I assumed it to be. Anyway, the storyline of The Jungle Book isn’t even central to my point (which is good, since, you know, I don’t actually know the storyline). It’s a quote from The Jungle Book (the board book version, if you must know), in which Baloo the bear tells the Black Panther that Ikki, the porcupine, is “full of stories half heard and very badly told.”

I wasn’t one of those children who dreamed of being a writer. I never kept a journal, didn’t carry around secret aspirations of publishing a book, and took great pride in being able to bypass Seattle University’s Bannan School of Science and Engineering’s one measly English credit requirement with the AP English I took my senior year of High School. No more five-paragraph essays or thesis statements for me, thankyouverymuch. What I did always love, were stories. I loved reading them, hearing them, and even loved telling them. I loved true stories, imagined stories, and stories that teetered somewhere on the edge of the two. I loved the way a good story could quiet a noisy room, and the vividness and vibrancy it brought to an person whose life was utterly different than mine. I loved the way a story made me feel connected to the person sitting across from me. 

Somewhere along the way, I did start dreaming of being a writer. I took workshops and joined a team of other mother-writers and added “Writer” to my social media pages. And then I started overthinking any and every word I put out into the world. 

If you’re wondering when I’m going to get to the point about The Jungle Book quote, the answer is right here. See, I’ve been thinking a lot about the difference between Writing and Storytelling, about what it looks like to write for public consumption vs. write for me. I’ve been stewing about newsletters and this Substack and journaling and Instagram. It’s all a big jumbled mess, tied up with a ribbon that’s woven from comparison, imposter syndrom, and general self-loathing (did I mention I’m an Enneagram 1?). Anyway, as I was stewing on all of that the other day, this quote, about stories that are “half heard” and “badly told” kept coming to mind. 

I know that quote is meant to warn you about the trustworthiness of Ikki and his stories and isn’t meant to be inspiring. But the more I thought about this idea—of telling a story with the kind of urgency that muddles the details—the more I wondered what would happen if I worried less about getting a story just so (a little Rudyard Kipling humor for you there) and worried more about just telling the dang thing. Because, for me, the longer I sit on a story the more I a) convince myself the story isn’t worth telling, and b) forget the dang thing altogether.

So, I guess that was all a very longwinded way of saying this: Hi, I’m Cara. I love stories. I’d love to tell you a few…before I forget them.