Kids, am still working on the world’s longest story. It just keeps going. Will post soon.

It could be funny. Torey fell out of her chair and was clutching her gut when she read it, but she was there at the event and has all the visuals imprinted in her memory. She admits that she is not a trustworthy judge. I love the way that, if you have the slightest sense of humor, you can turn something painful and difficult into a hilarious memory. And if you are willing to apply yourself and retell it you can make someone else laugh too. Writing is so powerful.

When I lived in Japan and Paul was in the States I would get so impatient with having to translate things that I only knew in Japanese. “I’m at the eki.” Oh, except Paul doesn’t know that eki is a train station, so I would catch myself and say the English word which felt like I was speaking in slow motion. I looked forward to returning so that he could see what I had seen. I don’t know how long it took me to figure out that I was thinking that he and my family would see my experience when I was with them as if through osmosis. The only way they might get a feel was if I told them stories and showed pictures, but it would only be a feel, an idea, a glimpse – they would never see everything I saw.

And of course in writing, even if we entertain, uplift, inspire, persuade we can’t enable another to see exactly what we see, but together we invent something new.