One of my favorite stories as a child was “Stone Soup.”
I don’t know if you know it or not. It’s an old European folktale, and there are a lot of variations, but in most of them two soldiers come into a town during a war. They ask for food, and everyone tells them they have nothing to eat. So the soldiers build a fire, and they ask an old woman if they can borrow a pot because they are going to make stone soup.
“Soup from a stone?” the old woman asks.
“Yes,” they say. “We are going to make stone soup!”
So the old woman loans them a pot, and they fill it with water, and they start cooking a stone. “Soup from a stone!” the old woman exclaims. “Imagine that!”
Pretty soon, a small crowd gathers. No one had ever heard of making soup from a stone.
“Stone soup is wonderful,” one soldier casually mentions. “But it’s even better with a little onion.”
“Oh! I have an onion,” someone offers, and throws it in the pot.
“Carrots are also nice,” the soldier adds. And, a few minutes later, someone throws some carrots in the pot.
Soon, a little beef is put in, and a few other ingredients are added as the crowd grows. Before long, there is a large pot of soup, and everyone in the village is fed, including the two soldiers. A village where everyone said they had no food eats a meal together—a meal that would not have existed if it were not for a stone.
I told my friend, Wally, this was a favorite story of mine.
“I see men coercing others to get what they couldn’t get themselves!” Wally said. This astonished me.
“But everyone ate!” I told him. “No one even knew they had soup—and they didn’t—without first believing it was possible.”
Wally is not convinced that any good comes from telling a lie. But I never saw it as a lie. Because I believe in stone soup.
A couple of months ago, I went to a beautiful little theater in Mexico, in the town where I spend the winter, and I met with a producer there. Suddenly, I saw the possibility of doing a show in this space. The whole thing was completely real in my imagination before I’d written a word. So I worked on the script and I planned all the costumes and the music and everything needed for the show. The show became as real on the page as it was in my mind.
Yesterday, I learned it wouldn’t be possible to do my show in the theater as planned. I was very disappointed—for about 12 hours. And then I realized I had a pot of stone soup.
The theater and the producer had never made it a show. The show was made of all the things I’d put into that simmering pot. It was the belief that I could make a show—if I just added enough ideas, if I stirred those ideas long enough, if I kept the fire going.
The soup was never about the stone. The stone was the excuse to make the soup.
I have no idea where this show will be performed, but I am absolutely certain it will be, because this soup is filled with good things, put together in a way I believe people will enjoy.
In the story, after everyone has eaten, the old woman shakes her head. “Soup from a stone,” she says. “Imagine that!”
Imagine that.
Till next time,
Carrie
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