You Have to Listen to Hear a Whisper

Like a lot of writers, I've always been a storyteller. 

When I was a kid, my little sister would say from across the dark room, "Laurie, I can't sleep.  Tell me a story." And I'd spin some yarn about some brave girl who escapes some danger and goes on to live happily ever after.  All through my growing up, I loved to tell stories, write stories, read stories.  

Then I hit high school.  Like a lot of parents, I suppose, mine were concerned with my ability to support myself and steered me toward a solid career path.  VoTech classes led to nursing school.  Before I really knew what had happened, I'd left my storytelling behind me and life picked up a speed I'd only really felt riding down the steepest hill in our neighborhood on my bike, the wind whipping tears from my eyes. 

The storyteller went quiet.

Career, husband, kids - all these things came into my life and the hill got even steeper, the ride even faster. 

The storyteller remained mute.

In the early half of the last decade, my world started to change.  Little subtle things that at first I didn't even notice, but they were there, gathering and collecting like dust bunnies in the far corner under the bed until finally I couldn't ignore them.  For a variety of reasons I'm not going to go into publicly, I cut my nursing career back from full time to part time hours, then left it altogether a few years ago.

It was like coming to the bottom of that hill on my bike.

I started to pay more attention to things I'd been going too fast to see before, listening to things I hadn't heard since I first worked up the courage to pedal as fast as I could and launch myself down that steep hill.

The storyteller was back. 

My muse, if you will. 

The voice that whispers in my ear.

In order to hear a whisper, you have to listen. 

You can't hear it if the wind is roaring in your ears. 

You have to slow down, stop sometimes even, to hear what it has to say.

I pedal slowly now, listening.