Learning to Walk Again

I'm doing a lot of sitting lately.  I had my total knee replaced last week and am now home recuperating...trying to stay ahead of the pain and exercising for flexibility.  I pulled a notebook off the shelf to take with me to the hospital (great idea to keep track of what everyone tells you to do because you will never remember when coming out of the fog of the pain meds).

One morning I turned to the last page and found a delicious quote I found several years ago from Oswald Chambers.

"The author who benefits you most is not the one who tells you something you did not know before, but the one who gives expression to the truth that has been struggling in you for utterance."

It's sort of like learning to walk all over again.

Telling the Truth

The power in any story is the life truth which lies right below the surface and is interwoven throughout.  Never tell  the child what truth they are supposed to learn.  They will learn far more all by themselves in ways we never expected or anticipated.  They will relate the truth of the story to their own experience  without our moralizing.

 The hardest thing for the author is to dig deep into their own experience and tell the truth. That is when the truth often hurts.  

Good Ink

I love Amy Tan.  I love what she says about art , and for me, writing, in The Bonesetter's Daughter.  

"I was remembering how Auntie Precious taught me that everything, even ink, had a purpose and a meaning:  Good ink cannot be the quick kind, read to pour out of a bottle.  You can never be an artist if your work comes without effort.  that is the problem with  modern ink from a bottle, you do not have to think,  You simply write what is swimming on the top of your brain.  And the top is nothing but pond scum, dead leaves, and mosquito spawn.  But when you push an inkstick along an inkstone, you take the first step to cleansing your mind and your heart.  You push and you ask yourself,  What are my intentions?  What is in my heart that matches my mind."

So true!