We are story-attentive beings

“I used to feel guilty about spending morning hours working on a book; about fleeing to the brook in the afternoon. It took several summers of being totally frazzled by September to make me realize that this was a false guilt. I'm much more use to family and friends when I'm not physically and spiritually depleted than when I spend my energies as though they were unlimited. They are not. The time at the typewriter and the time at the brook refresh me and put me into a more workable perspective.”  -  Madeleine L'Engle (The Summer of the Great-Grandmother)

Admit that once you have got up


from your chair and opened the door,

once you have walked out into the clean air

toward that edge and taken the path up high

beyond the ordinary, you have become

the privileged and the pilgrim,

the one who will tell the story...

- David Whyte (from "Mameen")

"Do not let writing be a special event; let it be a normal part of your
day. It is normal. We are all storytellers and story-attentive beings." 
- Brian Doyle's dad

Illustration above: "Little Wildrose" by H.J. Ford (1860-1941)