♪ JANNELLE CODIANNI: As I ran my fingers over the darkening wood, I watched their faces strain in confusion and snap into horror.

JUSTIN WERFEL: Surely one of these many kind passers-by will see me sitting in my widening pool of blood.

KEMP HARRIS: One of them looks at me and he says, "G-Man's been shot!

We got to get him to the hospital!"

THERESA OKOKON: The theme for this evening is "Oops."

We're going to bring up our first storyteller.

His passion for storytelling has taken him around the country to different schools, libraries, and festivals.

Please join me in welcoming to the stage storyteller Kemp Harris.

(applause) HARRIS: I am 64 years old.

I was a kindergarten-first grade teacher for 38 years.

I did some theater and I do storytelling for kids.

But in terms of this kind of thing, like the "Stories from the Stage," this is relatively new.

Which one would you say is more challenging?

I think I'm so used to telling stories for kids that it's, it's just natural.

This is a little different in that I'm trying to relate a story of something that happened to me.

So it's, it's not that it's harder, but I've really got to think about what I'm putting over, because it's a true story, and it's a, it's a story about an experience, and I want them to feel what I felt, and sort of get that across.

So how do you go about choosing what stories you're going to tell?

When I choose a story to tell, when I think about the experience and I think about what the message of that story is.

I hopefully give people an insight into how I interact with the world, how I... how I find myself in experiences and how I deal with it.

Because we all deal with experiences in different ways, and I just want them to get a sense of, in this situation, this is what I did.

You don't have to do the same thing, but this was how I reacted to what happened to me.

I am known for being late to most places.

My sister will invite me to dinner.

I'll ask her, "So what time is dinner?"

She'll be, like, "3:30."

(crowd laughs) I'm, like... "Wait a minute."

So knowing that, I was supposed to be meeting some friends at a place called Club Café in the South End.

And it was a summer night, and I know it was around the late '80s and I know this because I had an '85 Jeep that was getting a little long in the tooth, so it was around, like, '89, '90, something like that.

I was supposed to meet these friends at 7:30, and I got out of the shower about 7:20 to get ready to go, and I sort of pulled myself together, jumped in the car...

It was very warm-- I didn't have the automatic windows and stuff, so I had rolled all my windows down, and I'm driving across, you know, to go to the South End, and as I'm driving down Columbus Avenue, I look to my right and I see these two brothers, and they are running down the street.

I mean, they were what we used to say in the old days, they were booking it.

They were booking it down the street, and I remember looking at them and thinking, "I don't know what you're running from "or what you're running to, but, God, you guys are at it-- okay, whatever."

Didn't think another thing about it.

I pull up to a stop light, my two passenger side doors open, and these two guys jump in.

(laughter) One of them looks at me and he says, "G-Man's been shot!

We got to get him to the hospital!"

(laughter) Now, I forgot to tell you that before I got in the car to come over, I had smoked some really good pot, and it was all kind of coming together right about now, so I'm not afraid or anything, I'm just mostly amazed.

So I'm looking at this guy and he's looking at me, and I'm not going to use the word he said, but you'll get his innuendo.

He looks at me and he says, "Drive, mofo, drive!"

"All righty."

I start driving.

We get to another stop light.

He says, "Go through, mofo, go through!"

"All righty."

I drive through.

Meanwhile, he's looking in the back seat.

"Are you all right, babe?

You all right, G-Man?"

And he's, like... (weakly): "Yeah, I'm okay, baby, I'm okay."

I'm, like, "Whoa, this is too much."

He's, like, "Turn down here, mofo, turn down here!"

I turned down here.

Now I'm beginning to think to myself, "What am I going to say to the police officer when he pulls over this car?"

You got these three black men in a car, G-Man's been shot, Baby's got a gun, and I'm going to be like, "Good evening, officer."

(laughter) "I, uh, smoked a little pot.

"These guys jumped in the car at a stop light.

"Baby's got a gun, G-Man's been shot, and we need to get him to the hospital."

So somehow or another, we managed to get to Boston City Hospital.

I pull up, Baby opens the front door, jumps out of the car, opens the back door for G-Man, and he helps him get out.

As they're about to leave, Baby turns back and looks at me and he says, "Thank you, man-- thank you."

And I thought, "Whoa, we went from 'mofo' to 'man'!"

I feel, like, "We're bonding.

We're, like..." You know, I'm feeling close, I'm feeling it.

So they take off.

So I pull myself together.

I look in the back seat, and there's, like, blood on the back seat, and there's an unopened bottle, a little bottle, of Hennessy cognac.

So I'm, like, "Strange."

Drive back to the club.

I walk in, I see my friends.

I'm, like, "You got to come out to the car with me.

I got something to tell you."

So we go out to the car.

I tell them this whole incredible story, and I've got proof because there's blood and there's this bottle of Hennessy.

So I said, "So you see, that's why I was late."

(laughter) They looked at me and said, "Please, you're not late.

That's why we told you 7:30."

(laughter) So we open the Hennessy, we each take a swig.

We go back into the club and we have this fabulous evening.

Go home-- the next morning, I wake up.

And I'm looking at the local newspapers, I'm looking at local news television shows, because I want to know, are they going to say anything about G-Man and Baby?

But there's nothing about it.

So the story's over, it's done.

However... Every time I get in my car now, I put on my seat belt, I adjust my mirror, I make sure it's in neutral before I start, and then I... (pops mouth) Lock my door.

Thank you very much.

(applause) I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt.

And that may not always be wise, I know, but for me, I didn't get the sense they were there to hurt me.

I got the sense that they, they were desperate, and they needed something.

And I almost felt relieved that I was the one whose car they jumped into.

I think if they had jumped into the wrong car, it could have gone bad in so many ways.

And it was almost, like, "I'm glad you picked me, because it came out... "It worked out-- you got to the hospital, I got a great story to tell and some free cognac."

(laughing) OKOKON: So you've been storytelling for about 20 years now.

How has your voice changed over the course of that time?

Over the time that I have been storytelling, I think my voice has, um... Deepened in vulnerability.

Which was always something I was really interested in, but I think I've gotten braver with that and more comfortable with being authentically vulnerable and discerning which pieces are not ready to be shared.

Somebody recently said to me, "Tell stories from your scars, not your wounds."

And I adhere to that.

You know, you need to have a lock on whatever it is you're telling so that you can really present the space of vulnerability that the story was created in.

So what types of stories do you like to tell?

I like to tell stories about the parts of life that we have a really hard time with, that we've been trained-- particularly women have been trained-- not to speak aloud.

I like to give to voice to those both for other people who maybe haven't had those same experiences, to know that that's happening for people, but also in unity with people that are having those experiences, to feel not as alone.

Please join me in welcoming to the stage storyteller Jannelle Codianni.

(applause) When my four-year-old asked me where babies came from, I'd answered her with age-appropriate facts.

When my youngest stumbled upon mortality, and, crying, begged me not to die, I told her tenderly that dying is the other part of living.

I'd taken hours to unflinchingly explain capitalism, flawed democracy, war, mental illness, racial oppression, drug addiction, and the patriarchy.

So aside from occasionally claiming there were no more brownies, I never lied to my children.

With three exceptions.

I didn't see it as lying at first.

I saw Santa, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy as pillars of childhood, full of wonder and magic.

But as soon as my oldest could talk, I saw that Santa really needed to be created.

At first, I gave the standard answers: North Pole, elves.

But when the questions got more specific, I began to say, "I don't know-- magic?"

Santa and his cronies were going to ruin my reputation.

But there was no easy way to come clean, so I attempted to divest, and waited eagerly for them to bring it up.

The truths I had to tell my kids got harder as they got older.

And one day, around our dining room table-- an eight-foot-long masterpiece made by a friend from two thick slabs of cherry, the long edges untrimmed and wild-- my husband and I told our daughters we were separating.

As I ran my fingers over the darkening wood, I watched their faces strain in confusion and snap into horror.

My youngest was facing me from her father's lap.

She'd move toward him at the first sign of danger.

And her face went through such an immediate and violent transformation that I almost burst into hysterical laughter.

The pain I was able to inflict with just a few words seemed ridiculous and grotesque.

"We're still a family," we told them.

"Even if the way we love each other changes, family is forever."

Their father and I attempted to co-parent with three hours between us, but communicating had been difficult, even when we lived in the same house, and I began to realize that, like Santa, a family in any form needs to be created.

It comes to life in the way the questions are answered and how the gifts show up.

I'd been doing most of the family-sculpting out of the formless clay that was thrown onto the pottery wheel of our hasty beginnings, my hands moving around the outside, a soft fist dipping into the center, making the container that held our love and intentions.

But after ten years of spinning, my hands had slipped, and the form I'd been making went wild and shapeless.

With wet clay drying over my skin, I told them, "Family is forever."

And just like Santa, I didn't think of it as lying.

But we agreed to spend Christmas together so our kids could wake up to the magic of Santa's bounty in a recognizably intact family.

I put my presents under the tree and laid on the couch, watching the pinpoints of colored lights stretch into elongated stars as I fell asleep.

In the morning, the kids woke to cookie crumbs, two parents, and they didn't ask about Santa.

This year, they spent Easter with me, and my kids got into a fight the night before, and I took my little one to a quiet space so she could let off some steam.

"I always get in trouble!"

she said.

"No one's getting in trouble."

"Well, at Dad's..." And she tumbled into a story about being threatened with therapy, being told there must be something wrong with her brain, and I listened using all my energy to keep my mouth from forming a tight, disapproving line, making sure my hands on her stayed relaxed and comforting.

"I was so happy when you were there with Daddy, but now I'm not," she said.

"I know, I'm sorry things changed when you didn't want them to."

"I don't want anything to change ever," she said.

"I know, kiddo," I said, thinking that change is the only thing any of us can be sure of.

"You changed everything, I hate change, and my heart is broken," she said, as though she were summing up a little angry presentation.

We sat there for a few minutes before she looked at me and said, "Pinkie promise?

You're not the Easter Bunny?"

(quiet laughter) I stared down at her outstretched pinkie, crooked and ready for mine to lock into it.

I could not believe this moment was finally here, and it was coming at the tail-end of an hour-long conversation about changes, broken hearts, and the fact that I was responsible for all of them.

"Nah, I'm not going to pinkie-swear to that," I said casually, hoping she might think it was too true to bother.

But her eyes widened in slow motion as the truth of this answer poured over her like used motor oil.

I circled my arms around her while she went through the stages of grief so ferociously that my reservations about these lies transformed into deep regret.

I pulled her to me, attempting to hold the laughter, the insane, unhinged hysterics that were threatening to burst free.

"This isn't funny!"

she said, because she could feel my body convulsing.

"Oh, I know.

I just can't believe this is happening now."

And tears spilled from my eyes, down my cheeks, dripped off my chin, and landed on the top of my daughter's head like a baptism.

When she clutched her chest and called out, "Oh, my God-- Santa?"

As though he was dying in front of her.

I could see that I had broken her heart again.

"I'm so sorry," I told her, and I said that when I realized she would figure it out someday, and the truth would hurt her like this, I'd wished I'd never let them believe in Santa.

"Oh, I wouldn't want that," she said.

"I'm glad I had it, I'm just sad that it's over."

When I realized I needed to leave their father, and the only way I could have spared my children the heartache of divorce would have been to have never gotten married, a bit of my heart tore open.

And although my daughter's mature words of grief and acceptance weren't meant for that wound, I snatched them from the air they hung on, threaded them through a needle of hope, and loosely stitched it up.

(applause) WERFEL: I'm a research scientist at Harvard.

I work on different topics in collective behavior in complex systems, so things like ant colonies, some work in robotics-- swarm robotics, large numbers of limited robots, how do you create that kind of system?

So those kinds of topics.

So as a storyteller and a scientist, how do those two things go together or not go together?

And does your storytelling impact your science, or does your science impact your storytelling?

There's actually a lot of overlap between the scientific work and the storytelling work.

A lot of my job is actually about communication.

You know, it could be writing a grant proposal.

You know, trying to explain to people what it is that I want to be doing, but it's really important to be able to get across the point of it.

When you're up on stage telling your stories, what are you feeling?

When I'm onstage telling, I wind up in this place of sort of deep self-consciousness, where, to prepare for telling a story, I have to really practice it.

Like, I know people who prefer sort of, like, you know, getting up with an outline in their heads and say something that develops naturally.

I can't do that.

You know, I get up onstage and everything goes out of my head.

And so I have to have prepared a story enough that when I get up there, my mind goes blank.

I really appreciate your saying that.

There are so many different approaches, and for some folks who maybe are nervous about telling a story for the first time, to hear another storyteller say, "Part of my process is the rehearsal and is preparing, this is not just off the top of my head," probably would help other people feel like, "Yeah, this is maybe a thing that I could do as well."

I think there might be more of us who have that style of, you know, preparation in advance than people who are off the cuff.

"Where's your other wheel?"

That is the most common thing you hear when you're a unicyclist.

You get to expect it.

Which means you can plan a response.

Say something like, "Well, that's funny, it was here a minute ago."

Or, "Oh, I got this bike half-off!"

(laughter) I used to say, "I'm a grad student.

I can only afford one."

It wasn't strictly true-- I have several.

Unicycles are like potato chips.

All right, honestly, unicycles are not very much like potato chips.

But obviously, the point is, it's hard to stop with just one.

Right?

Pretty soon, you've got a couple of regular unicycles for everyday use.

Maybe a six-foot giraffe for special occasions.

A mountain unicycle for off-road riding.

And halfway through grad school, I got a commuting unicycle.

The defining feature of this one is the size of the wheel.

It's 36 inches diameter, which you really kind of have to see to appreciate.

One turn of the pedals sends you nearly twice as far as on a regular unicycle.

Okay?

So this thing is fast.

And it's massive-- it's got a lot of inertia, it's hard to get it moving, and hard to stop.

Plus, with, you know, three feet of wheel and another foot-and-a-half of seat post on top of that, when you ride it, your head is, like, eight feet in the air.

It is a blast.

Of course, a unicycle like that takes some getting used to.

And, in particular, it took me a long time to get used to free-mounting it.

That is, getting on without holding on to anything.

So on a regular unicycle, free-mounting works like this.

You sit on the seat with the wheel in front of you, you step on a pedal-- that makes the wheel roll underneath you-- and you ride off.

With a big one, you put the wheel in front of you, you step on a pedal, and nothing happens-- it is too big to move.

So what you actually have to do is to leap.

You know, up and forward, far enough so you actually get on top, but not so far that you go over the top, real quick find the seat and the pedals, and then somehow stay balanced up there in that precarious sweet spot during... while the wheel makes that slow transition from immovable object to irresistible force.

So a couple of weeks after getting this unicycle, I had taken it out for a pleasant evening's ride.

As one does with one's unicycle.

And I'd gone a couple of miles along the bike path by the river.

I came to a busy street, I dismounted to cross, and on the other side, I tried to free-mount again.

The path there happens to go down a hill.

(quiet laughter) So I jumped, right?

Because of the hill, nothing was where I expected it to be.

I missed the seat, I missed the pedals, and I fell.

And normally, that wouldn't be a big deal.

When you learn to ride a unicycle, you get very good at falling safely.

But in this case, because I was starting so much higher than I was used to, and again, with the hill, the ground turned out to be so much lower than I was expecting, I wound up missing the ground as well.

Well, I missed it with my feet.

I did manage to catch it with my chin.

(audience members gasp) So when my vision cleared, I picked up myself and my unicycle, and went and sat down by the side of the path.

I figured I'd best just sit there for a few minutes and wait for my head to clear.

Oh, and for my chin to stop bleeding.

Well, 15 minutes later, it became clear my chin was not going to stop bleeding.

And I started to get worried.

But I thought, "Surely one of these many kind passers-by "will see me sitting in my widening pool of blood and stop to offer assistance."

And this is when I learned that a unicycle is a very curious kind of a talisman that confers invisibility upon its wielder.

(laughter) No one would look.

I think they were, like, getting a glimpse of the unicycle out of the corner of their eye and just going... (whistles quickly): "Weirdo!"

So finally I was reduced to physically stopping somebody who looked like they might have a tissue they could give me, and once she actually, like, turned and looked, you know, she was very solicitous.

She insisted I take the whole package of tissues, and slowly I made my way through the whole package of tissues.

The bleeding wasn't slowing down.

And as it got increasingly dark, I stopped and took stock of my inventory.

I had a giant unicycle, several dozen blood-soaked tissues, no cell phone, no lights, and no chin.

So what did I do?

I got back on the unicycle and I rode the few miles back.

You know, clutching the sodden mass of bloody tissues to my face.

And where did I go?

As I said, I was a grad student at the time.

I went to lab.

To get some work done.

But when even the limitless number of paper towels I had available to me then was doing nothing to stop the blood, eventually I did go to the university medical center.

I asked the doctor who looked at it if he thought I might need stitches.

He said, "Really for stitches to work, you need to have skin for the stitches to hold together."

(laughter and groaning) They say time heals all wounds.

That's what it took.

You know, my chin did eventually grow back, as you see.

And at no point did I consider letting this accident stop me from riding.

You know, you don't stop riding a unicycle just because you get hurt, no more than you ride because of the danger.

Nor do you ride, you know, just to show off, right?

"It takes twice the man to ride half the bike."

No.

No, you ride because when you do, you are flying, perched in fragile equilibrium on top of the world spinning beneath you.

So.

Where's my other wheel?

Here.

(applause and cheering) When I ran away from home, I had it all figured out.

My town had these silos, went all the way down to an underground parking lot that was closed for the summer.

But I was skinny enough to just squeeze through the bars.

I had a plan.

I was going to hide in the alleys, and when people came out of the local pizza place, I would rob them.

And I wouldn't take purses or briefcases or anything like that.

You see, I was the fastest kid at my school, like... (makes whooshing sound): Like the Flash, I was going to just snatch the pizza right out of their hand: large, extra cheese, with hamburger and pepperoni, hold the anchovies, please.

I was going to do this for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

I was going to get fat off the land.

No, I was going to get fat like a lamb, and I wouldn't be able to squeeze through those bars.

But I had to think of the essentials.

And with the last of my allowance, I went to the convenience store and I bought one liter of Sprite and a big box of chocolate chip Entenmann's cookies.

I wasn't really thinking about dental plans or anything like that in the future, and... (chomps): Within five minutes, it was gone.

And I started to feel sick.

I wanted to lay down, but there was no place that I could actually lay down.

It was just cold cement covered in a bed of bird poop with the pigeons cooing above me.

But I just laid there, holding my belly, wishing that my father would come pick me up in the car.

And I walked home with the biggest stomachache that I ever had.

And that walk took longer than the entire time that I ran away.

Watch "Stories from the Stage" anytime, anywhere.

Visit WorldChannel.org for full episodes and digital extras.

Join us on social media and share your story.

Only on World Channel.

♪