These Small, Quiet Days

I don't want to be up to something.

After a few disruptive weeks, I’m experiencing a small, quiet day.

I woke up early, read my book, drank my coffee, and watered my plants. When the time came, I started work. So far, nothing out of the ordinary has happened at all—and I’m glad.

Because every good storyteller knows this: what makes a story is something going wrong.

Waking up in a warm, quiet bedroom does not make a story. Waking up to water seeping through the drywall above your bed and dripping on your face does.

Skimming through the events I’ve chronicled in this space over the last few years demonstrates this principle.

I broke a glass tip jar at the coffee shop; got stuck in the men’s restroom on a boat; fell down the stairs and broke my foot.

Great stories.

Not-so-great experiences.

And therein lies the conundrum.

To tell you a good story, I need something to happen. Something unexpected—something bad. Bad enough that you cringe but not bad enough that you cry.

Just something sort of medium-bad that makes you shake your head as you read. “That Ruth,” you tisk. “Always up to something.”

But can I tell you the truth? I don’t want to be up to something. All I want is for more of these small, quiet days.

From a storytelling perspective, they’re not worth much.

But they are everything to me.