Telling a story – writing a story – is about connecting with a reader. And the storytelling in and of itself is about connections of many kinds. Connections between characters, connections between themes, connections between the beginning, the middle and the end. Making a connection with a reader is like making a new friend. And making connections in a story is like weaving threads; the stronger the strands, the stronger and more whole is the quilt in which the story is cradled.

I have had the great good fortune recently to make some connections and, in fact, some re-connnections. I have re-connected with members of my family with whom I have, for various reasons, been out of touch. I have re-connected with a best friend from camp. I have re-connected with a woman who was the first friend I made on the first day of freshman year of college. And with each re-connection, my life has grown stronger and deeper. I didn’t set out specifically to make these re-connections. But as life threw me some curves over the past year and I found myself with more time to spend with myself, somehow I was gifted with a clearer view of who I am and from whence I come. And I noticed that as I became more open to this broader view of myself, opportunities seemed to suddenly open up to re-connect with these important people. To visit and talk with people who knew me when I was a child. To listen to people who knew my parents, who remember my grandparents, who knew what I was like when I was younger, who knew me as I was growing up. We have been remembering, we have been surprising one another, we have been forgiving one another, we have been comforting one another. And together we are strengthening the strands of our own lives. What a gift to be given a chance to introduce into one’s own life story such unexpected and marvelous re-connections; the strands of the quilt that cradles my life have become stronger and more whole.

As we explore our own stories, we begin to explore the stories of others. We come to recognize that as we share our stories, we all share one story. Writers who entertain, beguile and entice readers with their stories are the spinners of the threads, the people who remind us to stay connected, to seek connection, to share ourselves with one another, to draw the quilt tighter around us. What a gift we have in each other and in our stories.