ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the ways to bring together metaphor and narrative, to bring together the ways that metaphors shape our living and telling of stories of experiences. It discusses the etymology of metaphor, from the Latin metaphora, a word that carries within it a sense of a transfer from one world to another, something carried over. The chapter begins in the midst of being embedded in a response community and in the midst of wondering about the place of response communities in narrative inquiry. It identifies seven interwoven features of response communities that allow us to linger and to give response. Each feature needs to be present for a response community to be a space that sustains, that invites possibilities. The playfulness is remarkable and one sees it as a key feature in our response community. Playfulness and world travelling allow us to become vulnerable, to realize the sense of the other over time, in diverse places, and social contexts.
