“If your mother hadn’t gone out there to Dallas and married your sorry daddy,” Aunt Bessie said to my mother, “you could have had a happy life here. She would have married Pete Everett and he would have been your daddy.”

We tell ourselves stories. The most important stories are the ones we tell ourselves about our own life. Everyone has stories worth telling themselves. Stories that continue to interest, to instruct or caution, keep us circling back.

Writing has helped me figure out what I think. I never appreciate what I actually feel about something or someone until I have wrapped words around ideas, stories, books, movies, or personal experiences.