Pennies

I think one of the qualities of a writer is the ability to step outside his own skin and see things from a different perspective--to turn events into stories.

Many years ago, I remember reading a story about a woman who remembered her father every time she saw a penny on the ground.  The reason is a little more shrouded in mystery; I think he probably gave her pennies for candy or some such thing.  Whatever it was, making that connection turned a mundane and easily overlooked event into a connection with memory.  Ever since then, when I encounter a stray penny, I think of my own dad, not because of pennies but because of a storyteller.  it warms my heart and there are a lot of stray pennies out there.

By way of contrast, I once tried to read The Red Dragon and gave it up early on (but not early enough) because it was so graphic and connected too closely with the ME world I worked in.  Sometimes, unbidden, those images surface even now and I shudder--a story once told cannot be un-told and the images it raises are forever in the mind.

The power of story teller is to shape the world, one heart and one relationship at a time, for better or for worse.