I found the most amazing piece of art the other day. Beautiful. I rounded a corner on my way to somewhere and there it was in my path, stopping me as efficiently as a crossing guard in the middle of the street, herding children to safety.

Only this piece was herding stories, and I stood there staring, open-eyed in awe. With no annoyed motorist behind me to honk and hurry me on my way, there's no telling how long I might have stayed had I not remembered that I was on my way to somewhere, and had better get along. I snuck back later, however, to take cell phone pictures so that you could be a part of these stories too.

It's a large, this story-piece; stretching farther than I can reach with both arms outspread, rising over my head so that I have to stand far back to see all of it. It's one of those pieces that you want to touch, trace your fingers over the words in hopes of picking up some of the emotion that was poured into its creation, of capturing some of the hope, some of the wisdom, some of the pain.

Each bit is a story. Each square holds a life that I want to hear, learn, pour into my own life.

"I won't waste any time looking back."

"Creative."

"I dream of making a difference, no matter how small."

"I want to make peace with my past."

"I'm terrified of forgetting."

"I want to inspire."

"I have made mistakes."

"I will always take chances."

"I wish I was a tree."

Story strikes at the most unexpected times. It ambushes us in the most unanticipated places. The middle of a work day. A ten second flash somewhere in a movie. A card-board sign with a hand-written message scrawled across it. A love note spray painted across an overpass. A Facebook status. They are all lives. Stories. People with things to tell the world. Are you listening?

Will you find yourself in someone else's story? Are you willing to look?

There are lots of big stories out there. Many that are easy to see. The trick is in seeing the small ones. The way a letter is scratched into clay. The shift of the eyes that change the whole story. The piece of a person's past that altered everything. The tone of a person's laugh. The way we are all, in the end, a part of each other's story.

The way all of our stories, together, make up the most beautiful picture ever.

It's 12:40 in the morning. My night has been filled with Nirvana (the band, not the state of being), guacamole, notebooks and manuscript pages and computers. And so here we are. The blog is working, the notebooks are open, the computer is sitting on top of the manuscript, and the bowl of guacamole is sitting there waiting for me to decide if I want to scrape the sides with my bare fingers or call it good enough.

I suspect the scraping will win out. It's good guacamole.

But I do have to work in the morning, and be friendly to the world, so I should play the parent and send myself to bed. I just wanted to say hi first.

Hi!

And goodnight.