Was She Going to Turn Me In?

Real life begins when you choose the stories you tell

Photo by Daniel Schludi on Unsplash

All I wanted was a work visa

My trip was originally planned to be a short visit, but I had fallen in love with the city and was in no hurry to leave. As a foreigner, I needed permission to prolong my stay and I was now leaning against a marble counter in the immigration office. The agent who’d been randomly assigned to me when my number came up on the visitor display had just left the kiosk, clearly upset, and I wondered if I was headed for a jail cell. My bare arms rested on the cold stone in that air conditioned room, but I was sweating profusely, nervous and afraid of what was going to happen next. All I wanted was a work visa.

It was springtime, cherry trees were in bloom everywhere. Maybe that’s why the people there seemed so happy. Having strangers smile at me on the street, engage me in friendly conversation, and take time to provide directions or advice about their city gave me lots of incentive to stay. But I needed a way to fund my visit—thus, my need for a work visa. The agent had been as warm and welcoming as everyone else, until this moment, when she had turned ice cold and walked away.

This is what happened.

I had asked for help with the application and we were getting into the paperwork. But after a few minutes, she started to steal curious glances in my direction. The way you’d try not to stare at someone you suspected might be a celebrity or movie star, but still be tempted to gawk. Every few minutes, she’d look up, tilt her head a bit with a quizzical expression, and then go back to filling out the form. After about ten minutes, she finally said to me,

“You know, I can't get over this feeling that we've met somewhere before. Somehow, I feel like I know you.”

“I don't know how that would be,” I replied. “I'm from the US and I've never been to this country before. It seems very unlikely that we would somehow know each other.”

She seemed to accept that assessment, but I had an unpleasant brooding feeling about what was bothering her, and I prayed that I was wrong about it as we continued with the paperwork.

Another five minutes went by as she kept pausing to glance in my direction, still with the same searching look. Then all of a sudden her writing slowed to a stop, as though the weight of her thinking had overpowered her motion. Her head was down as her slender hand went limp around the pen. I saw her brows furrow, the immaculately manicured space between them scrunch up, and she slowly raised her eyes to look at me, like a bank teller who’d been instructed to fill a bag with cash and make no sudden moves. Now the warmth and color had drained from her face—and she was studying me.

She set the pen down, straightened up, and her arms dropped to her side. As I saw recognition dawning on her face, my pulse started to race and my cheeks burned. I had seen this look before.

“I just saw you 2 days ago,” she said, in a faraway voice, as though she was more back in the memory than she was there at the kiosk.

“You were doing a performance at the market.”

My fears were now being realized. 

I’d been a performer my whole life and I’d had this experience before. When you’re in the public eye it’s not infrequent that people start looking at you funny, like they know you from somewhere, when really they’ve just seen you onstage. And it was true. I had publicly performed in the city square, because I couldn’t resist. I knew it was technically illegal for me to work without a visa. But the sun had been out, the flora was in bloom, an ocean breeze filled the town with the fragrances of spring, and the people were there in droves when I walked right by the commons at the heart of the town.

There are dog whisperers, horse whisperers, people who easily pick up foreign languages, and others who know how to talk to children. But street performers know how to listen to space. And we can’t walk by a location that is perfectly suited to gather a crowd without hearing that space beg for the deliverance of cheering, laughing people—bonding over an experience as old as Shakespearian drama, Greek theater, and the passion plays of ancient Egypt. So I had responded by starting a show. She had seen me working. And now she was learning that I had no visa.

I figured that was it.

I was going to be denied the visa—maybe even handcuffed or jailed, or at the least, deported.

But there was more.

Continuing on with her vacant recall, she said  . . .

“You picked my son as a volunteer for one of your juggling routines . . . and he was SO excited! He’s been talking about it for days. You brought him so much joy.”

What are the chances? What fate brought this unlikely synchronicity of events to our meeting?

And there we stood, like we were watching a traffic accident at a busy intersection in real time, but it was a head-on collision of stories that was taking place.

• A blossoming boy who’d been lifted up by a stranger.

• An traveling artist bringing good natured joy to the public.

• A grateful and caring mother.

• A law breaker who felt entitled to work where he pleased.

• A civil servant, facing the duty she had sworn to uphold.

Now she was silent, looking like someone who was attempting to make sense of an impossible magic trick.

And that’s when she walked away.

She exited the customer service area and walked back to a distant desk. I watched her through a partition of glass as she plopped into a chair and slumped forward to rest her heavy head in her hands.

For ten minutes she stayed there while I stood at that kiosk counter, each of us reviewing our stories. I realized my only story had been about me. What I wanted. What I thought I deserved. What I could get. And yet, there was another side. What I loved to give, and the joy experienced by others who received it. 

But which story was true? 

And what should I make of the other unseen story threads? The homeless person who received less pocket change that day because it went into my hat? The other audience members whose brightened mood had spread to other citizens? And now this government official who was burdened with a moral dilemma?

Finally she stood up—slowly walked back through the door and up to the kiosk. All the warm and welcoming energy was nowhere to be found.

She put one finger on the document we had almost completed and drew it under her eyes, as though it might contain a new clue about how to proceed. After staring at it for a minute, she lifted her pen, and then signed her name and the date. Looking at me in the eyes, she picked up her official seal and stamped “APPROVED” on the document, slid it across the counter to me, and said just three, slow, and emphatic words.

“We. Never. Met.”

I had just watched this woman grapple with her conscience—and despite the grave discomfort I had caused her—consider the story she wanted to support without haste. Now she had chosen one. 

It was a story about putting the spirit of the law above the letter of the law. And then she signed that document, handed it to me, and gave me a look that said, “Don’t you ever put anybody in this position again.”

I stood in a converging river of sensations—hot shame, tingling hands, flooding relief. I felt guilty I hadn’t considered the downstream effects of choosing to perform. Though honestly, I didn’t know if I’d do it differently again. Perhaps—perhaps not. My choosing to jump in and offer something of value without permission had produced an adventure worth telling a story about. It had also caused distress to a good-hearted person. 

But is it possible for us to live story worthy lives together without breaking some rules?

My decision to visit her country, then to perform, and her decision to allow me to stay were part of a co-created story that rippled out into the world after that in ways neither of us could have predicted.

Did we choose the right stories to tell?

What’s missing from the world?

We all have a vision for what we’d like to see more of in the world, and what we think is missing. The best way to advocate for your perspective is to tell a story that shows the value, beauty, or importance of the thing you want to promote or champion. Every time I speak at a corporate event—and subject the audience to my bad waiter routine—I’m staging a story that forces the audience to review their stories, their assumptions, and their values. 

Life is complicated. 

Sharing complicated stories and how we’ve chosen to navigate them is an act of generosity and public service, because it empowers us all to entertain our stories with greater self-awareness and to choose their meaning more consciously. 

We’ve all inherited a collection of stories from our parents, our peers, our culture, and our past that might not be serving us. Reviewing our stories is a gift to others and a service to ourselves.

If you also think we need more spirit of the law and less letter of the law in the world, tell your own story that allows us to feel the difference between the two. 

But maybe you have another principle to champion. If you think we need more kindness, gun safety, options for disposable diapers, literacy, clean water, humor, or silence in the world—tell us a story, and show us why.

I didn’t have children of my own back then when the immigration officer let me stay in her country. But I met the woman who would give birth to my own kids while I was performing one day, all because this official endorsed my presence. 

I wish I could find that agent again so I could let her know that we were even, that she’d brought incredible joy to my children and to me by making it possible for them to exist. It’s only because of her that my children are not missing from the world. 

And that’s a story that I cannot imagine.

SUNDAY Is Story Sharing Day for this week

For those of you who are regulars to Story Sharing Day, please note that we will not be meeting on Saturday since I will be on a plane all day.

Our session will take place on Sunday this week.

Sunday, April 28th, 9 am PST

Tell us a story about choosing to follow the spirit of the law instead of the letter of the law. How did you feel after your decision? Do you stand by it now? Or share a story about being a witness to someone who did so.

Writing and speaking are mutually supporting

Below is a video of me telling this week’s story out loud for the first time. I recalled this incident of being at the immigration office a few days ago, and when I stumble on a memory that I think might make a good story, I’ll alternate between speaking it and then writing it out to find the most relevant threads and approaches.

This time I did the speaking first. Since writing the story out for this week’s newsletter, I can see all sorts of room to improve its delivery in spoken form. If you want to improve your storytelling, I highly recommend alternating between speaking and writing to find the story’s essence.

I’m sharing an early version of speaking the story here so you can see the arc of its development from this to the written version.

I run a program called 52V for paid subscribers. Our commitment is to record one video a week and post it to YouTube, (it can be unlisted) and then I provide coaching we all give feedback on each other’s stories as a way to improve our speaking.

If you’d like to dramatically accelerate your speaking skills and join the group, upgrade to a paid subscription and send me a message to let me know you want in.

Thank you for being a subscriber to Honestly Human and your commitment to show up with authentic expression in the world.

If you have a question about storytelling or speaking, you can always throw it into the comment section here, even if it’s not directly related to this week’s essay or topic.

See you next week.